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Guest 6801328
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Your opinions would probably be better received if you offered them without also constantly stating assumptions about what other people are thinking or understanding or realizing or reading.
D&D 5E Which parts of D&D came from Tolkien?
Your opinions would probably be better received if you offered them without also constantly stating assumptions about what other people are thinking or understanding or realizing or reading.
Shadowdweller00
Adventurer
Conan is more often a loner, but does both actually. Though his equals are few and far between. Examples: Queen of the Black Coast, Tower of the Elephant (single companion; also includes a giant spider). Another well-known example.
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Parmandur
Book-Friend
Several people tried, considering the books were selling millions: the saga of Tolkien movie rights is good enough for a movie itself.
The cartoon may have been a watershed moment, but Tolkien was already absurdly popular: as for 1977, the printing of "Sword of Shannara" as the flagship for Delivery Rey books (which might as well have been "Tolkienian Books") had about as big an influence on the flood of Tolkien homages in print: before Lester Eel Rey proved otherwise with Brooks, most assumed Tolkien was inimitble.
Yaarel
He Mage
One thing I am glad D&D stole from Tolkien is ... humansize Elf.
The Elf of reallife folklore is as tall as a human, often coupling with humans. Only in modern times did people confuse the Elf with the Fairy of Shakespeare.
Tolkien reminded popular culture that the Elf is really humansize. Heh, this was enormously helpful at a time when, when people heard the word ‘elf’, they thought ‘Santa’s little helpers’.
The Elf of reallife folklore is as tall as a human, often coupling with humans. Only in modern times did people confuse the Elf with the Fairy of Shakespeare.
Tolkien reminded popular culture that the Elf is really humansize. Heh, this was enormously helpful at a time when, when people heard the word ‘elf’, they thought ‘Santa’s little helpers’.
Celebrim
Legend
Your objections are a bit of a mixed bag. In some cases I think you make a strong argument, and in some cases I think you make a very weak one.
This is an example of a weak one. The image of green skinned, pig-face, tusked orcs has to come from somewhere. It's quite true that such an image is not true to the Tolkien text, but not being true to the Tolkien text is not sufficient to prove that the appearance - much less the idea of orcs - is not derived from Tolkien. This might seem counter-intuitive, but derivation must include the possibility of misunderstandings and mistranslations. To argue otherwise would be to argue that Dracula wasn't inspired by legends about vampires, because vampires weren't associated with bats but with moths. But, if we have evidence a prominent author misunderstands a Romanian word for 'moth' as 'bat', then we can certainly - aside from any the other abundant evidence - conclude that Dracula is intended to be a vampire.
In this case, if we can show that people were illustrating Tolkien's orcs in a way that might be described as 'pig faced' or with 'green skin' prior to the appearance of the illustrations in D&D, or if we can show some miscommunication led to the artist thinking 'pig faced' was an appropriate illustration given the art direction, then it is still derived from Tolkien. We just have to make note of this new innovation or evolution when it occurred as the source of this new idea not found in Tolkien.
Again, you are actually right here, but for the wrong reasons. The appearance of giant spiders in mythology, pulp fiction, or on the Leng plateau doesn't mean that the giant spiders in D&D weren't derived from Tolkien. They still could have been, but - if they were specifically lifted from Tolkien - we'd expect that they would have certain features found in Tolkien that aren't found in other source material. If for example, the original D&D giant spider could talk in its own language, hated to be called 'attercap', and had sleep inducing poison - then we could probably conclude quite safely that Tolkien had been the inspiration for D&D's giant spider. However, as far as I know, it has none of these features, so its much more likely that the giant spider had a more generic source, or multiple sources, or some source other than Tolkien specifically. Proving which one would go beyond the scope of this exercise.
