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This is something that I thought up ages ago, and suggested when Angband discussions were all on a Usenet Group (rec.games.roguelike.angband.something?).
Anyways... Someone pointed out to me that the Angband "theme" is all over the map these days. I know that over the different years, dozens of coders have added monsters and items from all over fantasy literature, mythology and film. What I was thinking is that these monsters and items could be flagged with their origin, and then when the game was opened, players could have a choice of which sources of creatures and objects they wanted to include.
For example, a bunch of monsters from David Edding's Belgariad series were once added (haven't encountered any in the current version). If all of these monsters (and the few items that are from those books) were flagged from that source, it would be easy to add them all, or opt not to add them in.
Additional flags for Japanese, Greek... and uhm, there's gotta be more in there, right? could be developed. Some of those sources could also be expanded -perhaps someone who's got a real fondness for Japanese mythos is just itching to add a pile of creatures and items to the game, but doesn't want to "spam" people who aren't so keen on it.
Obviously, there would be a "CORE" group, that should always be in the game... although the option to deselect ALL monsters and items might be ... well, stupid, but if someone wanted to depopulate the entire dungeon and run down to 99th level just to sight-see...
Additional idea: Weapons could also be developed which are "bane" against an entire source of creatures.
Anyways... Someone pointed out to me that the Angband "theme" is all over the map these days. I know that over the different years, dozens of coders have added monsters and items from all over fantasy literature, mythology and film. What I was thinking is that these monsters and items could be flagged with their origin, and then when the game was opened, players could have a choice of which sources of creatures and objects they wanted to include.
For example, a bunch of monsters from David Edding's Belgariad series were once added (haven't encountered any in the current version). If all of these monsters (and the few items that are from those books) were flagged from that source, it would be easy to add them all, or opt not to add them in.
Additional flags for Japanese, Greek... and uhm, there's gotta be more in there, right? could be developed. Some of those sources could also be expanded -perhaps someone who's got a real fondness for Japanese mythos is just itching to add a pile of creatures and items to the game, but doesn't want to "spam" people who aren't so keen on it.
Obviously, there would be a "CORE" group, that should always be in the game... although the option to deselect ALL monsters and items might be ... well, stupid, but if someone wanted to depopulate the entire dungeon and run down to 99th level just to sight-see...
Additional idea: Weapons could also be developed which are "bane" against an entire source of creatures.
But Tolkien alone is insanely sparse for anything BUT the uniques. The D&D critters often...not always, but often...have close enough parallels to the Tolkien critters that it's no big deal to include them. 
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