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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4783809" data-attributes="member: 80487">D&D did not start out "relying on" any authors. Tolkien's hobbits, orcs and balrogs got in, and the prominence of dwarves and elves certainly helped appeal to fans of an author who was and still is (!) very popular. However, it was not familiarity with heroic fantasy but a temperament disposed to enjoy (rather than belittle) it that was essential.From what I have seen, it has in fact been common for people to get "turned on" to genre fiction and classical mythology (and even non-fiction such as history) through the medium of the game. Passing references or homages to Conan, Cugel, Elric or the Gray Mouser indicated sources of inspiration for the game.There's no need to read Vance to use Ioun Stones or the spell of Imprisonment; to have Cugel, Mouser and Shadowjack as models to play the composite Thief; or to know that Gnolls (transformed into distinctively D&D monsters in the first Monster Manual) originally were meant to suggest Lord Dunsany's mysterious Gnoles. All of those features of the game, and more, were readily absorbed into the imaginations of new players unacquainted with the sources.If there is any connection with later works, reference is likely to be recursive: a demonstration of the influence of D&D itself on the next generation of fantasy fiction.D&D is a "genre" unto itself. It has its own tropes, and proposes things that never were -- even in past masterpieces of the fantastic.What has made it so successful is that it taps the very fundamental well of material to which authors of fantasy return generation after generation. Particular novels may come and go in popularity, but the perennial themes and archetypes will keep reappearing.</blockquote>

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