Yes, but in this case, we can conclude that Tolkien is the source of the Giant Eagle entry in the Monster Manual for exactly the same reasons we cannot assume that Tolkien is the source of the giant spider entry. The Giant Eagle entry simply has too many features that are evocative of Tolkien, and is distinguished too much from other sorts of giant birds, to simply represent a generic giant bird of mythology. Indeed, the very fact that Tolkien's eagles share features with Zeus's eagles, that are not found in D&D's eagles, but D&D's eagles share features with Tolkien's eagles that aren't features of Zeus's eagle is very strong evidence that D&D's eagles are lifted directly from Tolkien and not an older source.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that D&D's worgs are lifted directly from Norse mythology. If we observe features specific to D&D's worgs that are found in Tolkien but not found in the Norse mythology, then we should assume that the worgs were lifted from Tolkien.
And so on and so forth. Just because some example exists that is older than Tolkien does not mean we can rule out Tolkien as the source.
Yaarel
He Mage
A note on Elf color coding.
Shakespeare describes the childlike nocturnal Fairy as wearing only four colors: White, Green, Grey, and Black. Presumably these are the colors of nighttime vegetation − white moonlight, green leaves, gray shadows, black night.
The Fairy queen explicitly wears solid white. So it is possible the colors represent ranks or kinds of Fairies.
In any case, Tolkien might have Shakespeare in mind when color coding the Elves.
White Elf (High)
Green Elf (Wood)
Grey Elf
Black Elf
Shakespeare describes the childlike nocturnal Fairy as wearing only four colors: White, Green, Grey, and Black. Presumably these are the colors of nighttime vegetation − white moonlight, green leaves, gray shadows, black night.
The Fairy queen explicitly wears solid white. So it is possible the colors represent ranks or kinds of Fairies.
In any case, Tolkien might have Shakespeare in mind when color coding the Elves.
White Elf (High)
Green Elf (Wood)
Grey Elf
Black Elf
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
Gary commented on this a number of times over the years, here's some quotes and thoughts from Grognardia:
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/01/gygax-on-tolkien-again.html
The ranger is more likely to be inspired by Tolkien because it wasn't written by Gygax. Joe Fischer wrote the original class so it doesn't share the same genesis as the rest of the game. When asked, Gary always said he had no idea what Joe's inspiration was for the ranger class, and I've never seen any comments from Joe himself so I'm not sure we'll ever know. Most folks point to Aragorn as the model since the ranger can use scrying devices, but the connection to clerics (initially) would obviously not be a Tolkien thing since clerics (and almost religion itself) are entirely absent in his works, and I don't recall any indication that Aragorn would have been a spellcaster.
But ultimately, I think what's more important is not what parts might have come from Tolkien. It's that players could easily conform the game to Tolkien. Being a game that happens entirely in your mind, fans of Tolkien and other fantasy at the time would naturally experience it in that light. That's part of the beauty of the game and the RPG genre as a whole. So I think it has more to do with what the players chose to do with the game, which often layered a strong Tolkien influence on top, rather than the original intent of the game, or what material actually came from Tolkien.
If there hadn't been a lot of interest in Tolkien at the time (even cropping up in music as diverse as Led Zeppelin and Joe Walsh, among others), I suspect that D&D would have been more of a niche game initially. In fact, it really took off with the release of the first Basic Set. Had D&D not been so huge compared to the rest of the industry at the time, a science-fantasy variation with loose references to Star Wars after 1977 very well could have been the game that took off.
My 2cp anyway.
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/01/gygax-on-tolkien-again.html
The ranger is more likely to be inspired by Tolkien because it wasn't written by Gygax. Joe Fischer wrote the original class so it doesn't share the same genesis as the rest of the game. When asked, Gary always said he had no idea what Joe's inspiration was for the ranger class, and I've never seen any comments from Joe himself so I'm not sure we'll ever know. Most folks point to Aragorn as the model since the ranger can use scrying devices, but the connection to clerics (initially) would obviously not be a Tolkien thing since clerics (and almost religion itself) are entirely absent in his works, and I don't recall any indication that Aragorn would have been a spellcaster.
