Podcast #173: Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons with Jon Peterson

M.T. Black · Oct 25, 2021

Great interview and I look forward to the follow-up.

I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the "Tolkien" question and my view has changed over the years. I now believe Gygax was being pretty honest when he claimed that Howard, Burroughs, and Leiber were much greater influences than Tolkien.

Spindly · Oct 30, 2021

Hhmm. Just reread LotR. AD&D Player's Handbook seems pretty straight from it. Fighters (Boromir), rangers, thieves (Bilbo), druids (Radagast the Brown), wizards. Dwarves (Gygax's dwarves are very Gimli- and Balin-ish), halfings, half-elves (who can be rangers), the minor spell abilities of rangers and paladins. Leveling up (all the hobbits). Saruman as an illusionist and caster of charm. Half-orcs. Orcs! The goblin-family progression of size and strength. The back-stab/instant kill ability of thieves/assassins (Grima). Also: artifacts (the Ring obviously—doesn't radiate magic, warps owner's mind). The fear radiated by Nazgul. I cannot recall anything in the literature that approaches the Moria chapters as a precursor for AD&D: a party of mixed races and professions goes to a dungeon, has to worry about lights and mapping.

All new creations are new combinations of existing pieces. I haven't read Peterson's work, but if he hasn't already, someone could sell a book that mapped specific AD&D features to its literary origins. We know (or "know") to credit Vance for the spell casting model, but I think we would find that Tolkein dominated Gygax's source material. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Abstruse · Oct 30, 2021

Spindly said:
Hhmm. Just reread LotR. AD&D Player's Handbook seems pretty straight from it. Fighters (Boromir), rangers, thieves (Bilbo), druids (Radagast the Brown), wizards. Dwarves (Gygax's dwarves are very Gimli- and Balin-ish), halfings, half-elves (who can be rangers), the minor spell abilities of rangers and paladins. Leveling up (all the hobbits). Saruman as an illusionist and caster of charm. Half-orcs. Orcs! The goblin-family progression of size and strength. The back-stab/instant kill ability of thieves/assassins (Grima). Also: artifacts (the Ring obviously—doesn't radiate magic, warps owner's mind). The fear radiated by Nazgul. I cannot recall anything in the literature that approaches the Moria chapters as a precursor for AD&D: a party of mixed races and professions goes to a dungeon, has to worry about lights and mapping.

All new creations are new combinations of existing pieces. I haven't read Peterson's work, but if he hasn't already, someone could sell a book that mapped specific AD&D features to its literary origins. We know (or "know") to credit Vance for the spell casting model, but I think we would find that Tolkein dominated Gygax's source material. Perhaps I'm wrong.

The problem is that Tolkien himself drew deeply from folklore from around Europe while other authors after him in the fantasy genre derived material directly from his works. So were all those elements in D&D influenced by Tolkien? Or by the myths and legends Tolkien was influenced by? Or by the writers who were influenced by Tolkien? The only people who know for sure either aren't talking or already spun stories one way or the other and wouldn't want to contradict them now if they're exaggerations or straight-up fiction.

Side note: This has been a serious problem doing my own research into RPG history and why I'm glad Peterson went the opposite direction and got access to contemporary sources. I never had access to vast archives of correspondence the same way and it has been a pain in the ass to try to keep stories straight when reading from interviews and articles because many were recorded years after the events to allow all sorts of biases to come in to alter the story from the truth.

Spindly · Oct 31, 2021

Abstruse said:
The problem is that Tolkien himself drew deeply from folklore from around Europe while other authors after him in the fantasy genre derived material directly from his works. So were all those elements in D&D influenced by Tolkien? Or by the myths and legends Tolkien was influenced by? Or by the writers who were influenced by Tolkien? The only people who know for sure either aren't talking or already spun stories one way or the other and wouldn't want to contradict them now if they're exaggerations or straight-up fiction.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think the concerns you raise are fundamental for some questions but not others. The core of AD&D is parties of adventurers defined by their races, professions ("classes"), experience, and possessions (elfin chainmail saves the first-level fighter from the "hobgoblin", er, orc-chieftain's spear) exploring multi-level underground tunnel systems ("dungeons") and encountering monsters. That's Moria, and to my (imperfect) knowledge of the literature, nothing else comes close as a direct precursor to AD&D. As Peterson notes in the podcast, LotR created and dominated the market for "fantasy" (medieval European fable) in the US at the time, and it would be strange if it wasn't the default source for a game set in a reimagined Europe c. 1100. Per Peterson, Gygax had strong legal and emotional reasons not to say "yeah, I wanted to make a LotR game but I tweaked a bunch of stuff"—but that seems to me the null hypothesis we should start with.

