Mercule
Adventurer
Oh, like Excalibur, Durandal, Naegling, and Mjolnir?Weapons with names and magical powers ("Sting")
Oh, like Excalibur, Durandal, Naegling, and Mjolnir?Weapons with names and magical powers ("Sting")
Other than Gygax himself claiming otherwise you mean. Will track down a link when I get a moment.D&D Elves are Tolkien Elves. No question.
Ok. Tolkien clearly influenced general fantasy lore - and to be fair, a vast number of disparate individuals who clearly HAD read Tolkien made their own little additions throughout all the D&D source and adventure books even after the original vision put forth by Gygax, Arneson, et al. HOWEVER, quite a bit of what people seem to ascribe to Tolkien here were actually quite common and present in folklore, sword and sorcery fiction, and general art before and around the time of Tolkien. It's just that people in this particular part of the new millennium seem to have either forgotten or fail to appreciate the influence of sources like Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung or say Lord Dunsany's stories in general fantasy and the inception of D&D.The question was "What did D&D borrow from Tolkien" vs. "What did Tolkien create whole cloth". Lots of the things you bring up existed before Tolkien, but its Tolkien's version that inspired the D&D variants that followed.
D&D goblins tend more toward the mythological roots as mischievous, cowardly, and incompetent evil creatures. Tolkien's versions are much larger, sinister, ferocious, and more threatening. Tolkien describes them as having been responsible for machines of mass murder and destruction. Tolkien's goblins are orcs.Huh? They're very close to the goblins in The Hobbit. What dissimilarities are you thinking of?
It's just that people in this particular part of the new millennium seem to have either forgotten or fail to appreciate the influence of sources like Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung or say Lord Dunsany's stories in general fantasy and the inception of D&D.
You do know that many of the monsters in the original monster manuals came from obscure mythological sources, right? Things that have no presence whatsoever in Tolkien, like Rakshasa and naga. Gygax and others were very clearly aware of and influenced by such things...Not to mention that Wagner's work is one of at least five different mythological variations on the same story (or rather set of stories). So, yes, the writers would have been very much aware of it.So, in other words, if Tolkien had never written his books, in the mid-70's EGG & Co. would have said, "You know, I was just listening to Wagner and I had this great idea for a new kind of game..."
I thinketh not.
You do know that many of the monsters in the original monster manuals came from obscure mythological sources, right? Things that have no presence whatsoever in Tolkien, like Rakshasa and naga. Gygax and others were very clearly aware of and influenced by such things...Not to mention that Wagner's work is one of at least five different mythological variations on the same story (or rather set of stories). So, yes, the writers would have been very much aware of it.
Yes, we would have. D&D's roots are more directly from miniature wargaming than fantasy fiction. And contrary to popular delusion, Tolkien didn't create or single-handedly mainstream the entire genre either. Even within the realm of pulp "fantasy" fiction, stories like Robert Howard's Conan the Barbarian predate Lord of the Rings by decades...My question is whether we would even have "fantasy roleplaying" (or fantasy as a genre) in the absence of Tolkien. I am not suggesting he is the source of every idea, and yes he in turn got many of his ideas from other sources including English and northern European mythology (I'm surprised nobody has mentioned William Morris yet.)
But he popularized the genre. I don't think it would have occurred to the wargamers of the 70's to create fantasy roleplaying if Tolkien had died in WWI.
Yes, we would have. D&D's roots are more directly from miniature wargaming than fantasy fiction.
And contrary to popular delusion, Tolkien didn't create or single-handedly mainstream the entire genre either. Even within the realm of pulp "fantasy" fiction, stories like Robert Howard's Conan the Barbarian predate Lord of the Rings by decades...