But also bare in mind, that roleplaying was born out of Tolkien's vision, it's the basis of retro games,
Actually, I would argue that roleplaying was born out of historical wargaming, and
D&D is the basis of retro games, not Tolkien.
Empire of the Petal Throne is a retro RPG which does not use Tolkien's fantasy world and came out the same year (1974).
Just because
D&D was the first commercially successful RPG, doesn't mean all retro-clones need copy its
setting to be called retro. Forbidden Lands certainly never did - they claimed the "retro" tag based on their mechanics.
Anyway, we already know we're getting a familiar flavour of fantasy, I'm just saying that those wanting something a bit more weird or original (a fair few based on the posts here) should wait for the hacks.
Assumption, again,
Did you understand what I wrote?
Modern rpgs came from D&D, D&D came from the mix of a war game being used to play in Tolkien's world, and that evolved in to the first rpg,
(now, bare in mind, when I was a little kid I created a rpg, without knowing what an rpg was, used dice, had skills, if I could do this as a little kid, I'm guess many others though out history have done the same, they just weren't known by the general public, so was it the first rpg? Doubt it)
The play style is the basis of retro, not the system, that's a miss association and common mistake, it's just those that had a good time with classes and levels think it was the cause for those good memories, if the system was to be credited they would be more popular, they are not mainstream, and don't have broad appeal,
Classical western fantasy is Elves, Dwarves, Giants and Dragons, this is by default, (I'd also like to point out that Dungeons and Dragons is still the flag ship of rpg' s, while Empire of the Petal Throne, is not, could it be the weird setting putting people off? There is a good reason that game fails, (btw every company that got involved in that game went out of business)
So do you want retro fantasy, then it has to be based on classical fantasy, because that's where it started,(and btw, dungeons and dragons predates 1974, they were playing versions of this before it became public)
So like it or loathe it, Tolkien is the roots of retro fantasy, that's just history,