Realism in Middle-earth

[Majestic]

I believe the reason we don't hear about dentists is because the one Elf who wanted to be one was ridiculed for his desire to do so.

[Glorelendil]

...But he was also just weaving his own, subjective view of an idealized past...

...It's a romantic-novelistic-folkloric-poetic legend of mashup, never to be repeated...

I snipped a couple of lines from your post that nailed what I've been trying to verbalize. I especially like "idealized past". Yes, Middle-earth is idealized. It's completely valid, of course, to say that the novels, and maybe even Bilbo & Frodo's record of it, are the idealized parts, and that the "reality" is as ideal. But I kind of like thinking that, no, the land itself is idealized.

[Otaku-sempai]

Ok, here's another example: tooth-aches, and dental issues in general. Certainly in a medieval city LOTS of people would have tooth decay, regardless of social status or Shadow points. One would realistically expect that in Minas Tirith to find both bad teeth and "dentists" of some sort.

But that doesn't feel like something Tolkien would include, even if he got into an enumeration of businesses. I could see the list including grocers and butchers and saddle-makers and haberdashers and apothecaries. But not dentists.

Does that make any sense?

A little. An LM would not be likely to want to incorporate tooth decay as part of an adventure; at the same time, it isn't unreasonable to expect that the common folk of Middle-earth would from time to time have to deal with such issues as rotting or broken teeth. More cosmopolitan places would have healers or physicians, other folk might have access to folk healers or wise-women but might have to settle for barbers or more creative solutions. I agree that the profession of dentist would probably not have existed and would seem awkward.

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Even though I believe various shady businesses and the more mundane professions would have existed in the world of Tolkien, they would have been very much in the background and not noticed at all by an adventuring party unless the LM wanted it to be noticed.

[Otaku-sempai]

Even though I believe various shady businesses and the more mundane professions would have existed in the world of Tolkien, they would have been very much in the background and not noticed at all by an adventuring party unless the LM wanted it to be noticed.

I agree with this. Unless there is a reason to bring up the village blacksmith or a local crime-lord, any such things can be ignored.

[Rich H]

I've seen it work well in published adventures, both for TOR and MERP. The occasional discordant or jarring element, if integrated cleverly, can add interest and avoids a succession of predictable sub-Tolkien plots and characters. And I certainly prefer my setting to be something more than a dreamlike representation of the backdrop to LotR. The players (and I) have to have the sense that there are new and unexpected things to discover.

I think I'm very much the same to the degree that my players prefer the non-player characters I've created from scratch in my campaign and the C7 ones over the main Tolkien ones; I'll digress a little, indulge me:

Their favourite is "Ash" a bit of a rogue of a man who they later found out is the leader of the Toft. They've bumped into him on two occasions and each encounter has been memorable. The first encounter I hadn't even decided who or what he was and it was just meant to be a skirmish with a few bandits (some half orcs) but the PCs won the battle and a couple of the opponents were captured and not killed. They had those burying the fallen on both sides and while doing this they questioned "Ash", I just developed his personality on the fly - bit of a rogue, grim sense of humour, a little bit charming. They loved the guy. Bumped into him under different circumstances a few months later on the return journey which I did plan because of how much they liked the first one.

I think the above is a good lesson in how to not over plan and go with gut instincts. Also, how a "non-Tolkien" character can easily fit into Middle-earth when you open up the options and the variety that would exist in the world.

[Rich H]

Even though I believe various shady businesses and the more mundane professions would have existed in the world of Tolkien, they would have been very much in the background and not noticed at all by an adventuring party unless the LM wanted it to be noticed.

I agree with this. Unless there is a reason to bring up the village blacksmith or a local crime-lord, any such things can be ignored.

Me too; and those reasons can be simply to add to atmosphere and verisimilitude to the descriptions of a place, foreshadowing if needed in the future, etc. They don't have to be important to the plot of a current adventure or something immediate.

[Kurt]

Hi All,

I think in my previous posts I have demonstrated that I am a fan of realism, but only to a point. For me the goal is creating that feeling of being in a Tolkien world. The realism that I include in my game is to achieve the end goal - that of immersion. I want my players immersed in Middle-earth, to achieve that I to do a little research on medieval cultures and history. It's why I included a section on herb trade/production, diseases and healing witchcraft in my Herbs and Healing document. It's why I like the Economic System created by Bocephas.

So again, realism is a useful tool not the goal - for me the goal is immersion.

Cheers,
Kurt

[Rich H]

It's so interesting to me that you used the word "immersive" there, because non-Tolkienesque elements (such as, because we keep using that example, brothels) are what break the immersion for me: things that feel out of place kind of yank me out of Middle-earth and leave me in a generic RPG setting.

I get where you're coming from there, however even C7's products break out of that and provide content and adventures that go beyond Tolkien's world/narrative; I don't think that's particularly bad because even if we wish to hew closely to pure Tolkienesque element that would be pretty limiting to the product life of an RPG - you could really just produce one book for that and it be perfectly adequate for such adventures. Looking at the collections of adventures that C7 has put together, you can see that they support the subject material but also go beyond it and represent a world outside of Tolkien's material in order to produce a serviceable and interesting RPG which contain, perhaps immersion breaking elements such as slavers, harlots, involved politics, etc to some but to others they offer a wider world to explore.

Maybe the right adjectives is "dream-like": my Middle-earth feels a bit dream-like. Too much gritty reality (too much Westeros?) wakes me up from that dream.

Maybe this is a regional thing? I think we've mentioned it before somewhere but I'm pretty sure Brits (and perhaps other nationalities) embrace darker/grittier fantasy settings more than many Americans do. For instance, Dragon Warriors (still a hugely enjoyable RPG) was very popular in the 80s and in my circle of gamers and supplanted D&D as the preferred fantasy setting; it was darker and grittier with a mythology to match. And back to my reference to the NPC, Ash, a couple of my players mentioned he felt like a Game of Thrones character (and more real for them), which you've just mentioned above so there could certainly be some truth in that. I don't think gritty and dream-like are mutually exclusive and actually feel that they are very complimentary in my game - the grittiness enhances the dream like elements and makes them better. I think like you say, for you and others, how much grittiness could be about finding the balance rather than complete exclusion - which are just dials that we all apply to our own gaming groups.

[tomcat]

I believe the reason we don't hear about dentists is because the one Elf who wanted to be one was ridiculed for his desire to do so.

That was excellent.