...or dwarfs, dorfs, etc.I want to run an all dwarf game. Maybe AD&D, Hackmaster, or B/X. Not sure yet, not the point. It got me asking myself: If I'm going to run a game all about dwarves, I should understand what dwarves are all about.I will rant about dwarf things, in exchange tell me your dwarf opinions. Then some thinblooded pissgargling youtube creator cbdicksniffer can steal our words. May the circle be unbroken
First let us discuss the dorf of old.We have the tolkeinic dwarves, the warhammerian dwarfs, and the gygaxian... he probably didn't care about spelling if his work is any indication.Tolkein told us they live underground, in impressive structures that are mostly overrun by orcs/goblins (same thing in this context), that they love minin', and hate elves.Warhammer amplified things that were mentioned in passing. Borderline alcoholism, the book of grudges, deathseeking trollslayers, etc. In terms of new stuff we have guns and being redheads I guess.Gygax told us they were more resistant to magic (before warhammer), could tell things were slanted (presumably from being so racist), were harder for big things to hit, and had infravision.Things I'm not sure they came from:Usually into axes and hammers.Like to ride goats/bears.Bad at wizarding.
What do I think about dwarves?1. They're not gnomes. This is important because I came in at the tail end of 3.5, around when WoW was really big. Gnomes are a lesser creature, probably with gross sticky hands and pudgy fingers that probe the orifices of sleeping people. Gnomes attempted to steal some of what made dwarves cool, the living underground and being small and whatnot. They should live in mushrooms and cast illusions, and stay the fuck away from my butthole while I nap in glades.2. Dwarves almost always end up being funny, but Spengler or Stantz funny - never Venkman funny. They should be the straight man of most jokes. Occasionally they can, like Winston, make a joke from a blue collar everyman perspective.3. They don't have normal villages. Humans will have a fishing village, a lumber village, an orchard situation, and so on. Dwarves have mines, and those mines are on a mountain. No exceptions.
Why do I want to run a dorf game?1. A greater fantasy work than The Hobbit shall never be. An even dozen frat bros and their ketamine dealer roll into to a middle class whitecollar WASP's HOA and knock on his door and invite themselves to dinner. Then over pinot noir and lambchops they tell him that they need him to ball with them because the number 13 is too gay, even for a group of dudes who definitely sleep five and a half inches inside of each other (on average).This crew then roll through middle earth Warriors style slapping the shit out of anybody that gets in their way, culminating in waking up a dragon who burns down a town who only wanted to help.Then when the insurance company shows up and asks for a deductible for Laketown's rear-ending they start a war that, without goblinoid interference, they would have obviously lost handily.Bilbo then returns home to find bitches stepping out of line and selling his shit, and after resolving that proceeds to never marry because pussy could never approach the level of comfort he felt with his bros.I've forgotten my point for this one, sorry
Functionally, dwarves are your tradesman boomer dad who you call when you’ve got a problem with your patio, yard drainage, gutters, etc. They are not the backup fighter, they are the wise noticers of stonework irregularities to include traps, new construction, non-dwarven construction, suspicious layouts that might indicate hidden rooms in void spaces, slanted hallways, the dependability of a stone structure, and so forth. People who want to be the center of attention and people who want to have souped up characters do not like to play dwarves like this. They are faggatrons and should be excluded from any dwarf centric game.Also dwarves hate elves, so like all racists dwarves are correct and based
Right. Why dwarf game.2. Because if we can't achieve The Hobbit with the game meant to, what the fuck are we even doing?3. I have too many dwarf minis I never get to use thanks to cheap ebay lots of WHFB that didn't get the torch.Changing topics...What are my goals for the campaign?All the characters are dwarves. No Bilbo, no Gandalf, no tiefling bards.Dwarfs feel like dwarfs, so the PCs do dwarf things. This may require metagame mechanics or XP rewards to ensure this happens (to be discussed later)The party goal is a dwarf goal. Get super rich, reclaim a city/castle/mine, kill a troll despite the odds, get the orc cheiftan's head, etc. As above, these may need mechanical encouragement.
