D&D is the continuation of The Hobbit.

[geoffrey]

Few if any of us here remember a time before The Fellowship of the Ring was published on July 24, 1954. Consequently, we tend to think of The Hobbit as part of the same world and overall saga as The Lord of the Rings. As my paperback copy of The Hobbit (with the hippy cover by Barbara Remington) says in large letters on the cover, “THE ENCHANTING PRELUDE TO THE LORD OF THE RINGS”.

This habit of viewing The Hobbit through the larger lens of Middle-earth (a term that does not occur in The Hobbit) has been ever more intensified since 1977 with the twenty or so posthumously published volumes of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth writings. The Hobbit in the context of The Lord of the Rings is only perhaps one-fifth of the story, but in the additional context of those twenty volumes, The Hobbit’s place shrinks to something almost negligible, a little tale for the children amongst the professor’s monumental life-work of imagination.

There is another way of viewing The Hobbit, however, and it is the way that the entire world (outside of a select few of J. R. R. Tolkien’s circle of family and friends) thought of The Hobbit for nearly 17 years after its September 21, 1937 publication. It is to consider it as a book without Tokien's background, precursor, or sequel. It was a magical tale of about 300 pages, nothing more and nothing less.

Imagine yourself as your present age in 1937. You probably would have read countless stories from the pages of Weird Tales: Conan yarns by Robert E. Howard, horrific masterpieces by Lovecraft, prose-poetry by Clark Ashton Smith, as well as tales by other writers. You would have thrilled to Lord Dunsany’s dream-like wonders, followed the exploits of Tarzan and of John Carter, and experienced the weirdness of Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus and A. Merritt’s various novels . Let us not neglect to mention the various works of M. R. James, Arthur Machen, and Algernon Blackwood. All this and more (such as Greek mythology) would have formed the fantastic milieu of your mind.

Your reading of The Hobbit in the fall of 1937 would have been set amidst this background. Bilbo, Gandalf, and Thorin would not be set amongst Aragorn, Feanor, and Turin, but rather amongst John Carter, Conan, and Eibon. The Hobbit would have assumed a happy place in the glorious motley mentioned in the previous paragraph. Perhaps the book’s most notable contribution would have been the vivid presentation of dwarves, elves, hobbits, and goblins as races (rather than as quasi-singular entities).

As the years passed, The Hobbit’s place in your imagination would have remained basically the same, even as you added to your store of wonders such works as Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Harold Shea stories, and Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions.

Note that this is what Dungeons & Dragons presents to us: A world of fantasy informed largely by works from the first half of the twentieth century, including elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs, and goblins straight out of The Hobbit. Thus one can consider Mike Carr’s B1: In Search of the Unknown, Gary Gygax’s B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, and similar works as continuations of The Hobbit as it was conceived before 1954. This helps explain the dissonance so many of us have felt about Tolkien and D&D. On the one hand, the two feel so different; but on the other, Tolkien seems like an important part of D&D.

This seeming contradiction can be resolved by recognizing B1, B2, and similar works as consonant with The Hobbit in its pre-1954 setting. Thus how natural it feels to us to create and explore D&D worlds in which Conans, Bilbos, Turjans, Gandalfs, Gray Mousers, and Thorins stand side-by-side against goblins, Deep Ones, Smaugs, and Cthulhus.

[Finarvyn]

geoffrey, I like the way you think!

[Stormcrow]

Mar 7, 2012 20:58:01 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Your reading of The Hobbit in the fall of 1937 would have been set amidst this background. Bilbo, Gandalf, and Thorin would not be set amongst Aragorn, Feanor, and Turin, but rather amongst John Carter, Conan, and Eibon. The Hobbit would have assumed a happy place in the glorious motley mentioned in the previous paragraph.

No, it wouldn't. The Hobbit is a totally different kind of fiction than the others, with only the general theme of fantastic in common. The themes of the pulps are very different than the Christian themes found in The Hobbit. Most readers of pulp novels would read the first few paragraphs of The Hobbit and conclude it was "for kids" (which it is).

