D&D 5E Why D&D is not (just) Tolkien

[Parmandur]

Gygax could have said that Lord of the Rings was formative to his reading, but I don't see how. He was born in 1938. The Lord of the Rings was not published until the mid-50's.

And worse, Gygax was American, LOTR was not generally available in the US until Ace books bootlegged it in 1965...just in time for it to be adopted by the counterculture. It's understandable that Gygax would be antipathic to LOTR; here's a near 30 year old man who has been reading great fantasy and scifi by the likes of Anderson, Howard, de Camp, and Burroughs suddenly inundated with Johnny Come Latelies who suddenly discovered fantasy exists with their discovery of Hobbits.

It's pretty much how I feel about Game of Thrones and "Big Bang Theory".

He may likely have read the Hobbit as a kid, as it was published in the US in 1938 and was a roaring success in the children's lit field; indeed, if the Tolkien influence on Gygax's part comes from the pre-LotR edition of the Hobbit (pre-Retcon Third Edition from the 60's), that would make a lot of sense.

It is worth noting, as well, that the Hobbit was one of Poul Anderson's favorite books before the LotR came out, so if he was exposed to Anderson, Gygax would have likely heard of the Hobbit before the crazed of the 60's.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Salamandyr]

He may likely have read the Hobbit as a kid; indeed, if the Tolkien influence on Gygax's part comes from the pre-LotR edition of the Hobbit (pre-Retcon Third Edition from the 60's), that would make a lot of sense.

Yes, the dates fit much better that he could have read it. But is The Hobbit really what we're talking about here. Even if Gygax first read the Hobbit as a child (entirely possible), and it sparked his love of fantasy, it's very clear that his fantastic vision was modified more by what he read since.

As I recall, Gygax was much kinder to The Hobbit than he was to LOTR, but absent it's later sequel, it really wasn't the seminal work it is considered today. It's really difficult for people today, inundated as we are with Tolkien, Tolkien-pastiches, Tolkien-reactions, and anti-Tolkiens, to understand that for grown-ups who had been reading fantasy for years, Tolkien was just another entry in the canon, no better, and sometimes worse, than what had come before.

I imagine I probably annoyed my older nerds as a child with my love of all things Star Wars when they laugh and think about everything I saw as groundbreaking was already done in Flash Gordon serials and Gray Lensman stories.

 

[Parmandur]

Gygax often claimed that he read the Hobbit once to himself (although he never gave a timeframe AFAIK) and few times to his kids, and generally liked it.

Also, and FWIW, this link provides a good summary, with references to the sources, regarding turn undead-

http://boggswood.blogspot.com/2014/08/turn-undead-are-we-getting-it-wrong.html

(It doesn't go into the full accounts of the contemporary players that others places have of the first Vampire Hunters/Priests/Clerics, but gives a concise overview of the evolution of the rule from the Arneson campaign into OD&D)

Yeah, the Fang-Cleric Blackmoor thing is pretty firmly established: Hammer Horror had a big impact on the game.

 

[Parmandur]

Yes, the dates fit much better that he could have read it. But is The Hobbit really what we're talking about here. Even if Gygax first read the Hobbit as a child (entirely possible), and it sparked his love of fantasy, it's very clear that his fantastic vision was modified more by what he read since.

As I recall, Gygax was much kinder to The Hobbit than he was to LOTR, but absent it's later sequel, it really wasn't the seminal work it is considered today. It's really difficult for people today, inundated as we are with Tolkien, Tolkien-pastiches, Tolkien-reactions, and anti-Tolkiens, to understand that for grown-ups who had been reading fantasy for years, Tolkien was just another entry in the canon, no better, and sometimes worse, than what had come before.

I imagine I probably annoyed my older nerds as a child with my love of all things Star Wars when they laugh and think about everything I saw as groundbreaking was already done in Flash Gordon serials and Gray Lensman stories.

The Hobbit does seem to be more D&D in tropes, and the adventuring company of Thorin Oakenshield is waaaay more like a D&D party: the tropes of the demi-humans are clearly Tolkien, but they seem more like what appears in the more light hearted adventures of the Hobbit. Yeah, I'd say the Hobbit is a more likely source of inspiration, and it was a very widely read and beloved book pre-LotR; again, look what Poul Anderson had to say about it in print.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Salamandyr]

Yes, the party of dwarves and hobbit kind of look, if you squint sideways, like an adventuring party. But it's not like group of interesting characters going on a quest is unique to that book.

An aside I do find interesting; the Hobbit is pretty clear that neither dwarves nor hobbits are suited to Heroic deeds, which are properly the domain of Men, but they couldn't find a Hero on short notice, so they decided to go for a burglar. One of my pet peeves with D&D is how dwarves have become a default "strong warrior race". If Thorin and company had D&D stats they wouldn't have needed Bard and Bilbo to take care of the Dragon for them.

 

[Coroc]

D&D is also Jack Vance (Vancian Casting) and his books, Alice in Wonderland (Enlarge /Reduce/Jabberwocky/Vorpal blade), King Arthur, heck all the greek roman and germanic Sagas, also Phillip Jose Farmer might have influences (World of tiers), Michael Morcook (Elric), Dantes Inferno etc etc etc.

It only shows the great common knowledge of D&Ds inventors.

Still without Tolkien there would not be D&D as it is, that is not even questionable so i voted for 5.

For all those not knowing about what i was writing in the first paragraph of this post, check this stuff out, Google it, it is some of the best fantasy stuff to read that has ever been written.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Salamandyr]

I can't even link it to Bombadil. He doesn't use Holy light to banish the wights. He lets the sun in. Besides, it's his songs that transmit his power in the books. Never mind that clerics in D&D turning undead don't create light, holy or otherwise (maybe they do in modern versions).

If one has to go to Tolkien for turning undead, and I don't see why one should, when priests being able to repel evil has a looong pedigree, going back to the OG if you will, but if you must, there are much better examples: Frodo repelling the Nazgul with the name of Elbereth, Gandalf standing off the Balrog with the name of ther Holy Spirit, er Flame of Anor, using the light in the Phial of Galadriel to make the bad things go away.

But even in those, it was Tolkien playing with tropes that already existed.