Spindly · Oct 31, 2021

M.T. Black said:
Great interview and I look forward to the follow-up.

I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the "Tolkien" question and my view has changed over the years. I now believe Gygax was being pretty honest when he claimed that Howard, Burroughs, and Leiber were much greater influences than Tolkien.

(replied in a separate thread—think the evidence indicates otherwise)

Abstruse · Oct 31, 2021

Spindly said:
...exploring multi-level underground tunnel systems ("dungeons") and encountering monsters. That's Moria, and to my (imperfect) knowledge of the literature, nothing else comes close as a direct precursor to AD&D.

The dungeon didn't come from Moria, but from an extension of Dave Arneson's wargames. They played a siege scenario where some of the players decided to break the siege by sneaking under the castle walls. This led them to the castle's dungeons (more like a historical dungeon that was just a basement sometimes used to lock up prisoners) to sneak inside. To prevent this from happening again, guards were put in the dungeon which turned into combat there. Then they added traps. Then the dungeon got more maze-like and required exploration to find the way into the castle. Then the dungeons got bigger to make for larger encounters. I'd have to check my research to find the timeline to be sure if this was before or after fantasy elements were added to Castle Blackmoor and whether or not the castle in the siege was Blackmoor or another castle, but all of this was done using Chainmail and Braunstein before Arneson met Gygax and they began collaborating on The Fantasy Game.

But if you want precursors...Daedelus's labyrinth where Theseus killed the Minotaur, Theseus and Pirithous attempting to kidnap Persephone from Hades, Hercules rescuing Theseus (and leaving Pirithous to rot) while raiding Hades to capture Cerberus...that's just off the top of my head because I've been looking into Greek myth for stuff recently.

darjr · Oct 31, 2021

@Abstruse @Spindly Dave wrote about this very subject. While I’ve heard of the idea of digging under castles and it evolving from there I don’t recall a cited source for that.

Dave wrote in fact the idea came from Conan.

Though I’d bet, like the below article states, Tolkien had some influence id add that as well as the tappers trying to break into castle Blackmoor

From Blackmoor to Dungeons & Dragons: the invention of the dungeon crawl

In my post, “How the dungeon crawl’s advantages propelled Dungeons & Dragons to success,” I argued that the invention of the dungeon crawl contributed as much to the initial popularity of Dunge…

dmdavid.com

darjr · Oct 31, 2021

Ah, here Jon speculates on the tapper rules from earlier seige rules including those later added to Chainmail, probably must have had an influence on Dave. Note the above post is evidence from Jon too.

Subterranean Chainmail: Mines and Countermines

Before any daring cartographer mapped underground dungeons in pursuit of fantastic adventure, Chainmail described a system for subterrane...

playingattheworld.blogspot.com

Spindly · Oct 31, 2021

Abstruse said:
The dungeon didn't come from Moria, but from an extension of Dave Arneson's wargames.

Fascinating history, thank you! But the Moria pattern still fits and nothing else we have seen does nearly as well. Aristotle's typology of causes might be helpful here: Chainmail was the efficient cause, Moria the formal: AristotleCausesNotes

Podcast #173: Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons with Jon Peterson

Darryl Mott

M.T. Black

Hero

Spindly

First Post

Abstruse

Legend

Spindly

First Post

Spindly

First Post

Abstruse

Legend

darjr

I crit!

From Blackmoor to Dungeons & Dragons: the invention of the dungeon crawl

darjr

I crit!

Subterranean Chainmail: Mines and Countermines

Spindly

First Post

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