D&D General Are You There D&D? It's Me, J.R.R. Tol-KEEEEN!

[Mind of tempest]

Well, in the interests of making something to talk about, I'm going to jump in and defend my point about the game being far more inspired by JK Rowling rather than Tolkien anymore.

1. At will magic. That's the biggie right there. 5e is far, far higher magic than ever before. Nearly every class is casting spells and many of the classes are casting spells every single round.

2. Species. The move to the idea of humanoids all being actual species with cultures and history and whatnot. Tolkien allowed humans and elves and dwarves and hobbits to be species. Orcs? Cursed elves.

3. More in keeping with a naturalistic approach. Monsters aren't just one off demon things like Shelob or the Balrog. They are more naturally (for a given value of natural) occurring creatures that have life cycles.

Is there Tolkien influence in D&D? Oh, of course. Absolutely. That's undeniable. But, 5e has moved pretty far beyond that and is far more rooted in post 1990's fantasy than it ever was.

3 goes back far longer.

1 is a reference to make it more approachable might as well list skyrim as an influence there.

2 is a change of vocabulary not one based of books but pragmatism and avoiding internet fights

 

[Hussar]

3 goes back far longer.

1 is a reference to make it more approachable might as well list skyrim as an influence there.

2 is a change of vocabulary not one based of books but pragmatism and avoiding internet fights

Ok, again, not really interested in worrying about the specific source of the changes. That's really, really not the point. Pick whatever source you feel like. I promise I won't argue with it. The point being the inspiration is not Tolkien.

But, considering that Harry Potter predates Skyrim by about twenty years or so, I'm going to stand by that one.

 

[Parmandur]

Rowling claims to have never read Lord of the Rings, and to dislike the fantasy genre in general (quite sneery in fact). Potter is more of a "reaction to" Mallory Towers.

Personally, I think more 90s fantasy is a "reaction to" D&D than to Tolkien.

Yeah, nit really talking about Rowlings, don't see her as a major influence there.

Reacting to D&D is still de facto reacting to Tolkien, one way or another.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, that's probably true. I mean, it's pretty hard not to be, really. But, to be fair, "not-Tolkien" fantasy has managed to establish itself pretty solidly in the past twenty or thirty years. And, while I'm not a Wheel of Time fan (never read any of them), I've spent more than enough time with Harry Potter to think that JK Rowling's primary influences weren't really Tolkien at all. Other than the sort of generic influence that Tolkien has in the genre. It's not like Rowling's elves are anything like Tolkien's. Nor the dwarves. Sure, you have a big, bad evil wizard, but, again, that's not really the inspiration.

Even someone, like Rowling, who claims to have bit read Loed of the Rings (but who knows, she is a noted stretcher of the truth who tries to downplay her influences in general), but let's move past her as an example because I do not see her influence on current D&D as that strong compared to more mainstream genre writers.

Take Brandon Sanderson for example, who is in the "AppendN" reading list of the 2014 PHB: he has a while developed theory that he has publicly elaborated on at points that Gen X writers like himself who write definitively "not-Tolkien" fantasy are especially influenced by Tolkien, as a reaction to the previous generation having leaned so hard into the Tolkienesque.

 

[Aldarc]

I would say that fantasy video games or even cartoons have a stronger influence on things like at-will magic than Harry Potter. IMHO, it's more about being able to have the "on demand" power fantasy of being a mage. Consider, for example, that also in the '90s was the rise of Warcraft as an RTS and Diablo as an ARPG. Both of these games were pretty big in my circles growing up in a small town.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I dunno. I feel like if I handed D&D to a relatively nerd-knowledgeable person and said, “List its influences,” Harry Potter wouldn’t be the first thing that popped to mind.

• Where are the teenage angst mechanics?
• Where are the arbitrary but super important divisions into houses? (Tribes, schools, castes, whatever.)
• The sporting event that takes on outsized importance in the characters’ lives?
• The division between the magic-users and the muggles?
• The secret world that is hidden just down a diagonal alley from the normal world? (D&D has basically zero Hermetic or esoteric beliefs within it, because none of the occult/magic stuff in D&D is secret!)

For influences on D&D, I could definitely see someone say “Oh, it’s like (video game X)” or “(board game Y)” or even “(those old books from the ‘80s and ‘90s by Feist and Eddings)” [which would be to mistake the things that were influenced BY D&D for the things that influenced UPON D&D] [although of course at this point it’s an ouroboros eating its own tail].

I’m now curious if a serious market research company ever ran an open-ended “list all the things that remind you of D&D” survey what it would reveal. My money is that Harry Potter would be barely a blip.

 

[Kromanjon]

Where are the teenage angst mechanics?

They come naturally when teenagers play D&D.

Where are the arbitrary but super important divisions into houses? (Tribes, schools, castes, whatever.)

Those are called species now.

The sporting event that takes on outsized importance in the characters’ lives?

Combat rules.

The division between the magic-users and the muggles?

Haven´t your read any of the "broken spellcaster" threads around here.

The secret world that is hidden just down a diagonal alley from the normal world? (D&D has basically zero Hermetic or esoteric beliefs within it, because none of the occult/magic stuff in D&D is secret!)

You got me there. I can´t come up with a funny quip for that one.

Whatever Snarf was trying to write, I´m still glad this thread was created. It´s just extremely entertaining to see a thread about nothing get derailed.

 

[Hussar]

Whatever Snarf was trying to write, I´m still glad this thread was created. It´s just extremely entertaining to see a thread about nothing get derailed.

Is it being derailed, or is it finding rails?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Kromanjon]

Is it being derailed, or is it finding rails?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Where we´re going, we don´t need no rails.

 

[Maxperson]

I'll second it.