Survivor Appendix N Authors- LEIBER WINS!

[OB1]

Bellairs, John 11
Burroughs, Edgar Rice 16
Carter, Lin 14
de Camp & Pratt 11
Dunsany, Lord 17
Fox, Gardner 15
Leiber, Fritz 21
Merritt, A. 18
Offutt, Andrew J. 14
Pratt, Fletcher 12
St. Clair, Margaret 14
Tolkien, J.R.R. 12
Wellman, Manley Wade 16
Williamson, Jack 18
Zelazny, Roger 20

Don't know about anyone else, but I'm down voting Tolkien because two other people both targeted Margaret St. Clair because she was ranked higher than Tolkien at the time. Before that I had been upvoting him (and though asked, did not become part of the fellowship).

Anyhow I realize that mentioning this strategy will likely result in Maragret getting knocked out in short order, but so be it, that's Survivor!

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Bradley Hindman]

People misperceived the whole email thing and are now guilty of the thing they thought was happening. They have banded together to downvote Tolkien, where nobody truly banded together to upvote him. I find it ironic and amusing.

The vast majority of the votes have involved Tolkien whether it was an up or down vote. I'm not going to count, because I don't wanna, but since we are on post 540, lets say that's 300 votes one way or the other for Tolkien. Since down votes are -2 and upvotes are only +1, the fact that Tolkien is still in the 10 - 20 range indicates that there have been roughly 200 upvotes and 100 downvotes. Seems to me that if anyone can be accused of banding together its the upvoters! So nyah!

(I don't necessarily believe anyone has banded together in a formal voting block, its just that Tolkien is known by everyone so he gets a lot of attention).

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Sacrosanct]

Seriously dude? Chainmail, the foundation for D&D literally had Balrogs, Ents, elves, dwarves and Hobbits and you think Tolkien wasn't an inspiration for the foundation? The fact that Tolkien's world wasn't about killing creatures for their loot isn't relevant to whether or not Tolkien was a huge inspiration. Inspiration does not equate to mirroring exactly. If it did, it wouldn't be inspiration, it would be plagiarism.

This is a strawman, and not what he/she is arguing. I don't know how many times we need to have this discussion, and every time, people like to resort to strawmen to try to make their point. Squibbles said that Gary consistently argued that D&D's foundational inspiration came from other sources. That is true. Gary has said that. Gary never said that Tolkien wasn't an inspiration, like what you're arguing. In fact, he said he was, primarily because that's what people were most familiar with and thus he wanted to give something to those gamers. It's entirely possible for something to have an influence, even a big one, without being the fundamental influence. Especially since we also know much of what Tolkien is credited with creating, he didn't. We had a thread about this less than a year ago. Tolkien pulled heavily from existing myth and folklore. In fact, that was his entire point, to create a unified anglo saxon set of mythology by pulling all these bits and pieces from various sources together into one. And since we know that Gary was well versed in mythology and folklore and fantasy literature that predated Tolkien, it's assured that he knew this as well. Many things they pulled from the original source, but many people who only know Tolkien assume that Gary lifted it from Tolkien instead of the original source.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Bellairs, John 11
Burroughs, Edgar Rice 16
Carter, Lin 14
de Camp & Pratt 11
Dunsany, Lord 17
Fox, Gardner 15
Leiber, Fritz 22
Merritt, A. 18
Offutt, Andrew J. 14
Pratt, Fletcher 12
St. Clair, Margaret 14
Tolkien, J.R.R. 8
Wellman, Manley Wade 16
Williamson, Jack 18
Zelazny, Roger 20

We've clearly entered grudge match territory, so someone like Lin Carter will end up winning. Now I know how a setting like Birthright ended up winning a previous survivor thread.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Upvote on Tolkien, downvote on Manly Wade Wellman. Despite having the most hilarious name on the list, and his books being pretty good with their Appalachian horror/rural fantasy (and being relatively respectfully diverse), I just don't think they're that germane to D&D.

Bellairs, John 11
Burroughs, Edgar Rice 16
Carter, Lin 14
de Camp & Pratt 11
Dunsany, Lord 17
Fox, Gardner 15
Leiber, Fritz 22
Merritt, A. 18
Offutt, Andrew J. 14
Pratt, Fletcher 12
St. Clair, Margaret 14
Tolkien, J.R.R. 9
Wellman, Manley Wade 14
Williamson, Jack 18
Zelazny, Roger 20

 

[CleverNickName]

Bellairs, John 11
Burroughs, Edgar Rice 16-2=14 He's good, but never better than Tolkien
Carter, Lin 14
de Camp & Pratt 11
Dunsany, Lord 17
Fox, Gardner 15
Leiber, Fritz 22
Merritt, A. 18
Offutt, Andrew J. 14
Pratt, Fletcher 12
St. Clair, Margaret 14
Tolkien, J.R.R. 9+1=10, obviously
Wellman, Manley Wade 14
Williamson, Jack 18
Zelazny, Roger 20

 

[CleverNickName]

We've clearly entered grudge match territory, so someone like Lin Carter will end up winning. Now I know how a setting like Birthright ended up winning a previous survivor thread.

Yup. I've said it before--I'm surprised that Tolkien has lasted this long. I know how these "survivor" threads usually shake out.

 

[Gradine]

Bellairs, John 11
Burroughs, Edgar Rice 14
Carter, Lin 14
de Camp & Pratt 11
Dunsany, Lord 17
Fox, Gardner 15
Leiber, Fritz 20 - Probably the most responsible (out of those remaining) for the more toxic corners of gaming (though deliberately so than Howard).
Merritt, A. 18
Offutt, Andrew J. 14
Pratt, Fletcher 12
St. Clair, Margaret 14
Tolkien, J.R.R. 11 - While the statement "if we didn't have Tolkien, we wouldn't have D&D" may not be literally true, I am forced to admit that if I didn't have Tolkien, I wouldn't have D&D
Wellman, Manley Wade 14
Williamson, Jack 18
Zelazny, Roger 20