The presence of elves, dwarves (spelled Tolkien-style), hobbits (halflings), ents (treants), goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, and balrogs (balors) in D&D is entirely because Gygax's players wanted them there, not because he did. They don't shape the rules of the game at all: take out those elements, and the game plays exactly the same way. And note that Gygax's players wanted things specifically from The Lord of the Rings; they had the full case of LR perspective you describe.

D&D is a kitchen-sink kind of game: you can take elements from anything and put them in. You can add lasers or Vulcans or Santa Claus or even a version of yourself, and the game will tick along. Thus, throwing Tolkien-themed elements into the mix was no problem. They don't fit any more specially than anything else that was thrown in.

I think you're (still) seeking revelation where none is to be found.

[geoffrey]

Mar 7, 2012 22:57:21 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Most readers of pulp novels would read the first few paragraphs of The Hobbit and conclude it was "for kids" (which it is).

That's an interesting point. Who was reading The Hobbit in the nearly 17-year period between September 21, 1937 and July 23, 1954? Was it mostly children? Or was it mostly readers of fantasy? Or both?

My guess is that it was similar to the Harry Potter books in the sense that The Hobbit appealed to both children and adults. Many of the regulars at the Knights & Knaves forum (for example) have read and enjoyed some of the Harry Potter books, so a fondness for the writings mentioned in Gary's Appendix N does not preclude a fondness for writings that can be considered as for children.

[cadriel]

Mar 8, 2012 7:55:54 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

That's an interesting point. Who was reading The Hobbit in the nearly 17-year period between September 21, 1937 and July 23, 1954? Was it mostly children? Or was it mostly readers of fantasy? Or both?

It was considered a children's book, and a well-regarded one, until the publication of The Lord of the Rings changed that. Personally I plan to read it to my (currently in utero) child once she is old enough to understand it. ;D

But what's important to remember about Tolkien's work is that, even in the case of The Hobbit, the extremely fleshed-out backstory pre-existed it. There was only vague allusion to what it all was, but it was there and to Tolkien it mattered more. The tone of The Lord of the Rings changed dramatically during the writing; you can read the volumes in the History of Middle-Earth series that provide rough drafts of how what would become LotR progressed. It was supposed to be more in the same tone as The Hobbit but grew in the telling. And Tolkien, if you read his Letters, was working on a sequel but the whole affair depressed him too much and he abandoned it.

It's also worth noting that The Hobbit was revised after LotR came out, to make the lead-in clearer. Of course it's the revisionist edition that most people now have read.

While in many cases your "Let's speculate" methodology sort of works, in the Tolkien case it's fairly definite how everything works, and Christopher has made a life out of presenting his father's world-in-progress. I think it's a fascinating look for anyone with the world-building itch.

[aldarron]

Mar 7, 2012 20:58:01 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Imagine yourself as your present age in 1937. You probably would have read countless stories from the pages of Weird Tales: Conan yarns by Robert E. Howard, horrific masterpieces by Lovecraft, prose-poetry by Clark Ashton Smith, as well as tales by other writers. You would have thrilled to Lord Dunsany’s dream-like wonders, followed the exploits of Tarzan and of John Carter, and experienced the weirdness of Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus and A. Merritt’s various novels . Let us not neglect to mention the various works of M. R. James, Arthur Machen, and Algernon Blackwood. All this and more (such as Greek mythology) would have formed the fantastic milieu of your mind.

Your reading of The Hobbit in the fall of 1937 would have been set amidst this background.

<shrug> Prolly not, particularly since Howard is the only author of the above I've been drawn to. I would likely have contextualized the hobbit with Beowulf (upon which it draws heavily), the Voluspa, elder eddas, and to a lesser extent the Kaleva, the mabinogi, and the various books of Irish Mythology.

Come to think of it though, that would make a very interesting setting...