>>98206257>Usually into axes and hammers.Tolkien. Well, the axe part.>Bad at wizarding.DND. Amusingly enough in Tolkien dwarves had a fucking magical market of all things.Contrariwise, the hate is overhyped.And dwarves have to become again jewish.
>>98206450Assuming that's true, how does one do that when you have a party of nothing but?>>98206626Sure, Gimli had an axe but Thorin was pretty famously swinging around that sweet elfblade he found in the ogre den.Still, I think you're probably right. It just bloomed from Gimili's axe because he loved it so much in the book. Didn't want to leave it outside and whatnot.Never understood the dwarf jewish thing, always felt like people were reading too much into it personally. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.I have to run to the grocery, but in the mean I'll formalize my thoughts on mechanizing encouragement to dwarfy behaviors.
If not an ax then what is a suitable dwarfey weapon? Hammers at least have the connection with them often being smiths and craftsmen. And crossbows seem logical because they're industrious and short limbs aren't good for using a bow. What would work well for short race of people in the tunnels of a hold or a cave?
I like to use more Japanese inspired dwarves. Really filters out unwanted people if they can't handle dwarves looking like this or Sherri even.And now that they're gone, it's easier to be more creative than just "copy lotr and do a Scottish accent".
>>98206466Campaign suggestion: dwarf party stumbles upon records detailing forgotten extension of their hold, or accidentally digs into there during a mining operation. 'Horrifying screams come from the darkness below' and now the PCs are saddled with journeying through and cleaning out the mess, since unleashing it was their fault in the first place.>>98207822>What would work well for short race of people in the tunnels of a hold or a cave?Spears, but people don't associate those with classic dwarves.
>>98207863That’s not a dwarf that’s just a midget at best and jailbait at worse.
>>98207863I'm glad people like you filter themselves.
>>98208090>literally dwarves from the realm of the dwarves from Norse mythI'm not sure having them pilot mecha was the right move, but it was definitely interesting to have them more reliant on their technology than other races.
>>98206689Tolkien has a quote comparing them to jews
>>98208106Not quite. He say they share similarities in that they're a dispossessed people speaking their secret language and keeping their unique traditions alive.
>>98206689>Sure, Gimli had an axeOne of their battle cries was "the axes of the Dwarves are upon you".>>98208124This. Tolkien compared them entirely from a cultural standpoint.
Dwarves are my favorite fantasy race. I just love em.
>>98208153If you love them so much then post your models, fag.
>>98208153I like those republican shields. Honestly a roman republic type army setup would be pretty good for dwarves. It would match their stubborness , oh you slew Consul Dane? Well here is consul Thain with another 20000 angry assholes who all voted to kill you
>>98208157I did?
>>98206199I had an idea to run an all dwarf game in Runequest's Glorantha.Essentially, they are magical engineers with early modern technology, inhabiting the underground of a mostly bronze-age to early iron-age high fantasy setting.The campaign would take place entirely beneath the surface, and revolve around navigating the caste system, advancing yourself in your in-caste hierarchy, and repairing, maintaining, and reclaiming lost parts of a sprawling underground complex that it both a component in a world-spanning machine, and a partly ruined but still living city.
>>98206257Warhammer also brought us Slayers and the Slayer Cult, which was a genuinely interesting piece of Dwarf Worldbuilding, both that it survives mockery (NOOOOOOO! I BUILT A TABLE THAT WAS SLIGHTLY OFF BALANCE I NEED TO GO COMMIT SUICIDE BY BADASS DEAD IMMEDIATELY) and is genuinely cool
>>98206689>Never understood the dwarf jewish thing, always felt like people were reading too much into it personally. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.Tolkien named the jew, but he did it in the sense that they were also a displaced people who were seen as alien and foreign in their new country's lands and faced with the constant scorn of the local inhabitants constantly dreaming of returning home.
