Goodman Games

Are the DCC elves playing off the legacy of the D&D B/X elves, or are they drawn from some appendix N source material? I've never read Poul Anderson or Lord Dunsany, so perhaps the DCC elves are drawn from those sources?

Poul Anderson and the melnibonéans of the Elric saga.

Among others:

* Poul Anderson (esp. The Broken Sword)
* Roger Zelazny (esp. Dilvish the Damned)
* Michael Moorcock (Melnibonéans)
* Lord Dunsany (esp. The King of Elfland's Daughter)
* J.R.R. Tolkien
* Margaret St. Clair (Esp. The Shadow People)

Can't say they resemble Tolkien's elves much. But then again, if they did, they wouldn't even be close to being balanced with the other character classes.

cjoepar wrote:Can't say they resemble Tolkien's elves much. But then again, if they did, they wouldn't even be close to being balanced with the other character classes.

Perhaps more than is obvious at first glance. Consider:

* The use of mithral. Are JRRT's elves ever described as using weapons or armour of steel or iron? (Maybe in Smith of Wootton Major?)
* Connection to patrons. Sure, they are not the same patrons as in other Appendix N sources, but Elbereth is certainly a patron, and they do invoke Her. They once hobnobbed with Sauron, and they taught him the basics of ring lore.
* Innate magic. Galadrial is not even aware of what Sam means by magic, although encounters will elves in the books certainly seem to include it....from the magic doors of the Wood Elf King's halls in The Hobbit to time passing at a different rate in Lothlorien.
* Alliance with Chaos. The elves in Middle Earth turned their backs on the Valar. They attempt to stand outside the concerns of mortal men. They partake of the same sin as Sauron and Morgoth (trying to order the world as they see fit, as opposed to the will of Anwe).

Although JRRT's elves are not evil, they certainly are willing to capture Thorin & Co. and imprison them, nor do they even care to relieve the dwarves' minds by telling them that Thorin, or the remainder, have been captured. When we first see the Wood Elves in TH, they are concerned primarily with their pleasure. It is inconceivable that they do not understand the condition of the dwarves when they come begging. They are content to let them starve, so long as their parties are not "molested" by their pleas for aid.

JRRT's elves are not as nice as one tends to think they are.

Movies aside, Legolas is the only elf that takes active part in the fight against Sauron at the end of the Third Age. The elves do not come to aid the siege at Helm's Deep (except in the Peter Jackson version); they are too enmeshed in their own concerns. As the elves are departing Middle Earth, for the most part they no longer care about its griefs and concerns. In modern parlance, that's somebody else's problem.

When the Age of Man (a more Lawful age in DCC terms) comes about, the elves disappear in droves.

There are homages to JRRT's elves in The Revelation of Mulmo, and it wasn't hard at all to uncover their nastier side. When I was going through the relevant Appendix N works, it soon became apparent that we tend to judge JRRT's elves more on the basis of who they oppose than of what they do. Legolas is exceptional in his caring for anyone of the Younger Races. Elrond is half human.

Perhaps the elves of Mirkwood were kinder to Gollum than to the dwarves for the same reason that humans sometimes treat certain prisoners better then others - they identified more closely with him.

Also, in The Hobbit, when JRRT says words to the effect of, "Still elves they were, and elves they remained, and that is Good People" he was well aware of the folkloric meaning of "Good People". This is a euphemism for fey folk so as to avoid incurring their wrath. The implication for an adult with knowledge of the background lore is very different from what a child would understand from the same passage.

The reason I asked the question in the first place is that DCC elves don't appear to have any 'woodland' abilities, which would seem to differentiate them from Tolkien. I've thought of creating a Wood Elf class to address this.

Alternatively, you could just let them roll 1d20 for woodland skills. If you want to do the work, you should do it. If you do not want to do the work, you can just assume elves are trained at woodsing.

Raven_Crowking wrote:Alternatively, you could just let them roll 1d20 for woodland skills. If you want to do the work, you should do it. If you do not want to do the work, you can just assume elves are trained at woodsing.

Well, I feel stupid now... yeah, that would work!

Of course, I also wish elves didn't merely share spells with wizards. I wish they had their own 'thing'. In that vein, I wish dwarves didn't use Mighty Deeds of Arms, but instead had their own unique niche.

The book suggests that you consider giving different Mercurial tables to different species, which would be a damn sight easier than coming up with your own spell lists.

Raven_Crowking wrote:The book suggests that you consider giving different Mercurial tables to different species, which would be a damn sight easier than coming up with your own spell lists.

Yep, or making their methods of spellcasting somehow different somehow.

vivsavage wrote:

Raven_Crowking wrote:The book suggests that you consider giving different Mercurial tables to different species, which would be a damn sight easier than coming up with your own spell lists.

Yep, or making their methods of spellcasting somehow different somehow.

Well, the best thing to do would be to come up with something uber-cool, and then share it with the rest of us......

vivsavage wrote:

Raven_Crowking wrote:The book suggests that you consider giving different Mercurial tables to different species, which would be a damn sight easier than coming up with your own spell lists.

Yep, or making their methods of spellcasting somehow different somehow.

Or change the name of the spell to be more "elfy" and add elfy manifestations. If you've ever played Savage Worlds, this may be familiar.

I played around with this a bit here: The Ifrit's Chosen

vivsavage wrote:...In that vein, I wish dwarves didn't use Mighty Deeds of Arms, but instead had their own unique niche.

Not to derail the thread, but I have a 'battle-rage' mechanic for Dwarves that is basically, they get to automatically succeed on an attack roll, Save in battle or other battle-related endeavor, but at the cost of the GM then having a token to hand them a failure on something later. Haven't had a good chance to fully test it out, though... but it does make a change from Deeds for Dwarves.

GnomeBoy wrote:

vivsavage wrote:...In that vein, I wish dwarves didn't use Mighty Deeds of Arms, but instead had their own unique niche.

Not to derail the thread, but I have a 'battle-rage' mechanic for Dwarves that is basically, they get to automatically succeed on an attack roll, Save in battle or other battle-related endeavor, but at the cost of the GM then having a token to hand them a failure on something later. Haven't had a good chance to fully test it out, though... but it does make a change from Deeds for Dwarves.

That's an interesting idea. How do you prevent the player from abusing the system by using the failure token on something meaningless?

vivsavage wrote:

GnomeBoy wrote:

vivsavage wrote:...In that vein, I wish dwarves didn't use Mighty Deeds of Arms, but instead had their own unique niche.

Not to derail the thread, but I have a 'battle-rage' mechanic for Dwarves that is basically, they get to automatically succeed on an attack roll, Save in battle or other battle-related endeavor, but at the cost of the GM then having a token to hand them a failure on something later. Haven't had a good chance to fully test it out, though... but it does make a change from Deeds for Dwarves.

That's an interesting idea. How do you prevent the player from abusing the system by using the failure token on something meaningless?

Oh, the GM is 'handing' them the failure -- a Save automatically fails, an attack, whatever the GM wants... "Nope, that climb check -- sadly, you fell". They then have their token back to use on an automatic success (which they might use to mitigate the fall, if such is possible). Once they use it again, the GM can hold it and dish out a failure again. The basic idea is that it should all be used in ways that make sense thematically, and drive some creativity ("we've agreed that Dwarves aren't good climbers and the GM has a failure to hand out... I'm going to find another way up to the top of this cliff..."). I like the idea as a Dwarf mechanic, since it can push Dwarves to be more Dwarfy -- but I really haven't had a chance to explore it...