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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadence" data-source="post: 8110548" data-attributes="member: 6701124">The Tolkien core of races for PCs were in the original OD&D in 1974, weren't they?But anyway, back up to the Fantasy Supplement for Chainmail that was hyped as allowing "the medieval miniature warmgamer to add a new facet to the hobby, and either refight the epic struggles related by J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, and other fantasy writers; or you can devise your own 'world,' and conduct fantastic campaigns and conflicts based on it." (Fantasy Supplement).It sounds like Arenson's Blackmoor took its inspiration from LotR and Dark Shadows (wikipedia and others), and used the Fantasy Supplement from Chainmail to add them. Elves and Dwarves as PCs apparently show up by late 1972 at the latest in Blackmoor games. (DH Boggs Blakmoor Timeline).So, given they were in OD&D, it feels like there never was a D&D brand without the demi-humans, and so the only example we have of it being established and fighting off other games is with them.Even more, given how the fantasy supplement impacted Arneson - apparently explicitly to add in LotR and Dark Shadows things,  and how he was pretty darn important to making D&D,  I'd argue D&D might very well never existed in anything like its current form, if at all, without the demi-humans.</blockquote>