I guess if there's going to be a Dwarf thread we can talk about some Dwarf Games.I'm going to start with easily the single most Dwarfy game of them all, and it's called Torch and Shield. It's a miniatures Wargame where you play as a Dwarf warband delving into a !moria pastiche looking for gems and gold and glory. The other player is also a dwarf crew. This can't stand! While you fight...things are awoken in the dark and attack you both. Honestly feels like a PVPVE mordheim or something. Great game. It comes with a Warhammer-Quest esque co-op mode, and other campaigns from a basic "do missions you roll randomly until you feel ready" to a "I sure hope you packed enough supplies to survive this ya retard" to story-focused campaigns. The fact that you can, if you want, just do co-op is great. Mind you it really shines in the pvp. 3D printer/model agnostic so go nuts. Use whatever tiles ya got.There's mountainhome which is ostensibly a Dwarf Fortress-esque game where you settle a mountain but it's fucking crap and states in the beginning that Dwarf is a cultural not racial idea so you can be an Elf and be a "dwarf" retarded retarded. Also it's a PBTA game and most of its writing is really vague. Nobody plays it or cares, I found a single post on reddit where someone was screeching about how their players didnt want to play queer sensitive dwarves but instead wanted to be racist gimli dwarves. There's a Home Reclaimed which is a B/X(OSR) and Black Hack inspired game that gives you a ton of different Dwarf classes and has some light fortress building rules ( really only has buildings and costs. It's like..10% of what you need. Likely would work great paired with Dwarrowdeep, a Dwarf-themed megadungeon that requires you to generate much of the dungeon).I would be remiss not to also shout out the excellent, wonderful TOR2e which certainly allows for an all-dwarf campaign, and the fantastic moria supplement which adds a lot of stuff that rocks
>>98208092>>98208090You proved that the anon was right.
>>98206311>gnome slanderfuck off, no hat
>>98206257>Tolkein told us they live underground, in impressive structures that are mostly overrun by orcs/goblins (same thing in this context), that they love minin', and hate elves. Dwarves don't inherently hate elves. In fact, they were close partners with the Noldor (high elves). They're only bickering because they blame each other for Evil winning. >>98206378>This crew then roll through middle earth Warriors style slapping the shit out of anybody that gets in their wayThe dwarves didn't even bring weapons. Every blade they had, they recovered from trolls after Gandalf got the trolls to commit suicide. >I've forgotten my point for this one, sorryThat's fine, you've also forgotten the actual plot of the book. >>98206689>Never understood the dwarf jewish thing, always felt like people were reading too much into it personally. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Tolkien himself said they were like Jews, but not in the negative way some people think. They were like Jews in that they were a warrior people that lost their home and adapted to become tradesmen.
>>98208188>roman dwarves vs persian elveskino
>>98208073Wouldn't spears be too long and unwieldy for tunnel fighting?
>>98210111>be retarded >get called retarded >heh you just proved him rightYeah. Okay. People who play tranime stuff like that IRL are people no one wants to associate with.
>>98206689>Never understood the dwarf jewish thing, always felt like people were reading too much into it personally.Nah, the dwarven thing is REALLY jewish-coded, even not considering that interview. Not a "real ethnicity" allegory, that's for the cheapest worldbuilding, but. Hell, I sometimes joke that the Quest for Erebor is the most known sionist fiction, but more seriously, I think the idea of a dispossed ragtag bunch of misfits returning to their ancestral land was not borne out in the '30 by chance.People tend to forgot how badly in the Hobbit they liked their gold - sure, Gimli is much more heroic, but even then, Galadriel assures him that greed will not be his doom, contrasting the usual dwarven shtick. Personally I think that beyond the most telling thing one like Tolkien could give them (the pseudo-semitic language) it's interesting how much they use books and written media, in a mileu where songs and rhymes are foremost.Of course, only weak-minded people would think them being (more or less) "jewish" to be a bad thing.
>>98210779No, you're just a sad life.
>>98210781the were written as a reaction to Wagner misusing the ring cycle for antisemitism so Tolkien leaned heavy into the old testament and slowly revealed dwarf character as being heroic, they start out jewish stereotypes and end up resembling biblical characters after you spend time with them. .
>>98211274I don't think the hobbits' dwarves were, as they are pretty goofy (ok, not antisemitic per se, but not really heroic stuff) and greed is clearly a "racial" connotation for them. I mean, if I wanted to have them "redeeming" from the start I would've chosen another reason for Thorin's doom, right?IIRC he just wanted to tell a story, had dwarves (almost) right out of Sleeping Beauty, sprinkled some "nordic" vibes even on them and there you have them. Not really a take that you german ignoramus.I might be wrong tough, maybe he did say something on these lines.