But ultimately, I think what's more important is not what parts might have come from Tolkien. It's that players could easily conform the game to Tolkien. Being a game that happens entirely in your mind, fans of Tolkien and other fantasy at the time would naturally experience it in that light. That's part of the beauty of the game and the RPG genre as a whole. So I think it has more to do with what the players chose to do with the game, which often layered a strong Tolkien influence on top, rather than the original intent of the game, or what material actually came from Tolkien.
If there hadn't been a lot of interest in Tolkien at the time (even cropping up in music as diverse as Led Zeppelin and Joe Walsh, among others), I suspect that D&D would have been more of a niche game initially. In fact, it really took off with the release of the first Basic Set. Had D&D not been so huge compared to the rest of the industry at the time, a science-fantasy variation with loose references to Star Wars after 1977 very well could have been the game that took off.
My 2cp anyway.
Shadowdweller00
Adventurer
I don't give Tolkien credit for material he didn't write. If Steeldragons is correct then that would be the brothers Hildebrandt. The fact that such illustrations were made in response to Tolkien's work is irrelevant. Tolkien didn't popularize the illustrations over and beyond his writing - the illustrators and publishers did. Conan Doyle equally doesn't get credit for the infamous deerstalker because that's not actually his work. Dracula can be about vampires...but still be the creation of Bram Stoker. I could go into George Herbert Mead's sociological theories here, but that's how fiction/literature works. Authors (artists/creators) influence each other, even across genres and completely different media. The body of work they build up influences their own future works and those of others. The public understanding of what the ideas in those works mean...evolves as new works are created or forgotten.
Just to clarify though, I was merely pointing out cosmetics there. Overall, I think the concept of orcs as a whole in D&D is pretty solidly Tolkienesque.
Everyone hates being called attercop
(Yes, I'm aware the reference is wrong).This one brings up another issue I've sort of been trying to get across. What happens a game designer brings up a concept found elsewhere, but includes one or two items from one particular work of fiction and maybe one or two others from a second? Easter eggs, as it were. What happens when you have a giant, speaking spider that hates being called Attercop (Tolkien)...but also has deadlights (Stephen King's It)? You can't really pretend that such a chimera singularly came from either Tolkien OR Stephen king. It came from both. The reality is that many of the D&D game ideas are patchworks drawn from multiple works of fiction, all too frequently I think by deliberate intent. Why make a class that only models Aragorn, for example...when you could also model Robin Hood, Orion, Tarzan, Fafhrd, etc? Of course then we need to differentiate whether we're arguing about ideas influenced by Tolkien or ideas taken from Tolkien. Are you sure which we're doing here? (And if so, who is doing it in which posts...)
It seems idiotic to me to presume that a concept like giant spiders, that appears in multiple media and mythological forms MUST have come from Tolkien, even if the game variant shares one or two traits possessed by Tolkien-spiders. (All giant spiders have sleep-inducing poison maybe) (Note: they didn't). The similarity may merely be an attempt at inclusion; or the trait may be an inside reference / easter egg.
Perhaps. Zeus's eagle is fairly obscure, but we do know that Gygax (or whomever) took a fair bit of other things from Greek myth: Minotaurs, chimeras, sphinx (at least the riddle part). Intelligent, anthropomorphized, or talking animals aren't even slightly unique in myth and fiction. Several different types of animals in the 1st edition MM were uncharacteristically intelligent (particularly giant versions). Standard dolphins were more intelligent than the average human!
Except that they were in this case, with some slight variation (see influenced vs taken from). The name is pretty much straight Anglicized "old norse". They are god-like or spirit-like being in norse myth in the shape of wolves, that exhibit intelligence. The bit about being ridden by savage humanoids is from Tolkien, and the o in worg is no doubt an attempt to avoid lawsuits from the Tolkien estate. Gygax furthermore took a number of other things from Norse myth such as certain deities, particular magical hammers, folding boats...
