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

[pemerton]

there would definitely in my opinion, be no D&D without Tolkien, therefore the last answer is the only possible response. There may well have been other FRPGs, but no recognisable D&D with it's halflings, orcs and goblins etc.

Sure there would. Maybe not halflings, but there were orcs and goblins in lore already. Tolkien himself said he took "orc" from Beowulf.

But for JRRT, there would not be the idea of fairy tale peoples (elves, goblins, etc) as more-or-less human cutures, comprehensible in naturalistic terms.

In the other thread I quoted Gygax (from Dragon 95) indicating the "orcs" come into D&D from Tolkien. Was Gygax reading Beowulf in Old English?

 

[pemerton]

there are many fans of Tolkien who believe that almost everything in D&D has antecedents in Tolkien

I don't believe there are many such fans.

No one thinks that all the Greek-inspired, or mediavel bestiary-inspired, monsters in the MM are from JRRT (eg chimerae, catoblepases, pegasi, hippogriffs, tritons, dryads, basilisks, etc).

No one thinks that chromatic dragons are inspired by JRRT.

No one thinks that all the dungeon monsters (rust monsters, gelationous cubes, black puddings, etc) are inspired by JRRT.

No one thinks that the Girdle of Giant Strength or Hammer of Thunderbolts is inspred by JRRT.

Etc.

The claims about Tolkien influence are very specific. It is particular story elements (ents, balrogs, orcs whose tribes fight one another, rangers who use palintiri, etc); and also the whole notion of fairy tale peoples as naturlised "human" cultures.

if you play OSR/1e/Holmes Basic, you end up with an exceptionally different experience that matches, much more closely, to the S&S model that Gygax preferred.

Conan quite often doesn't get the treasure, sacrificing it for the moral choice instead.

And Conan almost never plans, or manages his adventures in a logistical fashion.

The classic D&D experience - with its emphasis on treasure recovery and logistical management - shares some tropes with REH's Conan, but won't reproduce those stories anymore than it will reproduce LotR.

 

[pemerton]

And for an example of fighting men/magic users/thieves: I shall refer you to Jason and Medea. Jason: fighting man. Medea: sorcererss. Half of his crew: thieves. And that's not even considering Robert E Howard (who wrote many of this stories in the 1920s).

REH wrote the Kull stories in the late 1920s (they were published in 1929, I think) and the Conan stories in the 1930s.

I'm not sure what examples you have in mind of "team" adventures in REH's S&S stories, though. Tower of the Elephant? (Where one of the duo dies.)

 

[pemerton]

I suppose I find the lack of apparent recognition for the ranger/huntsman/woodsman as a prior fantasy archetype to be obnoxious.

Who do you think in this thread is denying that Robin Hood stories predate (and presumalby inspired) JRRT?

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[pemerton]

if you read through this thread and other thread, you'll see "many" ascribe everything from named magic swords, to all magic rings, to clerical healing, to turn undead (I'm not beating that dead horse any more), to all sorts of things for which there is either no or, at best, almost no evidence to Tolkien.

I've read both threads. No one has ascribed "almost everthing" in D&D to JRRT.

And the most commonly instanced counterexamples are creatures - especially Greek, bestiary and fairy tale creatures - from the MM, which no one has attributed to JRRT. Nor does anyone think otyughs or rakshasa or morlocks or beholders come from JRRT.

Just because moral choices didn't come up in your classic D&D experience doesn't mean that they weren't in the game (alignment rules, restrictions, and in the published modules) or that most people would say that moral choices were the essence of S&S adventures; I would argue that moral issues are a more Tolkien-esque approach.

Well, one could retort that just because Tolkien-esque stuff doesn't happen in your classic D&D experience doesn't mean that they weren't in the game!

My claim is that the treasure-for-XP rules, together with the empahsis on planning and logistics, creates a game experience as different from S&S as from JRRT, and much closer to traditional tactical wargaming. Which I think is no surprise.

The RPG technology to produce a game experience in which the character "losing" (as Conan so often does) can be the player winning took a while to be invented.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Uchawi]

I believe it had a moderate influence as D&D grew from a war game to a role playing game. The concept of the adventure party, makeup, and class feel borrowed from Tolkien. I find it interesting that it was never a good model of playing in middle earth. It definitely is more than that and unique in its own way.

 

[Parmandur]

I've read both threads. No one has ascribed "almost everthing" in D&D to JRRT.

And the most commonly instanced counterexamples are creatures - especially Greek, bestiary and fairy tale creatures - from the MM, which no one has attributed to JRRT. Nor does anyone think otyughs or rakshasa or morlocks or beholders come from JRRT.

Well, one could retort that just because Tolkien-esque stuff doesn't happen in your classic D&D experience doesn't mean that they weren't in the game!

My claim is that the treasure-for-XP rules, together with the empahsis on planning and logistics, creates a game experience as different from S&S as from JRRT, and much closer to traditional tactical wargaming. Which I think is no surprise.

The RPG technology to produce a game experience in which the character "losing" (as Conan so often does) can be the player winning took a while to be invented.

One could see the fact that Conan often loses as being part of the inspiration, insofar as players often lose: when WotC ran Tomb of Horrors at Gary Con this year with scoring tules, one team managed to get negative points. But they got out of the Tomb alive.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, we must be reading different threads and interpreting the poll differently. C'est la vie!



One could retort anything. But I am comfortable in my view. As to whether OD&D more closely resembles S&S or Tolkien ...

I think Dungeon Crawl Classics is a revealing commentary here: Goodman Games had the goal of not simply reacting against 4E, but creating a system better suited than OD&D/1E for actually simulating the fiction. So, for instance, XP is just handed out for being in a "scene," with the amount determined by DM fiat.