>>98207863That's not a dwarf, that's at best a halfling. It obviously couldn't be a hobbit because it's wearing shoes, it obviously can't be a dwarf because they can detect slants and therefore must be level.>>98209902This man cannot read.>>98210314Your fingers are sticky and smell of sin.>>98210396Cease these pedestrian murmurings.>>98206689As I was saying, encouraging players to engage dwarfly behavior.XP rewards are the classic way to deal with this, but when I run old D&D I want to do XP for gold. Even if it weren't my go-to, I would absolutely want to do so in a dwarf game. As such I would rather have a unique reward for behavior than just pile on more ways to get XP, so we come to the metagame mechanic approach. I'm torn on this because metagame mechanics feel very nuschool, and I'm not sure if it will take away from the game at large as a result.Anyway we'll call them "Dorf Points" or DP for now. What do they do? Not sure yet.Basic Rules:1. Players can acquire DP through character actions and roleplaying. 2. Players can give, sell, or trade DP as if they were items within the game.3. Players can spend DP to reduce an incoming damage roll one-for-one.4. Players can spend DP to modify any d20 one-for-one.5. Players can spend (some number of) DP to reroll any dice roll. This means all dice if the roll involved multiple dice (such as a damage roll, ability score generation roll, percentile roll, etc) You keep the new roll, but can spend 5 points for another reroll ad infinitum Next, getting DP'd
>>98211770>I want to run a classic, old school ,dwarf game>with horrible metacurrencies!have you considered not?
>>98211842If you read the post, you would know. So it shall remain a mystery...In Game Ideas:1. When you inconvenience or kill an elf gain a DP.2. If a monster or character you have a grudge against fails a d20 roll (attacks or saves), gain a DP.3. When you craft an item gain a DP.4. When you insult a non-dwarf gain a DP.5. When you get drunk during the adventure gain a DP.6. Detect a slanting corridor, new construction, etc.Out of Game Ideas:1. At the start of the session, if your mini has a beard, axe, or hammer get a DP for each.2. At the start of the session, if you have a beard gain a DP. (The AoS rule)3. If you bring booze to the session gain a DP per serving (6 for a 6 pack, 16 for a fifth.)Yes I understand it's kind of stupid. We're not lugging the one ring here, the point is for it to be fun.
>>98211941NTA, but getting "good boy points" for playing a character "correctly" really rubs me the wrong way. Why not just let the dwarves be dwarves?
>>98211991As I said I'm torn. I may end up scrapping the idea, or just doing it for the first session to get things going.>>98209939Does it do anything frostgrave doesn't already? My group plays that quite often.Did you mean "A Home Reforged"? If so, I wouldn't call six classes "a ton." The book was decent overall though, I agree.So let's discuss the obvious, any dwarf game is probably going to end up in a Moria crawl. The above post references "Moria™™™ – Through the Doors™ of Durin™" which is, as anon said, a fantastic book. Probably the best RPG product I've paid for since the divorce lawyer. If you just want to do moria, that's the book for it. If you want to do something similar but not quite there, then we have to think over how to make it dwarfy.Guarantees: It's a big dwarven town/temple/city/castle/tower on top of a mine. There's a crazy amount of money there, and transporting it back effectively will be part of the challenge.It's in a mountain, under a mountain, on top of a mountain, or you have to climb a mountain pass to get there. Mountains are definitely involved. Something real bad happened. Balrog, dragon, big ooze, fungal infection, whatever. The longer you stay the more likely you'll bump into it.There are tons of orcs/goblins/kobolds in there too, stinking the place up.Maybe:There are probably elves nearby, rubbing their twigs and thinking about bothering you on your way there or (worse) back with all the loot.There are probably humans nearby, pretending to be all helpful and nice but they'll probably ask for money if their village burns down in an unrelated monster attack.
