Elves: Tolkien vs. D&D

[tkdco2]

If you were to do a D&D or OSR game set in Middle-earth, would you change the elves' special abilities in terms of game mechanics? If so, how?

Tolkien's elves don't have infravision as described in D&D, but their sight is as good under starlight as it is in daylight. So it seems a close, if not exact, fit. Likewise, they don't fear the undead like other races do, so that can be the basis of D&D elves' immunity to ghoul paralysis.

So are the mechanics different enough to warrant changes? Even if it's so, is it worth the effort?

[Falconer]

Keep as is. I’m thinking in a nice light Holmes sort of game.

[tkdco2]

Thanks. I'm redoing my MERP-BFRPG conversion, so I'm looking at what to include and what to change. While I'm trying to do a reasonably accurate conversion of MERP, I'm going to go with BFRPG's mechanics in several areas.

[geoffrey]

The only thing I would even think about changing is making elves immune to aging effects, since Tolkien's elves are immortal.

[tkdco2]

That's a good point, thanks. I'll definitely put that in my conversion, since I'm working on it right now.

[premmy]

Honestly, if you really want elves in your game to be true to Tolkien, you do have a bit of work to do. I'm far from a Tolkien scholar, but here are a few important talking points you would need to keep in mind:

- Elves are more agile than men and also quite strong, though not as much as the strongest men or many dwarves.

- On agility: elves in LotR could sprint (not walk, sprint) on a tightrope to cross a river, and they made it seem trivially easy. While trying to cross Caradhras, Legolas somehow didn't sink into the snow when all the others, all of them comparable in weight or lighter, did. The latter is clearly some sort of supernatural stuff there, not just a mere "+1 to Dex".

- Possibly superhuman eyesight in terms of effective range of vision.

- They cannot be of Evil alignment. They just can't. It's part of Tolkien's moral cosmology.

- They never age, are completely immune to all diseases and fear, and are greatly resistant to extreme temperatures.

- They CAN die of sorrow.

- If they die, they can be reborn after a while in an identical body, and will eventually regain their previous life's memories and power (read: XP).

- They are all ambidextrous, which would possibly give them some combat-related bonus.

- Elves who have seen the Light of Valinor have some sort of automatic Turn Undead-like ability against all servants of the Shadow.

- Ordinary objects (food, rope, etc.) made by elves are harmful to evil creatures. Some objects seem to have magical abilities by human standards (such the rope that inexplicably unknotted itself in just the needed moment), though the elves employ no craft they themselves would consider magical in their making. Genuine magical artifacts such as the Rings of Power or the Silmarils are far beyond the ability of any other race to make, though creating such things permanently saps the creator's ability to do further works.

- Elves have a telepathic ability to communicate with each other (and some other beings, certainly Maiar), sometimes even across great distances.

- Elves marry/mate (no difference to them) for life, and they would and could just willingly die before taken against their will.

- Possibly reams of other stuff, especially if you get into Tolkien's works he didn't publish in life.


Now, here's the thing: what's keeping you from just taking ordinary D&D elves, removing aging, and calling it a day? Well, nothing. You could do it... but then what you'd have would not be Tolkien elves. It's like taking a car and converting it to have two wheels and pedals instead of an engine. You could do it, but it wouldn't be a car any more, it would be a bicycle.

[Zenopus]

Feb 16, 2021 18:53:30 GMT -6 premmy said:

- They cannot be of Evil alignment. They just can't. It's part of Tolkien's moral cosmology.

Er, have you read the Silmarillion?

[tkdco2]

Some elves were evil. Feanor and his sons were, even if you take into account the Oath they took. Eol and Maeglin count as well.

I am including elves' special abilities, including their immortality and night vision. Of course, some of these abilities can come from roleplaying instead of mechanics.


But I'm more interested in converting the elves as presented in MERP. Granted, a lot of these abilities are included in the MERP rulebook, so I will include those. My main concern is whether the BFRPG game mechanics  would work as they and simply rename them.

[Falconer]

Feb 16, 2021 18:53:30 GMT -6 premmy said:

Now, here's the thing: what's keeping you from just taking ordinary D&D elves, removing aging, and calling it a day? Well, nothing. You could do it... but then what you'd have would not be Tolkien elves.

Disagree. Not all RPGs are deep simulations. In a light, gamey RPG of limited scope, 3-4 distinguishing factors (presuming they agree with Tolkien) can be enough to set the tone. In a board game, you might reduce this to 1-2 distinguishing characteristics.

