Why are most modern fantasy settings inspired by Tolkien/medieval instead of Howard/prehistory

Because they aren't

Firstly, Tolkien ISN'T medieval. Well. It is. In the sense of it covering the period historically defined asmedieval. But historical definitions aside, for most people medieval period starts at best in 1200s, and D&D and it's ilk is actually mostly late 1400s-early 1500s (sans guns). Tolkien's medieval, meanwhile, is Dark Ages, aka Early Medieval, aka 500s-1000s.

Secondly, modern fantasy settings are ripping just the extremely superficial traits of four Tolkien's races (elves, dwarves, orcs, halflings, sometimes dividing orcs and goblins into separate entities despite those being one thing in Middle Earth), and that's literally it. If you want to experience for yourself how different modern fantasy is from Tolkien's writing, pick up The One Ring RPG (best ME TTRPG, very good at cptivating the feel of original works), and see how differently it plays, how wildly divergent it's themes, style, looks and feel are from mainstream "gaming fantasy".

Modern fantasy owes MUCH more to Howard and his peers than Tolkien... but this is still laughably little. Modern fantasy was basically spawned by aping D&D, and D&D was spawned by bunch of people lumping together large bunch of material from many sources, sources they barely understood (hence modern fantasy is so heavily built on misconceptions) and shit they came up with themselves on spot. It has literally no basis on earlier literature on any level larger than skin-deep, it's just a kitchy hodgepodge of pulp.

>t.bosnian

They had to rewrite it to remove words like Hobbit. To try and distance the original DnD from Tolkien is absurd.

It was influenced heavily by both.

Are you aware that the Conan stories are set 140,000 years ago?

>140,000 years ago
Pretty sure it's about 10,000.
>Most later editors and adaptors such as L. Sprague de Camp and Roy Thomas placed the Hyborian Age around 10,000 BC.[3]

That's twelve thousand years ago you goon.

For a mortal like you maybe.

And so is Tolkien.

this, so much this

/thread

Because most fantasy fans are white supremacists who whine about "WE WUZ KINGS" memes whenever other cultures are shown.

Source: Veeky Forums, youtube, reddit

I'd Givew Lovecraft primacy though, since he was actually Howard's buddy and coresponded with him, and according to the Shadow out of Time, it's 15 000 BC

>But historical definitions aside, for most people medieval period starts at best in 1200s
Nobody thinks that. That cuts out most of the High Middle Ages. People may not really lump the Dark Ages in with the rest of the Middle Ages, but at most we're talking about the Early Middle Ages, and even there, it's probably weighted towards the earlier part, perhaps corresponding more with the Migration Period.

>and D&D and it's ilk is actually mostly late 1400s-early 1500s (sans guns)
D&D is anachronistic and certainly has some technology from the High Middle Ages and even the Early Modern period, but I don't think you can use that to place D&D within that period. The basic setting has much more of a Dark Ages feel, though perhaps the Dark Ages as related in stories written during a later age (hence the anachronisms). On balance though, if you average everything out, maybe we end up in the High Middle Ages. I don't buy 13th to 16th century though.

Because all told, Howard (and Lovecraft) isn't the easiest read and honestly I can see a lot of modern audiences being turned off by how, well, to be blunt, super crazy racist he is. Like Holy Shit some of the things they have to say.

>Nobody thinks that
I'm sorry to break your illusion about historical awareness of an average person, or even average roleplayer who should theoretically know more, but, it is fact that most people word "medieval" is instantly associated with late medieval or later part of high medieval period. They may agree that the Dark Ages are part of the general period after it is mentioned and they'll recall it from school, but almost nobody normally associates viking age or migration period with the word "medieval" without being pointed out.
>The basic setting has much more of a Dark Ages feel

Which basic setting? I did lot of Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms when I was younger, and my impression that Greyhawk is being gothic late medieval, and FR early renaissance in most aspects. Sure there is A LOT of anachronisms. Sure, there are fringe regions of lower tech. But I don't really see anything of "dark ages" within core regions of said settings, instead plenty of the medieval/renaissance transition period stuff

Technology and not just war technology, FR has printing press used on daily basis and access to cheaply publishe books, for just one little example. Things like this are norm in modern gaming fantasy.
is clearly nowhere near dark ages. I see nothing like dark ages in culture or social organizations. Neither proto-feudal kingdoms like Frankia or tribalistic comunities are especially prevalent. Instead we have lots of city-states, merchant republics and developed feudal kingdoms where feudalism is usually on it's way out with rising power of the coin and plutocracy. Culture? It's mostly technology-dependent and cultures of typical D&D setting make heavy use of stuff that can be only achieved with at least late medieval level of tech and organization.

And for things other than D&D... most other modern fantasy examples like Warcraft or Dragon Age are just aping D&D at every turn, only sometimes adding some minor "twist".

God how can people be this fucking stupid

Why not both?

Imagine a Hyborean Age with all the Old One shit completely out in the open, instead of added in sneaky-like.

yeah, Gary and Dave just threw balrogs, dwarves, elves, ents, hobbits, orcs, and wraiths in for the heck of it

>Because all told, Howard (and Lovecraft) isn't the easiest read
Lovecraft, maybe, in some of his more cray dream stuff, but Howard? I completely disagree, he was an amazing writer, wonderfully descriptive, energetic, atmospheric and cinematic. His stuff is so easy to read, 20s race shit aside.