>>98212050contRandom ideas I like:Other dwarves are also after the loot, and murdering them just isn't dwarfy. You'll have to outsmart them, mislead them, sabotage their expedition, or make a legal claim against them in dwarfcourt.The most valuable thing in the whole place is the deed to it, which would let you set up your own kingdom there assuming you can clear out the dungeon.The way in is only open for a season, we'll say summer. The rest of the year it's too snowy/orky/wet/mushroomy to get there. This could give structure to the campaign and encourage planning out which areas the party will tackle and how, since if it doesn't work you may end up waiting until next year.Despite recovering absolute mountains of gold, the party is kind of poor. Artifacts (as in archaeological) can't just be sold off, they have to be donated to the dwarfmuseums. Then there's the underking's tax, the overking's tax, etc. Most of the fancy equipment and tools they need to continue delving (winches, ladders, whatever) have to be crafted during the downtime, not just bought at the general store.What purchasing power they do have they have to use with traveling merchants, since they're in the boonies. Special orders are expensive and slow, forcing self reliance and using what comes out of the dungeon.
>>98210781It's worth noting that greed isn't a default, fundamental trait of Tolkien's dwarves; they're slightly more susceptible to it, which is why the Seven amplified greed. Greed as a societal condition was therefore an external curse. Recall in the glittering caves the whole speech that Gimli gave; dwarves do love gold and jewels, but they love them for their beauty first and foremost, their practical uses second, and their value a distant third. >>98211770>>98211941>I'm looking to run a dwarf game, tell me about the classics>actually wants to run a satirical farce based on a poorly-understood stereotype based on a setting written as intentional parodylollmao, evenrofl, perhaps
>>98208188Roman dwarves are kino.
>>98206257>In terms of new stuff we have gunsPretty sure Runequest did it first. Gloranthan dwarves, Mostali, live in mountains and hate outsiders and shoot cannons at intruders and though I think they might be rare, they do posses firearms. I think they hunt you down if you manage to get your hands on them though. They're also depicted to be the most technologically advanced race and culture in Glorantha, their religion is dedicated to fixing the World Machine. I'm still trying to get a timeline and details right, but it's a fact that GW had the rights to license Runequest in the UK, and were talking about RQ in White Dwarf years before that, so they were deeply familiar with it and I find it undeniable that this is the source of where Warhammer got a lot of its ideas from. So I think the stream goes: Mythological dwarves who lived underground and were master craftsmen and made fantastical objects(dwarves were called Dark Elves, so there's a split here that leads to Drow later on) --> folkloric dwarves and hundreds of other small creatures, fairytale stuff like Snow White's dwarves --> Tolkien building off mythological dwarves --> Runequest dwarves exaggerating things by making them a hivemind that hate outsiders, have golems, and love making things to the point of having gunpowder in a nominally Bronze Age setting --> Warhammer dwarves toning things back to Tolkien standards but keeping the guns and tech --> Warcraft dwarves
>>98212652Also King of Dragon Pass and some Guide to Glorantha art also depict them as having a Renaissance aesthetic in their dress, but I'm not sure where to put that. I think they started depicting them like this in the late 90's when Warhammer was long already doing its own thing
>>98208102Sex dwarf
>>982061994th Ed, we played an all-dwarves, all divine, all followers of Moradin party. And believe it or not, the avenger, cleric, paladin and (I can't recall the name of the other class) had different personalities but a similar culture.Shit was cash. Made us tolerate a bad campaign far longer yhan we'd otherwise.
>>98207863If you think I wouldn't take the stereotypical disappointed japanese father voice to play a dwarf as "annoying" as the scotish one, like I did in Shadowrun.Come on, honor, order, and craftsmanship? That's the dorfest culture!
>>98215871Also helps that they're short and have a history of clans that fought each other constantly.
>>98215917>Yooooooou. -Have my honor! Frodo-San!...> I would have thought dishonorable to fight the battle of my life alongside an elf.>> What about alongside a friend?> There is honor. > In that. > Legolas-San.*courteous bow*
>>98207863What is the difference between this "dwarf" and your typical anime loli, exactly? Hell you can find actual Japanese women who are 4 ft 7 spinners, are they fantasy dwarves?
>>98217770>Japanese women who are 4 ft 7 spinners, are they fantasy dwarves?They would be real life dwarfs since they are Japanese and we understand dwarfs as really short people compared to the average, with or without dwarfism condition. A manlet is a manlet is a manlet. What's the difference between the depiction of your 'correct' dwarves and past depictions goblins, gnomes & elves from the past? Author intent.