The other thing to remember is that for every “supernatural” characteristic displayed by Elves in the books, there are other Elves which do not display these (eg., books and books go by without Elves ever displaying telepathy), and there are Men who display as great or greater supernatural feats.

[premmy]

Feb 16, 2021 20:30:34 GMT -6 tkdco2 said:

Some elves were evil. Feanor and his sons were, even if you take into account the Oath they took. Eol and Maeglin count as well.

I'd say that depends on your interpretation of Evil as it pertains to D&D. They were certainly not a very nice persons, and evil according to our real-life morality. But not Corrupted-by-Melkor Evil.

[geoffrey]

For Tolkien's elves, by far my favorite two sources are The Hobbit (well, the Ilkorins of Mirkwood; not the silly singing elves of Rivendell) and 1930's "The Quenta" (basically a 100-page early version of the Silmarillion published in The Shaping of Middle-earth): drunken, angry, scary, traitorous, obsessive, blasphemous, lusty, greedy, lying, murderous elves. But not craven. (As Feanor said, "He saith not that we shall suffer from cowardice, from cravens or the fear of cravens.")

I think Tom Moldvay got it right in 1981: Elves are neutral. They are all those things listed above, but they have a right holy hatred of humanoids ("Exterminate, with extreme prejudice.") Mix those two together and you get something kinda maybe in the area of neutral (and certainly more likely than "chaotic good").

[Falconer]

Feb 17, 2021 8:07:55 GMT -6 premmy said:

I'd say that depends on your interpretation of Evil as it pertains to D&D. They were certainly not a very nice persons, and evil according to our real-life morality. But not Corrupted-by-Melkor Evil.

The Kinslaying at Alqualondë and the Kinslaying at the Havens of Sirion and many other atrocities of the Fëanorians are clearly attributable to Melkor poisoning the heart of Fëanor—all the way down to Celebrimbor forging the Great Rings. The Fall of Gondolin is likewise due to Maeglin selling out directly to Morgoth. Orgof (Anglo-Saxon for “Pride”) is a cruel Elf who gets drunk and taunts Túrin in order to sabotage the latter’s standing in Doriath. Eöl rapes Areðel. Curufin attempts to rape Lúthien. Thingol tries to cheat the Nauglath out of their wages—the last straw in his long career of pettiness.

So you can say, okay, Dark Elves are an exception because they’re not Eldar, they rebelled from the first; and the Silvan Elves and even Sindar are not much better; oh, and the Noldor rebelled and were under the Doom of Mandos, and even the Wise of the late Third Age were STILL in rebellion by ignoring the lure of the Sea and instead ruling little pocket-kingdoms with the help of naughty Ring-magic. But other than that, Elves were all the way good!

[tkdco2]

Feanor was definitely corrupted to some extent by Morgoth, even before he took his Oath. While he was mostly misled rather than corrupted into serving Morgoth, Feanor did begin speaking against the Valar and even drew his sword on Fingolfin. While he eventually saw through Morgoth and rejected him, he still repeated the Dark Lord's lies when convincing the Noldor to leave Aman.

The House of the Mole was led by Maeglin. They joined their leader in betraying their fellow elves in Gondolin.

And let's not forget the servants of Celegorm at the Second Kinslaying at Doriath. They took the sons of Dior -- children -- and left them deep into the forest to be killed by wild animals or die of exposure and starvation. It wasn't just the Noldor princes carrying out the atrocities; their retainers often joined in the act.

But we're going off topic. I was rereading the section on elves in the BFRPG rulebook. Here are some abilities that may be explained using Tolkien's elves.
Darkvision: Elven ability to see clearly in starlight. Darkvision is similar to D&D infravision.
Detect secret doors: Heightened elven senses. Sight and perhaps hearing and touch.
Immunity to ghoul paralysis: Lack of elves' fear of undead mortals. This need not be limited to the High Elves, as Legolas didn't fear the Oathbreakers.
Saving throw bonuses: Elves' magical nature, perhaps. Include immunity to sickness for some categories.
Immunity to sickness: Just allow the elf to succeed at a saving throw. Note that Mummy Rot is a curse rather than an illness, so elves aren't immune to it.
Immunity to extreme temperature: Only for natural temperature. Magical heat and cold will still affect elves.
Elven items causing pain to evil creatures: Maybe the items were enchanted. I also wouldn't put it past Gollum to fake it in order to avoid being tied up.