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An essay by Gygax in Dragon 95 (March 1985) seems relevant (pp 12-13):
Though I thoroughly enjoyed The Hobbit, I found the “Ring Trilogy” . . . well, tedious. The action dragged, and it smacked of an allegory of the struggle of the little common working folk of England against the threat of Hitler’s Nazi evil. At the risk of incurring the wrath of the Professor’s dedicated readers, I must say that I was so bored with his tomes that I took nearly three weeks to finish them. . . .
“Ent” is interesting; Tolkien took the name from an old Anglo-Saxon word for “giant,” and his treatment of them as sentient trees is inspired. This sort of creature appears in both game systems. “Orc” (from Orcus) is another term for an ogre or ogrelike creature. Being useful fodder for the ranks of bad guys, monsters similar to Tolkien’s orcs are also in both games. . . .
“Hobbit” is another folkword borrowed from legends, but Tolkien personified and developed these diminutive stalwarts extensively. They, and the name, are virtually unique to his works, and the halflings of both game systems draw substantial inspiration from them. . . .
The seeming parallels and inspirations are actually the results of a studied effort to capitalize on the then-current “craze” for Tolkien’s literature.
“Ent” is interesting; Tolkien took the name from an old Anglo-Saxon word for “giant,” and his treatment of them as sentient trees is inspired. This sort of creature appears in both game systems. “Orc” (from Orcus) is another term for an ogre or ogrelike creature. Being useful fodder for the ranks of bad guys, monsters similar to Tolkien’s orcs are also in both games. . . .
“Hobbit” is another folkword borrowed from legends, but Tolkien personified and developed these diminutive stalwarts extensively. They, and the name, are virtually unique to his works, and the halflings of both game systems draw substantial inspiration from them. . . .
The seeming parallels and inspirations are actually the results of a studied effort to capitalize on the then-current “craze” for Tolkien’s literature.
Taking Gygax at his word, even he acknowledges the derivative character of D&D treants, haflings and orcs. At least at that time, he also didn't profess any dislike for The Hobbit.
Absolutely. The orc tribes in Chainmail are even named after Tolkien's orcs (The Red Eye, the White Hand, etc).
I would say that the most Tolkienesque element of D&D is the idea of fantasy "races" as distinct humanesque cultures, rather than as "monsters" who have no comprehensible and rational existence of their own. I regard this as probably the most significant literary achievement of LotR - it takes the idea of the "Fairy Queen" and elves, brownies, kobolds etc and makes them plausible within the conventions of the modern, more-or-less naturalistic novel.
D&D absolutely takes this for granted - that elves and dwarves are just as "naturalised" as humans - and I think it takes it entirely from Tolkien.
But the basic fictional framing of D&D owes as much to JRRT as to REH. REH is a principal source of the "adventurer" trope, and also of a fantasy world which is an ahistorical pastiche of historical eras. But JRRT is the source of the adventuring fellowship whose members are of varied "races" which are both (i) legendary elves, dwarves, etc but also (ii) essentially humans in variant guise.
@Celebrim has me blocked, but the quotes of his posts mostly respond to the case of the giant eagles: but for JRRT, why would giant eagles be called out as (i) distinct from rocs, (ii) as being able to talk, and (iii) as "attack[ing] evil creatures which seem to be threatening" and "fairly friendly towards certain dwarves and elves" (AD&D MM, p 36).
And as far as wearbears are concerned, the derivation from Beorn is very apparent in their CG alignment. (Which, as others have said, is not to say that JRRT invented Beorn from whole cloth. It's to assert that, but for Beorn, no CG werebears.)
The paladin is not directly inspired by Tolkien - its a combination of history (Knights Templar etc), legend (the healing hands of saintly kings) and fiction (Arthurian etc romances). But one of the best treatments of that archetype in fantasy fiction is Tolkien's treatment of Aragorn.
Isn't that what this thread asks for?
L
lowkey13
Guest
*Deleted by user*
