Imladris - sorry if you thought I was implying you were dumb or a bad writer - neither was my intent. I was merely saying that details are important. One should apply pertinent details in order enrich one's writing and enhance the experience of the reader. I interpreted your statement:
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When in doubt, leave it as vague as possible.
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as a word of advice to me that I would be better off not worrying with details as they are not important. Sorry, I still have to say it sounds a touch lazy to me!
As for your example of Tolkein's descriptions of the corsairs, not much else was needed, was it? But then, he was not writing an extended adventure on board a ship. He was writing about the reactions of people on land to the sight of the ships. I am talking about times when one needs specific details. As for Bb, I'm am certain she understands the importance of detail, hence why would she have created her wonderful RPG Resource Thread, eh?
In an RPG, as I ran into in "Here There Be Dragons" when my character needed to describe his ship, I could not very well have him say, "Oh, well, let's see. It had a deck and a sail. Ummm... Oh, yeah, a rudder, too!" You see where I am going with this? My purpose in starting this thread was to discover if there was a common frame of reference out there according to people's visions after reading the books. I may picture a three-masted sailing vessel, while other people may picture a viking longship with a single sail. In the vast scheme of things, I'm sure it doesn't make that much difference to the world which is which, but it does make a difference when one is attempting to become a stronger performer in a given arena.
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I would also like to point out that we cannot use Vikings, Edwardian, etc styles because they were after ME's time.
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As for this comment, I do have to say that you seem to be taking my remarks a touch too literally. I would never describe something in an RPG by those standards as they do not exist within the context of Middle Earth. To say that Middle Earth came at a time prior to that is erroneous because we are talking about two separate and totally disconnected worlds. While they bear a resemblance to one another, we can cannot in all seriousness say that ME came before this world. If we did that - going back to technology - we would be implying that mantle clocks and umbrellas existed prior to vikings.
Because Prof. Tolkein belonged to this world, i.e. 20th Century Europe, he did draw on these time periods, viking, Edwardian, etc, for reference. Therefore, we are perfectly entitled to use these terms when describing his work, characters, or scenes in a context of criticism and discussion, which I believe this is.
