I’ve all the time most popular humancentric video games. But I’ll enable Elves, Dwarfs, and Halflings in its WFRP or OSR.

Absolutely NO tieflings or bipedal flowery unicorns or any of that nu D&D namby-pamby krud.

If I needed to play Tolkein, I’d discover a Middle Earth RPG designed to particularly embody its themes.

The insistence that each one settings have to be Tolkeinalikes is, to me, an indication of inventive chapter… aping the grasp’s works like a cargo cult who understands solely the shapes and never its meanings.

Give me a setting the place people from the floor world and dragonborn from the hole earth as soon as fought a battle so horrible that the human nobles turned to infernalism and have become the primary tieflings as a part of cut price to finish it… which the demons did by shattering the world; obliterating the human and dragonborn empires alike and unleashing horrible demonic monsters upon the world and leaving the survivors; people, dragonborn and tieflings; to rebuild civilization in a world now crammed with ruins and monsters.

No elves, no dwarves, no halflings, no orcs… however a stable setting for all method of adventures with the adaptable people, magical tieflings (descendants of fallen noble homes) and mighty dragonborn as PCs whose individuals are pressured to work collectively in the event that they hope to outlive… and the place scouring the ruins of civilization for misplaced treasures whereas risking lethal demonic monsters is likely one of the most dangerous however efficient technique of aiding civilization.

But I’m positive Tolkein-ripoff #573 has simply as a lot to supply that we haven’t seen on the opposite 572.

Cargo cult, that´s good!

Not actually.

The essential criticism being that everybody performs Dwarves, elves halflings and so on, as people in cosplay with no regard for setting.

The answer to the tolkienesque “cargo cult”?

Dragonborn and Tieflings that everybody will nonetheless play as people in cosplay…

Which is why I strongly choose human-centric campaigns.

And whereas burning wheel was a trainwreck of a recreation, it nonetheless had some good concepts. Like mechanics for Elven grief and Dwarven greed. Putting a powerful mechanical taste on the demi-human races.

The solely possible way in RPG’s to get folks to play demi-human races totally different is by having the races tied to particular thematic archetype mechanics straight associated to the setting. Which is one thing that D&D has by no means achieved.

“Limits” like class and degree restrictions are the primary issues that may get home dominated out of the sport.

Otherwise, simply changing Elves, Dwarves, and halflings, with Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Tinker Gnomes is nothing greater than a fancy dress change in your gamers.