Well, yeah. :)
Anyway, I'm up to Chapter X in my own re-read. You can read previous installments here. Professor Pope's installments are here.
A Warm Welcome
For the benefit of my readers that (gasp!) haven't actually read The Hobbit, this chapter concerns the coming of Bilbo and the dwarves to Laketown after a wet and miserable escape from the dungeons of the elf king. Laketown is a cool little island of civilization (literally - it is built on pylons out into a lake) in a land decimated by the coming of the dragon. It's inhabitants include refugees from Dale, men who used trade with the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain. These men remember the riches of the dwarven kings and these stories are recalled as Bilbo and the dwarves are welcomed with (mostly) open arms. Our protagonists are nursed back to health, feted with numerous honors, and equipped for the final stage of their quest.
This is the third and final chapter in The Hobbit that is entirely about Bilbo and the dwarves receiving some form of hospitality. But in each case, the nature of the hospitality differs greatly. In A Short Rest, the party receives unconditional support from Elrond and the elves of Rivendel at almost the very beginning of their adventure. In Queer Lodgings, the party must carefully negotiate with a potentially dangerous ally and follow his rules precisely. In this latest chapter, the party arrives as heroes straight out of tales of old. The townsfolk of Laketown shower them with gifts and place exceedingly high expectations on them. As we will see in a few chapters, the townsfolk will suffer the consequences of these misplaced expectations.
Though these three chapters can be viewed as transitions between the exciting parts of the tale, I find them to be quite inspirational for fantasy sandbox gaming. Inevitably, a party of player characters will need to rest and re-equip before moving on to the next stage of their adventure. The Hobbit shows that these little interludes and can be handled in many different ways. Without even turning these into adventures in their own right, even describing them differently can provide for some interesting roleplaying and will allow characters to place their adventures in the context of living breathing world. This chapter's example is especially interesting to me, because I've never done anything like it. I love the idea of a party being hailed as heroes as they arrive in some remote outpost of civilization. Picture the so-called heroes receiving more generosity than the townsfolk can actually spare. Now imagine the angst that (some of) the characters will suffer when their subsequent adventures bring destruction and despair down on their former benefactors.
Other Thoughts
- The self-serving Master of Laketown appears to be a unique sort of slimy, self-serving but not-entirely evil character that isn't found in the rest of the Tolkien oeuvre. He's not some heroic king like Aragorn, or tragically mad character like Denethor, or ensorcelled old man like Theoden. He's just a cynical politician. And he makes the town of Laketown that much more real as a result.
- I really love Laketown as a setting. It's an iconic locale that serves as a great model for frontier settlements in fantasy games.
- Other than the elves, who do the people of Laketown trade with? In the map of the Wilderlands included the Hobiit, the River Running runs off the map to the southeast. Presumably, they trade with people down there. Who are those people and what are they like?
- When's the last time one of your player characters ever caught a nuisance illness like a cold? Adventurers suffer all manner of environmental hazards and even though they are a tough breed, it's hard to imagine them not getting sick from time to time.
- The Risus Companion has a whole chapter of Dirty Little Thrills - little moments that can make your player characters squeal with delight. One such moment, "I Told You So", appears in this chapter as the elvish trading party in Laketown realize that Thorin and Company have escaped from their dungeons, their unjust imprisonment reflecting very badly on their king.
4 comments:
"The Hobbit reads like an old school D&D campaign report"
Agree, one of the reasons I find the notion put forward by some that Tolkien had little influence on the development of D&D a hard sell.
When's the last time one of your player characters ever caught a nuisance illness like a cold?
I put an NPC with a cough in a game once... everyone treated him like he had the plague.
B5: Horror on the Hill has characters pick up fleas if they sleep in the wrong place. :)
Nice article- I particularly appreciate your appraisal of the three seperate hospitality scenarios. Hospitality was a key issue in Old English literature- just consider Beowulf- and I suspect that the expectations and ramifications of hospitality obligations are indeed a theme the Professor was developing here.
As to your comments regarding the eventual reward for the kindness of the townsfolk,such melancholy eventualities are a great theme in heroic literature, aren't they? It brings to mind the chequered career of Heracles. Heroes, unmwitting, harm the folk around them,including loved ones, unwittingly, by virtue of their resonant heroics presence. The gods look in their direction, which, for mortals, is never a good thing...
@ckutalik: I agree. I think the influence of Tolkien on D&D is hard to dispute.
@Stuart: "I put an NPC with a cough in a game once... everyone treated him like he had the plague."
Hee hee. Funny. Players always assume the worst. :)
@Ragnardbard: Indeed. The Hobbit doesn't feel as Anglo-Saxon as parts of LotR or other tales in Middle-Earth (especially Children of Hurin), but the influence is clearly there if you look for it. All good stuff for gaming, too.
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