[Falconer]

I would love if someone could come up with a good example of “adult” fantasy that I couldn’t have read when I was 11 years old. The Hobbit opened up to me a world of wizards, dwarves, elves, hobbits, heroes, werebears, a dragon, treasure, Mirkwood, giant spiders, giant eagles, goblins, wargs, mountains, caves, tunnels, underground lakes, magic rings, and magic swords. Of course I went on to read De Camp & Pratt, Lewis, Howard, Malory, Eddison, and whatever else I could lay my hands on! I get Geoffrey’s point, which is essentially that all these are not so much “worlds” as just “stories” which all together fill the same fantastic imagination-space (“Faerie”). And that therefore playing in a hodgepodge world, OD&D-style, is perfectly natural if those are your influences. And that, in the 80s you start to see a different type of fantasy in both books and games: More sprawling, less fantastic, internally-consistent world-construction modeled after Tolkien. And that if you take The Hobbit as a standalone work, you can ignore the larger “Tolkien model” which may or may not be at work in it.

[geoffrey]

Mar 8, 2012 9:06:52 GMT -6 cadriel said:

But what's important to remember about Tolkien's work is that, even in the case of The Hobbit, the extremely fleshed-out backstory pre-existed it. There was only vague allusion to what it all was, but it was there and to Tolkien it mattered more. The tone of The Lord of the Rings changed dramatically during the writing; you can read the volumes in the History of Middle-Earth series that provide rough drafts of how what would become LotR progressed. It was supposed to be more in the same tone as The Hobbit but grew in the telling. And Tolkien, if you read his Letters, was working on a sequel but the whole affair depressed him too much and he abandoned it.

It's also worth noting that The Hobbit was revised after LotR came out, to make the lead-in clearer. Of course it's the revisionist edition that most people now have read.

While in many cases your "Let's speculate" methodology sort of works, in the Tolkien case it's fairly definite how everything works, and Christopher has made a life out of presenting his father's world-in-progress. I think it's a fascinating look for anyone with the world-building itch.

All of the above is certainly true.

What I'm getting at, though, is not The Hobbit as it existed in the mind of its author. Instead, I'm here looking at The Hobbit as Joe Shmoe the fantasy fan might have looked at it before 1954. Joe Shmoe would have no faintest inkling of anything Tolkien save what Mr. Shmoe read in the pages of The Hobbit.

I'm hoping for a re-publication this year of a facsimile copy of the first printing of The Hobbit. One can basically read the earliest publication by paying attention to the notes in The Annotated Hobbit, but things would be much simpler with a facsimile of what was printed in 1937.

[cadriel]

Mar 8, 2012 9:35:08 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

All of the above is certainly true.

What I'm getting at, though, is not The Hobbit as it existed in the mind of its author. Instead, I'm here looking at The Hobbit as Joe Shmoe the fantasy fan might have looked at it before 1954. Joe Shmoe would have no faintest inkling of anything Tolkien save what Mr. Shmoe read in the pages of The Hobbit.

I'm hoping for a re-publication this year of a facsimile copy of the first printing of The Hobbit. One can basically read the earliest publication by paying attention to the notes in The Annotated Hobbit, but things would be much simpler with a facsimile of what was printed in 1937.

To me, having spent a lot of time in college poring through the various History of Middle-Earth tomes, it seems more... wrong... to take this approach to Tolkien than it does to, say, George Lucas's work. Tolkien spent his life creating his world, and to toss it aside in favor of using the world of The Hobbit as an otherwise blank canvas, seems to me a bit disrespectful toward the author.

But there is some merit in asking how it was likely perceived. For the average fantasy fan of 1937 we can say a few things:

1. For this fantasy fan, Middle-Earth would have not been a fantasy world with its own cosmology. It would've been our world, akin to the Hyborian Age. Even planetary romances like Burroughs's John Carter books took place in our solar system, not in separate fantasy universes. This was actually Tolkien's intent, but it is something that has been consistently ignored by most of his epigones.

2. Tolkien's view of elves was pretty radical for its time. The reader might have been confused, using a more Victorian view of elves as equivalent to faeries, which Tolkien was consciously working against in his writing.

3. The reader would probably have been struck by the oddity of the protagonist. If they were a fantasy fan they would have been used to characters more like John Carter or Conan, and less like Bilbo. Given the period, it might actually be considered something like a British version of The Wizard of Oz more than having all that much in common with American pulp fantasy. Again, it would definitely have been thought of as juvenalia.