>>98217770> What is the difference between this "dwarf" and your typical anime loli, exactly?Plausible deniability. Perfect for every fetish. Altho, tbf, I'm the kinda guy that would play a male human fighter in the MAID TTRPG. So I am biased.
>>98217770>What is the difference between this "dwarf" and your typical anime loli, exactlyOther than culture and language and Eitri's weird detachment from life due to the main character's summoning pistols?It's like asking what separates an elf from any sttractive human woman.
>>98220449>Plausibleguess again
>>98217770SW for example is pretty clear on the fact that they're tsundere lo... well, generally brash little girls that don't age (altough they don't appear to behave particulary childishly, to be fair).Leprechauns are cuter any way.That being said your question might be more interesting than you tought. Tolkien seems to have been really on the "you can take them for humans" school: even the ones with different traits (hobbit's ears) are taken for human children by Treebeard. I would assume even his dwarves are well, basically short humans (I think PJ with them did a decent job in the first movies, which can't be said with elves: just a bit gruffier, but if they were taller they would be humans).It's the later, post-dnd milieu that wants human races to look distincitly non-humans. Lolis or not, do dwarves need to be "non human"?
>>98221214>do dwarves need to be "non human"?I don't think they should, else how would Sigurd have passed himself off as a dwarf.
>>98217770Got the retarded lolifag upset with that post.
Dwarves are elves.For real, they’re the Germanic cognate of the norse Dökkalfar, “dark elves,” but separate from the Svartalfar, “Black Elves.” They live under the earth, mining, cutting gems, carving stones and forging metal. There’s a divergence of culture and identity but both are the same fundamental being.So feel free to take and borrow any old Elf thing you find useful or fun and stamp it on your dwarves.As for modern reinterpretations, the Dwarves in Tolkein were created by Aulë, the same divine maia who taught the Nolder (the Deep Elves) how to cut stone and to smelt and forge and craft. On the videogame front, Bethesda went full-circle and made their Dwarves into a type of elf as part of a retcon, and used the term Deep Elves as a crossover description and a nod back to Tolkein.There’s a lot of foggy weirdness. The fair folk and little people from stories out of books like The Mabinogion or Arthur Machen, they can be an interesting source.If you want your dwarves to be memorable, you have to go back further than Tolkein and the usual TTRPG fair.
>>98223525I was thinking of whether or not I should post "Drow are dwarves" and what the consequence it would bring, out of curiosity Because technically, they are. It's literally what they're based on, with a bit of Elric of Melnibone thrown in.
>>98223525I think, if I'm recalling correctly, that dwarfs have a bit of a unique role within mythology as connected to the afterlife or the spiritual world in some way, as Thor kicks them into funeral pyres.
>>98215154No one would believe that's a dwarf.
>>98206199>tell me your dwarf opinionsDwarves should be Peruvian, Tibetan, or Naplesein culture/architecture, if not appearance>high altitude adapted>mountainous flora and fauna available to influence culture/dietIt just seems obvious to me. Also>dwarves live ON mountains, not in themeven with Tolkien, Moria was intended to be some grand architectural wonder among dwarves that took Gimli’s breath away and ultimately was called “the tomb” by dwarves because they knew it was full of dead guys and probably uninhabitable even if you cleared out the orcs. It makes zero sense to live INSIDE of a mountain in 99% of cases. Moria just happened because they dug SO deep and for SO long that it was easier to build a city inside rather than take a month to travel down to the mines and back with your goods. Most dwarves strongholds would be built using the outer layer of the mountain with smaller dwellings and roads for travel on the surface. Not to mention if dwarves truly lived underground they should be subject to all the same earmarks any other dark-dwelling creature has: light sensitivity, pale skin, dilated pupils, etc. Ultimately, I can only picture dwarf architecture as similar to the Incan highway systems in Peru, which is the closest thing we have ever seen to a truly mountainous people with almost no geographical territory on a non-sloped surface.
>>98225621Skill issue.>>98220449>deniabilityNo, just live with it. We already have dwarves taking the backseat to elves because several people likening them to loli already.
>>98226041Dwarfs should have mountains, not mole hills.
