Whom do you think is the cooler dwarf?
I mention this because I believe, as Gygax did, that
D&D is essentially human-centered. In my OSR game, I offer the other races for their game-mechanic benefits, but I still refer to them as humans, and encourage my players to think of them as such. At best, they may be singular representatives of a different race, but there is no concentrated population of their kin to be found in the campaign. If they truly are non-human, they are outsiders, cast-outs, strangers in strange lands.
(P.S., I love
Lord of the Rings, and I think John Rhys-Davies did a great job of portraying Gimli. But swords and sorcery is a different sub-genre from High Fantasy, and s&s is the style I currently prefer, and I believe it fits the original game better.)
cheers,
Adam