>medieval period starts in 1200's

"""Prehistoric""" societies were quite advanced. Look for Finno-korean hyperwar.

Are you telling me that you had no idea how to bump this thread with a contributing post?

D&D style fantasy borrows thematically from Robert Howard, Fritz Lieber, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the like. The protagonists are sellswords and scoundrels rather than fated heroes on a grand quest; they go into ancient ruins guarded by traps and weird monsters in search of treasure, which is spent on drink and women.

Tolkien's work is layered on top of that base. Elves, dwarves, and hobbits, and their stereotypical cultures, are added to the world. Rangers and mithril get crammed in alongside barbarians in horned helmets. And the manly-man pulp adventure tales are slathered with a coating of LSD-soaked hippie nature worship.

When D&D and its compatriots emerge, of course, all this already existed in the pulp fantasy culture. They weren't going from one to the other, but grabbing fistfulls of whatever appealed to them. So you have your elves and dwarves going into dungeons to fight giant snakes and rummage through crypts for gold. Tolkien gave D&D personas to wear; but Howard and Lieber described what they actually do.

Pick your poison
>Dagobert I, King of all Frenchlands 629
>793, when vikings started raiding the British Isles
>Charlemagne, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774 and Emperor of the Romans from 800.
>1013 when the Danes ruled England
>Olaf the Holy ended and died a true saint in 1030, after having done some major crusade trough out most of Scandinavia, gathering followers to retake his throne
>Any of the major Christan expansions
And thats ignoring the Slavish, Italian and Iberian possible dates.

D&D was originally Howard+Vance+Moorcock. Humans were the only race, the only alignments were Law and Chaos, and there was a heavy focus on fighting rather than walking-through-landscapes/exploring. Gygax is quoted on many occasions as having said he didn't like LoTR, and that he didn't want nonhuman PC's at all. It was after the bitching and moaning of LoTR fans (though not the internet kind of bitching and moaning, more the player-to-DM style of bitching and moaning) that he later shoehorned in Elves, Dwarves, Orks, and (what I personally believe was the BIGGEST mistake) good and evil alignments.

TLDR: D&D was originally meant to be Pulpiverse, but Tolkien fans are loud and demanding, so they changed it later.

>It was after the bitching and moaning of LoTR fans
So they literally turned a western invention into weeb shit on purpose? Fuck Tolkein

Wut? user, I've done my research as well and Gygax didn't ban the other races at first, he just didn't have them because he didn't think of them. Arneson I believe was the main person to add them and then showed his modification of Chainmail's fantasy supplement to Gygax who saw it had potential.

I'm not certain of his original opinion on the races, sorry if I unintentionally implied otherwise, but I know he's quoted to have said he did not like Tolkien because there "wasn't enough action"
>Gygax didn't ban the other races at first, he just didn't have them because he didn't think of them.
Perhaps instead of saying "he didn't want non-human races" I should have said "he originally didn't bother to include non-human races to begin with because he was largely emulating the Human-centric works of Hoawrd, Vance, and Moorcock. The point is that the statement >most modern fantasy settings {are} inspired by Tolkien/medieval instead of Howard/prehistory
is blatantly false. It originally WAS Howard/Prehistory, and had Tolkien added LATER.

>weeb shit
Actually, I've found that pulp-inspired games/settings usually have more animu fightan weeb shit, but then again I LIKE animu fightan weeb shit, so I don't mind.

>Tolkien because there "wasn't enough action"
That was for Lord of the Rings. He liked The Hobbit.

>Loves Howard
>Loves Vance
>Loves Moorcock
>Ejoyed Hobbit
>Dislikes the rest of Tolkien
Gygax confirmed for based taste in fantasy.

Howard's setting would trigger liberals because of the racism. Tolkein made his brown people literal subhumans and thusly avoids that rap, at least more than howard.

But the easterlings were brown people

>shoehorned in C- /pol/bait
Mediocre

Holy shit go home

No those were Haradrim. The Men of Rhun were Huns/assorted Eastern Steppes peoples.

I've been meaning to ask, what was the early inspiration for the Law/Chaos alignments? I know it came from some set of books but beyond that I have very little knowledge on the subject and you strike me as someone willing to explain such things.
Not that I'ld object to someone else answering, I just want to know.

Came here to post this.

So why do most people say "Tolkien-inspired fantasy" when it's actually just 'D&D-inspired fantasy

because they see humans, dwarves, elves, hobbits, and orcs in D&D and assume D&D was inspired by Tolkein.

Three Hearts and Three Lions; as well as Moorcock's work.

>racist
Whatever do you mean?
Is it the hook-nosed shemites? Or is it the Blacks?

How did Peter L Jackson did it?