[Deleted]

Mar 7, 2012 22:57:21 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

The presence of elves, dwarves (spelled Tolkien-style), hobbits (halflings), ents (treants), goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, and balrogs (balors) in D&D is entirely because Gygax's players wanted them there, not because he did. They don't shape the rules of the game at all: take out those elements, and the game plays exactly the same way. And note that Gygax's players wanted things specifically from The Lord of the Rings; they had the full case of LR perspective you describe.

This. Bloody well this. And I was one of those players that wanted more Lord of the Rings. I frankly don't remember what Dave thought of it, but Gary loathed that book. (those books)

[geoffrey]

I agree.

The Hobbit in its larger setting of Prof. Tolkien's legendarium (which occupied nearly his entire adult life, from World War I to his death in 1973) does not seem to me to be a very promising source of inspiration for D&D games. Tolkien's sub-creation is so vast, intricate, and deep that (quite frankly) D&D gets swamped and out-classed by it. Imagine trying to set a D&D campaign within Tolkien's Middle-earth as presented by all his Middle-earth volumes, whether published before 1973 or posthumously. Either Middle-earth would have to change considerably, or D&D would have to change considerably.

The Hobbit as it was experienced by its readers before 1954, however, is fertile ground for a D&D campaign. One could use the book without change as his D&D setting, and he could use the D&D game essentially without change. The only thing of note is the magic-user Gandalf using a sword, but that's an easy fix: Simply assume that Glamdring was a "wizard blade" as per "Wizard Research Rules" by Charles Preston Goforth, Jr. (in The Dragon #5, March 1977, and reprinted in the first volume of The Best of the Dragon). Conan, Turjan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, etc. could all wander in these lands, meeting Gandalf, Balin, Bard, and all the rest. But Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser showing up in Tolkien's greater legendarium would be jarring, to say the least.

[geoffrey]

Where did I read an article by Gary in which he describes The Lord of the Rings as "dull" or "boring"? In that same article he mentions that he likes The Hobbit, mentioning the snapping and cracking of the goblins' whips. Was it an article from Dragon in the first half of the 1980s? I can't remember for sure, and I can't find it now.

[kent]

Mar 7, 2012 22:57:21 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

I think you're (still) seeking revelation where none is to be found.

;D Geoffrey's obsessions are few: Random monsters; B1; The Hobbit; Some Lovecraft; Some ca Smith; Phil Barker. That's about it, over and over again.

Mar 8, 2012 11:14:56 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Tolkien's sub-creation is so vast, intricate, and deep that (quite frankly) D&D gets swamped and out-classed by it.
...
Either Middle-earth would have to change considerably, or D&D would have to change considerably.

Certes. In fact it is amazing that there are so much useless energy wasted on personal simalcrums of D&D and yet no-one with talent that I know of has tried to create a game for Middle-earth - ignore the licensing issue Im talking about for themselves and sharing their ideas through a blog.

Magic spells, magic items and magic users would have to be completely rethought.
Clerics? If anything MUs are Clerics in ME in that power comes from being oneself a great being or is handed down from such beings. There is no room for D&D clerics or Gods.
For Fighting Men, Fate has an overwhelming presence in Middle-earth and Fate is incompatible with Luck which is its equivalent in D&D.
Interesting characters are always killed in their prime in ME.

[stevemitchell]

"Conan, Turjan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, etc. could all wander in these lands, meeting Gandalf, Balin, Bard, and all the rest."

Or, for that matter, Jirel of Joiry, Northwest Smith, and Randolph Carter.

[stevemitchell]

It’s 1943, and the only two fantasy novels you’ve ever read are The Hobbit and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.

You sit down to create a role-playing game that combines these two settings. . .

Now give yourself a D3 SAN loss and move on to the next message.

[warrioroffrobozz]

Mar 8, 2012 15:05:28 GMT -6 stevemitchell said:

It’s 1943, and the only two fantasy novels you’ve ever read are The Hobbit and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.

You sit down to create a role-playing game that combines these two settings. . .

I know you're joking, but I don't doubt someone here will actually try to do that.