Other elf abilities that don't need mechanics:
Immortality: AFAIK, nobody has ever run a campaign that lasted centuries in game time.
Dying of grief/losing the will to live: Roleplay it. I doubt players would take that option, but you never know.
Walking on snow: Since only one instance was recorded, just consider it "special effects" and leave it at that.

Would those work?

[Starbeard]

If you really want D&D elves in the grand Tolkien tradition, then you might as well have them all start as AD&D bards with all previously gained abilities. But that wouldn't be balanced unless you also let everyone else start with 28,000xp too. Not that I'd have a problem with that; in fact it sounds like a fun goal for an open AD&D campaign: Sindar elves begin as bards with 30,000xp, but aren't allowed as PCs until one of your existing characters hits 30,000xp. If you want to allow elves but keep play balanced between PCs, then just using elves as they already are is good enough:

In the stories, some elves are warriors, some are magicians, others are sages. D&D has character classes, done.

There are good elves and bad elves, strong elves and—well, if not necessarily weak elves then at least strong men and dwarves and orcs to counterbalance them. D&D has alignment and bounds everyone to a 3-18 range for stats, done.

They have good sight, immunities to aging and some magic, perhaps good saves against poison (maybe?)—basically what's already in the racial description for elves, done.

Pretty much all other elven abilities from the books can be explained through the use of spells available to the character's class and level.

[Porphyre]

Middle Earth (or at least the part of it depicted in the novels) has no organised religion nor clergy. 
On the other hand, High elves as Glorfindel and Elrond are known for using healing "magic", and Glorfindel is able to scare the Nazgul (turn them? ) 
Grey elves (sindarin) do not seem to be equally gifted, but some can display hints of magical abilities (EOl, for instance, was able to lure Aredhel using some kind of enchantements)


So, mechanics wise, I would see something like this: 

Common elven traits: 
- Hightened senses: elves have far better vision and hearing than Men. Use the rules for infravision, detecting secret passages and hearing noises as per M&M and U&WA
- Light of foot: "But I say: let a ploughman plough, but choose an otter for swimming, and for running light over grass and leaf or over snow-an Elf." Elves can travel long distances without leaving tracks, and often can walk lightly across snow where the boots of Men would sink. 
- Endurance: ''They were thus capable of far greater and longer physical exertions (...) without weariness; they were not subject to diseases; they healed rapidly and completely after injuries that would have proved fatal to Men." An Elf Constitution should be at least 12. They are immune against all non-magical diseases. 

High elves (Noldor) 
- High Elves must have a Wisdom score of 9 at least. They can begin as either Fighting-Men, Magic-Users or Clerics or any combination thereof (FM/MU, FM/CL; MU/CL; FM/MU/Cl). Thus, they gain the benefits of either class and may use both weaponry and spells. 
- High elves have +1 bonus-to-hit when using swords. 
- Additional langages: Elf(quenya)

Grey Elves (Sindar)
- Grey Elves  can begin as either Fighting-Men, Magic-Users or both classes. Thus, they gain the benefits of either class and may use both weaponry and spells.

- Grey elves have +1 bonus-to-hit when using swords or axes.

- Additional langages: Elf(sindarin)

Wood elves: 
- Wood Elves must have a Dex score of 9 at least. They only play as Fighting-Men
- Wood elves have +1 bonus-to-hit when using bows.

- Additional langages: Elf(sylvan)

"The Sea! Alas! I have not yet beheld it. But deep in the hearts of all my kindred lies the sea-longing, which it is perilous to stir. Alas! for the gulls. No peace shall I have again under beech or under elm."
Elves are not restricted in the number of levels they can reach in any class. 
However, when an elf character reaches level 6, a Wisdom check must be rolled and again for any subsequent level gained in any class. If not, the elf must answer for the calls of Ulmo and embarks for the Undying Lands (and is therefore definitely removed from the campaign). 

[Starbeard]

Those all look good to me. I wouldn't limit clerics only to high elves, though. Strider pretty clearly uses healing magic and he's just a wimpy Dunedan. Outside of AD&D 2nd edition I'm not there are any versions of D&D where clerics are really required to be in service to a deity; they're just a spell casting class with a bit of fluff saying something about gods and service.

Of course, there are a number of other cleric spells that seem more out of place than healing, particularly the ones themed off of biblical miracles. Still, those are already out of place even for medieval-themed clerics — the miracles that surround medieval saints biographies are in many cases better represented by magic-user and illusionist spells, rather than biblical God-miracles. So if we're concerned about matching themes than clerics are an odd fit either way.