How did he manage to get a cast of great actors for LOTR? Like not a single actor was shitte. How could they do it? Many other films and shows (like game of shitlords) have tried and end up with below average cast members. But not Tolkein, tolkein did it right

Completely wrong, gygax didn't hate lotr, he only though it was too tedious. But he was the one who introduced lotr elements, he introduced tolkien inspired non-human races into the first fantasy supplement for the Chainmail game that he created before D&D was even a thing.

Nigga, did I say Hate? I said "didn't like" and I'm pretty sure "tedious" can be filed under "didn't like." It's also a fact that the game began as a humans only game primarily inspired by the pulp classics. Therefore the assertion that D&D is based off of LoTR and NOT the Pulps is patently false.

I think it's because Medievalism is ultimately a more well understood and concrete era that the majority of people both known and can understand.
Sure, Tolkien popularized it but Tolkien wasn't the only one, the image of the mounted knight, longsword, kings and queens, Vikings on longships and yeoman armed with longbows has always had a firm grasp on the public consciousness and that's probably because historically it's both pretty recent and there are plentiful artifacts and records.

Meanwhile Pre-History by it's very nature is murky as hell. There aren't any written records from that era because it predates the creation of written records. The principle means we have to understand this time is archeology and to most people archeology is boring. Because of this lack of information, in the public consciousness periods like the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic are a time when men lived in caves, ate mammoths, got eaten by sabertooth tigers and drug women back to their huts by their hair. It's a crude, uncouth and rather boring.

When you take the publics perception of the Medieval Era and the Prehistoric Era people gravitate towards the Medieval period because society has for generations made it 'sexy'.
Which is actually really sad as in reality the Paleolithic to the Neolithic era's are actually REALLY pretty cool.

If you could pick one story to become the primary influencer of fantasy going forward, what would it be? Games and shows are okay choices, your OC ain't.

I love The Princess Bride and I wish more campaigns I played were more that and less Black Company/ASoIaF/Tolkien. I think fantasy is best when it's a silly from the outside and tongue-in-cheek, but still takes itself seriously.

When it comes to Pre-History as a general rule though there's actually some positive examples in both traditional gaming and in videogames.

Tabletop wise we have Wurm that had a successful Kickstarter and release. It does a great job of presenting the era well and gives players rules for everything from a full on Paleolithic Fantasy setting down to a gritty real history.

Meanwhile with games we had FarCry Primal that came out and actually did a pretty good job at showing what a Pre-History punk setting could do.

Not to mention there's even a Paleolithic/Neolithic City builder PC game currently getting worked on.

I think it helps that the scholarship is good enough to sway the imaginations of average joe and better sell them on Pre-History media.

>D&D was originally Howard+Vance+Moorcock.
Leiber and Burroughs are also pretty important, but sure.

...

Depends on whether or not someone else (who isn't me) will get to choose a new primary influence sixty years hence.

If so, I'd say Discworld. It examines the genre fairly critically, without ever actually deriding it. We'd see a lot more investigation into what magic actually is and does, and kitchen sink settings would actually have thought put into them.

However, I would want another influence shift after a generation or two just to keep things from devolving too far into absurdity and people trying too hard to be funny.

Might and Magic.

bump

Fuck's sake.

I thought the thumbnail was a gorilla tipping his really tall top hat to a lady.

I've never been so disappointed by really good art.

Appendix N:
>The most immediate influences upon AD&D were probably de Camp & Pratt, REH, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, HPL, and A. Merritt; but all of the above authors, as well as many not listed, certainly helped to shape the form of the game. For this reason, and for the hours of reading enjoyment, I heartily recommend the works of these fine authors to you.

Burroughs is still in the list, of course:
>Burroughs, Edgar Rice. "Pellucidar" Series; Mars Series; Venus Series
He also got a call-out in OD&D's introduction, which is a thing.

Moorcock's also in the list with Stormbringer, Stealer of Souls and "Hawkmoon". Although to be honest his most direct influence in OD&D specifically is probably just the whole elemental-summoning thing. And FM/MU elves, maybe. I'm unsure if Arneson's famous elaborate magical sword system is Stormbringer or just a general "talking sword" thing, but it also seems like a likely reference.

But yeah, A/D&D was plenty pulp and it showed in how it chafed when you tried to play it as heroic fantasy. 2E moved more towards the Tolkien side of things, 3E finally adapted the rules to function in the heroic fantasy way people wanted them to, and so on and so forth.

Really, you just need to look at low-level PC deathrates, GP=XP and how magic works to see that Tolkien's influence is just on the surface. There's a couple monsters and the PC races are influenced by him, but that's mostly it?
Seriously, fuckin' Hammer Horror almost has more stuff based on it than Tolkien does. Including the goddamn Cleric!

>Tolkien is medieval

Nah, mate.

But it is really good art.

>Nah, mate.
How so?

Tolkien said his stories were set in a time before our history.

They're probably in 6000BC or thereabouts, if you go by the "this is the seventh age" comments or whatever, but he eventually moved away from it being faux-history to it being more of its own thing.

He still had the whole "I translated the Red Book from its original Westron, and this is the result" thing, of course, but later on he seems to have moved away from Aelfwine of England and whatnot.

Basically, Middle-Earth as per the Book of Lost Tales is prehistory - Middle-Earth as per later stuff is its own history.

The Lord of the Rings