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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 206841" data-attributes="member: 1645">And they're only known as pioneers because others eventually decided to follow them.Ick.  Don't get me started on terrible pastiches...You know, the art has a huge effect on the tone of a book -- and thus on the game, I'd assume.  I still remember that troll winding up the yarn trail left by the adventurers...Exactly, and that's one of the odd things about D&D.  Those two are both huge influences -- even if Gygax didn't particularly like Tolkien.I don't see Conan as heroic, per se -- at least not as written by Howard.  He's certainly not a namby-pamby good guy in the 50's western "white hat" mold.Ick.That's true.  And there are very few good wizards/priests.Eh?LOL! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Dunsany's writing can be very dreamy -- very Lovecraft, but not dark.Vance's work is even more full of zany hijinks.  Although everyone discussing D&D tends to know Vance as the origin of "Vancian" magic ("fire and forget"), his stories of Cugel the Clever are full of scheming chicanery -- lots of Bluff checks.The greatest Tolkien impact has to be the concept of character races -- having non-human PCs at all, and especially warrior Dwarves, magical warrior Elves, Hobbits (now Halflings), Half-Orcs, etc. -- and the expectation of a mixed-race, mixed-class party, a la the fellowship of the ring.Absolutely -- but you can pare down the number of clashing elements in your own game to acheive a particular flavor.  If you don't like chicken, that is.</blockquote>

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