In the end, I think if someone wanted to really match the game to the magical themes that are present in the books and only the themes present in the books, then one would have to comb through all of the spells and create a custom set of spell lists for different classes. Magic-users should certainly have some small healing magic. Maybe "clerics," whatever they are, might combine stronger healing with a selection of druid spells and illusionist spells, turning into some sort of bard thing (maybe? I dunno).

[tkdco2]

I was thinking about separating clerics from formal clergy. I'd just rename them healers or animists and say their powers come from the earth or some innate power rather than coming from the Valar. That would seem to fit the Elves and pureblood Dunedain. Some human nations under Sauron's control may include priests of the Dark Lord, but they may just as easily be magic-users as clerics.

Since I'm currently using BFRPG, which is based on B/X, I'm modifying the stat requirements and limits. The rulebook has INT 9 minimum and 17 CON maximum for elves. For my MERP conversion, I was thinking about this:

Noldor: Minimum INT and CHA score of 9, maximum CON 18.

Sindar: Minimum CHA score of 9, maximum CON 17.

Silvan: Minimum DEX score of 9, maximum CON 17.

[Porphyre]

Feb 22, 2021 17:26:29 GMT -6 Starbeard said:

Those all look good to me. I wouldn't limit clerics only to high elves, though. Strider pretty clearly uses healing magic and he's just a wimpy Dunedan. 

Aragorn was more than a mere ranger. He is a rightful heir to the throne with a tenous line of elven blood.
Actually, my pet theory was that, before the Ranger class (obviously modeled after his very character) came out in SR, Aragorn's class should be a paladin: 
- High charisma: check!
- "LAWFUL from the commencement of play for that character": check.
- "always doing lawful deeds": check.
- "cure wounds or diseases in others": check. 
- Dispel evil (black breath): check! 

[Starbeard]

Feb 23, 2021 15:16:27 GMT -6 Porphyre said:

Feb 22, 2021 17:26:29 GMT -6 Starbeard said:

Those all look good to me. I wouldn't limit clerics only to high elves, though. Strider pretty clearly uses healing magic and he's just a wimpy Dunedan. 

Aragorn was more than a mere ranger. He is a rightful heir to the throne with a tenous line of elven blood.
Actually, my pet theory was that, before the Ranger class (obviously modeled after his very character) came out in SR, Aragorn's class should be a paladin: 
- High charisma: check!
- "LAWFUL from the commencement of play for that character": check.
- "always doing lawful deeds": check.
- "cure wounds or diseases in others": check. 
- Dispel evil (black breath): check! 

Oh absolutely, I think you've hit something solid there. His wilderness abilities could be explained by his situation: in another life he would be a normal paladin, but the necessities of this life have forced him to multiclass, either as a thief or maybe a barbarian or ranger if we're throwing those classes in. And of course, Aragorn is allowed to multiclass because as a Dunadan he really ought to be considered a demihuman.

[tkdco2]

In his Khazad-dum adventure in White Dwarf, Lew Pulsipher made Aragorn a paladin-ranger, which he admitted he didn't normally do. But using the paladin class makes sense. Someone in the Dragonsfoot boards stated that Dunedain rangers would correspond to BECMI paladins. I can't remember who said it, so apologies if it was one of you guys.

[tkdco2]

The high elves are the noblest of Tolkien's elves. In AD&D, that honor belongs to the gray elves, with high elves being more common. I've never understood why that was the case, although maybe Gygax did that to prevent further legal action from the Tolkien Foundation. It's easy enough to fix; just switch around the names.

But here's my idea about classifying the elves. Let the AD&D gray elves represent those Noldor who actually lived in Aman and came back to Middle-earth. They would be extremely rare in the Third Age: Galadriel, Glorfindel, and perhaps Gildor.*

The Sindar were also considered Eldar, perhaps because they were ruled by Thingol and Melian. They also lived with the Noldor in Lindon since the Second Age, and marriage between the two clans did occur. So it may be convenient to classify both the Noldor who were born in Middle-earth and the Sindar as AD&D high elves. These would be the elves who live in Rivendell and Lindon. Elves who live in Mirkwood and Lothlorien are wood elves who live under the rule of high elves.

It's not so clear cut. Legolas was a Sindar elf, but he identified himself as a wood elf. This may be because he lives mainly among the wood elves. It's possible his mother was a wood elf, as nothing is written about her.

* Insert gratuitous joke about anyone whose name starts with G qualifying as a gray elf.