[geoffrey]

Mar 8, 2012 11:45:08 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Where did I read an article by Gary in which he describes The Lord of the Rings as "dull" or "boring"? In that same article he mentions that he likes The Hobbit, mentioning the snapping and cracking of the goblins' whips. Was it an article from Dragon in the first half of the 1980s? I can't remember for sure, and I can't find it now.

Ah, a kind soul found what I was looking for. It is in Gary's article, "The Influence of J. R. R. Tolkien on the D&D and AD&D Games" (in Dragon #95, March 1985). Here is the passage I was remembering:

Though I thoroughly enjoyed The Hobbit, I found the "Ring Trilogy"...well, tedious. The action dragged... At the risk of incurring the wrath of the Professor's dedicated readers, I must say that I was so bored with his tomes that I took nearly three weeks to finish them.

[geoffrey]

Speaking of being bored, I've read Lovecraft's "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" only twice. I didn't enjoy it my first time. Years later I sat down to re-read it, asking myself, "Is it really as bad as I remember?"

Yes.

Not my cup of tea!

[Mushgnome]

Mar 8, 2012 15:05:28 GMT -6 stevemitchell said:

It’s 1943, and the only two fantasy novels you’ve ever read are The Hobbit and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.

You sit down to create a role-playing game that combines these two settings. . .

Now give yourself a D3 SAN loss and move on to the next message.

I would love to play at that table!

[Zenopus]

Gygax did like Bombadil (one of the earlier, more Hobbit-like parts of LOTR):



from Fantasy Wargaming ala Tolkien, Panzerfaust, Sep-Nov 1973

[kesher]

That was was awesome, Z--Bombadil Exalts Thee!

[Deleted]

Bombadil is one of my favorite characters in LotR specifically because he is *outside* it all.

[geoffrey]

I finished re-reading The Hobbit a couple of days ago, shortly after I had re-read Lieber's first seven Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories and a couple of REH's Conan stories.

The unnatural monsters in the Lieber and Howard stories are pretty much sui generis. Conan or Fafhrd or the Gray Mouser almost never say, "Oh, a _______." Instead, it's typically something strange and mysterious and at least close to unique. Contrast that with The Hobbit, with its various races of unnatural creatures: dwarves, elves, hobbits, trolls, goblins, wargs, giant spiders, and what-have-you.

Hyboria and Nehwon (and most of Appendix N) basically have the same flora and fauna of our real Earth, with rare incursions of unnatural entities. In contrast, the world of The Hobbit has entire races of imaginary beings. A typical human in Hyboria would probably go his entire life without seeing any life-form that can't be found on planet Earth, but a typical human in the world of The Hobbit would have to live the life of a hermitic monk to have a chance of never seeing dwarves, elves, goblins, etc.

Last night I started reading the AD&D Monster Manual from cover to cover. Thus far I've read A through C, and it strikes me that the world implied in the Monster Manual is fundamentally similar to that of The Hobbit in that both are home to populations of monsters with life-cycles of birth, feeding, maturation, reproduction, and natural death.

This, I think, helps explain why so many people sense a kinship between D&D and Middle-earth. Both have richly-populated fantastic races, in contrast to Hyboria, Nehwon, etc. which are much more mundane in this respect. This impression remains even after someone points out that most of the monsters in the Monster Manual were never mentioned by Tolkien. The point is not that The Hobbit never mentions pixies (for example). Rather, the point is that A/D&D pixies are an entire race of beings (as are the various unnatural beings in The Hobbit) as opposed to a solitary and unique pixie that is a monstrous survival from a pre-human era (as so many entities found in REH stories).

[zargon]

It also seems that the world of The Hobbit (and of OD&D) could function as a real world. I mean if all of a sudden everything became the way it was described in the 3 LBB (with a little gap filler here and there). I would have to generally believe that that world could function and wouldn't devolve into chaos in an instant.

Mostly because of the power scale. In OD&D if a 5th level fighter walks into town and starts robbing people, the village militia can gang up and KILL him. whereas in a 3e game, said fighter would be a juggernaut of destruction (that is unless the villagers had some "champion of equal power).

I need to stop myself before I start rambling on and on about stuff than many of your are likely to already be aware of. Just giving my two bits.

