Comments on: My Dwarves are Roman

By: Virtue: A Homebrew Alignment Variant | A Butterfly Dreaming

Virtue: A Homebrew Alignment Variant | A Butterfly Dreaming — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 21:18:05 +0000

[...] Anything in my Myth Direction series is homebrew based on mythology. My posts about the dwarves and elves of my Galadria setting would qualify, too. Then there’s my post Defining the [...]

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:05:32 +0000

Well, I doubt it’s wholly original, but I think my take is different from the norm, at least. The post should be up within the next three days.

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 09:52:41 +0000

My problem with doing something like that with elves is that someone somewhere has already written up every variant I can ever think of. The only version I haven’t seen is a version that knows its way around a steam engine and even that I’m sure someones already done.

Every slight change to keep them traditional has been explored and morphed into your high elves, dark elves, wild elves, half elves etc. So to say I’m intrigued with what you’ve done with them would be an understatement

Bob’s last blog post: Weapon Mastery for AD&D 2nd Edition

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:58:40 +0000

@Bob: You’re right, and that was part of the intent — a player can create a dwarf character for my world without needing to know about the culture beforehand, and that character will still be able to fit into the game world. The assumptions that are built into the system don’t prevent changes, and in this case, the change is possible without clashing with those expectations.

My elves took a bit more work, but that’s a future post. ^_-

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:02:02 +0000

Whilst its not traditional vanilla it certainly isn’t non standard. All you’ve effectively changed is one thing about the dwarves and that is their outlook on life. And even then only by a tiny amount. Where most people would thing of industrial, dark and well cavey homes you’ve had them take pride in their place of residence. It’s nothing I haven’t imagined on a small scale for the more well off dwarf about town but to carry it over to the whole race gives it a fresh feel without really changing a single thing about them.

Bob’s last blog post: Character Sheets – Just How Far Do You Go?

By: Sean Holland

Sean Holland — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:56:47 +0000

Nicely done. I have used the Roman model for dwarves as well, but only as a distant background element at none of the players were dwarves and not of the adventures involved dwarves. *sigh*

Good read and look forward to reading more about your world.

By: Stargazer

Stargazer — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:20:57 +0000

Hmm, I like your greco-roman dwarves. I think I will steal this idea for the campaign I am working on.
By the way I know quite a few interesting books and roleplaying games that borrowed heavily from history and this usually works pretty well. Coming up with a totally original society is not easy and most often fails horribly.
I also agree with your post when the “vanilla” nature of the new D&D is concerned. In older iterations of D&D much more stuff was inclined in the rules.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:49:54 +0000

@greywulf: I remember chuckling at that post, a little while back. It is a cool concept.

@jonathan: I hadn’t seen it — must have overlooked it on the RPG Bloggers feed, somehow. Can’t say I disagree.

There’s nothing wrong with vanilla, though. Greyhawk, Mystara, and the Realms were all pretty vanilla, and they all brought some good things to the game.

D&D is pretty flexible in the end, though. You’d need to do a little work to run, say, a modern game with 4e, but I think it’d serve well once that work was done. And of course 3e’s system proved amazingly flexible — d20′s touched a wide array of genres.

By: jonathan

jonathan — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 01:18:26 +0000

Again – another post that stirs the imagination and that I 100% agree with. I also posted about this as well – dunno if you saw it (“Your Game World is (NOT) teh SuXXorz”), but basically I feel the same. The ‘Vanilla’ setting can be recast (shemp’ed?) as anything else you want. Newbie gamers will no doubt use the Vanilla setting and RAW often – but I believe most D&D campaigns will no doubt put their own spin on things.

Just Say No to Vanilla! =)

Laser Clerics FTW!

jonathan’s last blog post: McCainculus – A new D&D Humonculus

By: greywulf

greywulf — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:17:48 +0000

I like! Overlaying humanesque cultures unto the races is a Very Cool thing to do. My dwarves are made of stone. And they used to wear fake beards and make-up to blend in with the fleshy races. No, really. Just goes to show how one core concept can be adapted in so many different directions. That's the fun thing about Vanilla though. It goes with everything. Except bacon. greywulf's last blog post: Dragon Warriors Week Day Seven