[Deleted]

Ah, yes. One of my favorite rulings for OD&D:

ANGRY VILLAGER RULE:
Anyone who has viewed a horror movie is aware of how dangerous angry villagers are. Whenever the referee finds that some player has committed an unforgivable outrage this rule can be invoked to harass the offender into line. Within the realm of angry villagers are thieves from the "thieves' quarter", city watches and militia, etc. Also possible is the insertion of some character like Conan to bring matters into line.

[Zenopus]

Apr 4, 2012 10:41:45 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

This, I think, helps explain why so many people sense a kinship between D&D and Middle-earth. Both have richly-populated fantastic races, in contrast to Hyboria, Nehwon, etc. which are much more mundane in this respect. This impression remains even after someone points out that most of the monsters in the Monster Manual were never mentioned by Tolkien. The point is not that The Hobbit never mentions pixies (for example). Rather, the point is that A/D&D pixies are an entire race of beings (as are the various unnatural beings in The Hobbit) as opposed to a solitary and unique pixie that is a monstrous survival from a pre-human era (as so many entities found in REH stories).

This is an interesting analysis, but I think you focus too much on Hyboria/Nehwon vs Middle Earth to the exclusion of other influences on D&D. The Hobbit is not the first story to have "races" of creatures - think of the long tradition in mythology & fairy tales (e.g., elves & dwarves in Norse mythology). IIRC, Three Hearts & Three Lions also had races of creatures. ERB's Mars and Pellucidar books are replete with humanoid "monster" races. It's been a while since I've read Leiber, but I do recall some races, like the "ghouls".

Also, I would suggest that the Monster Manual is modeled after a medieval beastiary, describing the natural histories of creatures that weren't unique, like basilisks, cockatrices, griffons, unicorns, etc.

[bat]

Perhaps Tolkien's elves are not as radical when set beside those of Ludwig Tieck or Lord Dunsany, which they seem to be cousins of. A poster above mentions Tolkien's elves, which actually, had similar predecessors.

[talysman]

Apr 4, 2012 10:41:45 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

This, I think, helps explain why so many people sense a kinship between D&D and Middle-earth. Both have richly-populated fantastic races, in contrast to Hyboria, Nehwon, etc. which are much more mundane in this respect. This impression remains even after someone points out that most of the monsters in the Monster Manual were never mentioned by Tolkien. The point is not that The Hobbit never mentions pixies (for example). Rather, the point is that A/D&D pixies are an entire race of beings (as are the various unnatural beings in The Hobbit) as opposed to a solitary and unique pixie that is a monstrous survival from a pre-human era (as so many entities found in REH stories).

Now it's time for you to read (again) your most-hated work of fantasy, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Like The Hobbit, it assumes the existence of weird creatures and races (gugs, ghasts, ghouls, nightgaunts, dholes, zoogs, cats of Ulthar, men of Leng.) It also seems more extreme than The Hobbit, and thus closer to D&D.

Apr 4, 2012 21:57:02 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

This is an interesting analysis, but I think you focus too much on Hyboria/Nehwon vs Middle Earth to the exclusion of other influences on D&D. The Hobbit is not the first story to have "races" of creatures - think of the long tradition in mythology & fairy tales (e.g., elves & dwarves in Norse mythology). IIRC, Three Hearts & Three Lions also had races of creatures. ERB's Mars and Pellucidar books are replete with humanoid "monster" races. It's been a while since I've read Leiber, but I do recall some races, like the "ghouls".

Yep, the Nehwon ghouls are humans with transparent flesh, so you can see their bones. They're a known barbarian race.

ERB is certainly a stronger D&D influence than many people realize. And let's not forget that there are races in The Worm Ouroboros (although aside from the Demons having horns, they are all mostly just human political factions.) Or in the Wizard of Oz books. Although Oz, plus Narnia and Middle-Earth, kind of points to the fact that fantasy races are more common in books that are at the very least perceived to be children's literature, whereas the early pulps quickly shifted away from fantasy races towards mostly naturalistic with monsters as exceptions to the setting norm.

It took D&D to re-introduce the idea that you could write fiction for adults that included fantastic races and creatures as the norm for a fantastic setting.