What if... D&D had been designed BEFORE The Lord of the Rings!

[Agback]

Gygax mentions the chansons-de-geste as an influence over the Paladin, and I believe we'd still see a paladin akin to the original form of the class.

Have you read any chansons de geste? Or even Orlando Furioso? The paladins of Charlemagne were just fighters. Nothing holy about them, except that Turpin was a bishop. Paladins picked up some of their holy abilities from Lancelot, Perceval, and Galahad. But most of their flavour comes from Holger Carlson in Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions (who was, indeed, supposed to be a reincarnation of Charlemagne's paladin Ogier the Dane, but owed nearly everything to Anderson's imagination and almost nothing to literary borrowings from the chansons or Ariosto).

Now, Three Hearts and Three Lions was published before Lord of the Rings. But in 1953, only a few months before The Fellowship of the Ring came out. It would not have been availableto influence paladins as it unquestionably did in the '30s scenario we are asked to consider.

Three Hearts and Three Lions also contributed alignment and regenerating trolls.

 

[Agback]

I agree with that. There may have still been "dungeons" in the game, but it might not have been one of the primary focuses of the game.

I think they probably would. In the first place there were underground labyrinths in '30s fantasy literature, and they were arguably more prominent in Conan and in The Hobbit (1937) than in Lord of the Rings. Moria is after all only tiny part of LOTR. Conan's and even Bilbo's adventures under the Tower of the Elephant and the Lonely Mountain were more like dungeon-bashing, too. Moria was no gilded hole.

In the second place there is the fact that dungeons provide a easy robust framework for linking and separating encounters and holding down the number of ways that PCs can approach or escape things. Since early days, dungeon-crawls have dominated wilderness and city adventures because they are comparatively simple to design and to gamemaster. That would still have been true if the literary inspirations were different.

 

[Klaus]

Have you read any chansons de geste? Or even Orlando Furioso? The paladins of Charlemagne were just fighters. Nothing holy about them, except that Turpin was a bishop. Paladins picked up some of their holy abilities from Lancelot, Perceval, and Galahad. But most of their flavour comes from Holger Carlson in Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions (who was, indeed, supposed to be a reincarnation of Charlemagne's paladin Ogier the Dane, but owed nearly everything to Anderson's imagination and almost nothing to literary borrowings from the chansons or Ariosto).

Now, Three Hearts and Three Lions was published before Lord of the Rings. But in 1953, only a few months before The Fellowship of the Ring came out. It would not have been availableto influence paladins as it unquestionably did in the '30s scenario we are asked to consider.

Three Hearts and Three Lions also contributed alignment and regenerating trolls.

Hey, I said "Gygax mentions...". I read very little on Chanson de Roland, my main chivalric read was La Mort d'Arthur.

Three Hearts & Three Lions seems a much clearer insapiration than the chansons, I agree.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

Wyrms & Weird

Let's not focus entirely on The Lord of the Rings an influence on Dungeons & Dragons. The title of this post may be a little misleading...

The reason I chose the publication of TLOTR as the critical point in time was due to the influence it had on much of the fantasy that came after.

While halflings, dragons, orcs, elves and rangers in the D&D game all bear a stronger resemblance to Tolkien's archetypes than the raw mythological ones, the huge influence of Vance and Moorecock (who came after Tolkien but didn't follow a Tolkien-esque formula) can't be ignored.

With a 1936 D&D, we lose the adventuring party as presented in The Hobbit and TLOTR, law vs. order as presented by Moorecock, and Vancian magic and exploration as presented in The Dying Earth.

From what I've read, Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros wasn't as much of an influence on the design of D&D as something that was considered after the fact. In a pre-Tolkien fantasy fandom, The Worm Ouroboros might have been the most exciting work of fiction out there outside of the pulps.

While The Worm Ouroboros featured different witches, demons and goblins, they were more like different cultures of humanity, differentiated mostly by their society and dress.

 

[Agback]

law vs. order as presented by Moorecock

Moorcock borrowed the Law vs. Chaos thing from Anderson, who was before LOTR but not much (only months).

 

[Thunderfoot]

You know, even though there was a plethora of pulp out there, LOTR is by far the best selling fantasy niovels of all time (though in recent time, they are being challenged). And even though there are a metric butt-load of other sources, would they have been enough to spark the interest in the genre that we have today?

For one, the LotR was the first trilogy, a single book broken into three parts by the publisher, because it was just too darn big. So here is a literary idea that may not even be round with the original. I'm not saying the argument isn't there, just looking at from a different view (prompted by a couple of other sources cited.) I mean the writing is top notch on most of these books, but does anyone but a fantasy fan even now who Elric is?

I only learned about Moorecock AFTER playing D&D, same for Lovecraft. Most of their stuff was considered a little out of touch until recently. (last 32 years or so) Only asking to look objectively, not saying they're crap, (they aren't) just asking if they would have had the impact that Tolkien did? Remember The Hobbit & LotR were childrens books so it was a lot easier to read (that sounds funny doesn't it) than the other stuff.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

So when is this game coming out? I want it!

1935, obviously.

 

[Hussar]

Conan was dungeon-crawling 20 years before LotR was ever published.

Actually, LotR wasn't as big of an influence on D&D as a lot of people think. About 2 years ago, I read an interview with Gary Gygax where he said that Robert E. Howard, Fritz Lieber, and Jack Vance were much bigger influences on D&D than Tolkien was. The biggest Tolkien influence in D&D is the game's portrayal of elves, dwarves, and (pre-3e) halflings.

Color coded dragons, rangers (Heck the title Strider was right in the class - am I the only one who thought ranger=Aragorn?), orcs and goblins as humanoids not fae, intelligent giant eagles, wraiths (sure, in legend, but, in THAT form? Pure Tolkein), were-bears, and a host of other elements are ripped either in part or in whole from Tolkein.

No offense to the Col, but, I'm calling shenanigans on the idea that DnD wasn't heavily influenced from the outset by Tolkein.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Not to mention halflings as thieves...

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

You know, even though there was a plethora of pulp out there, LOTR is by far the best selling fantasy niovels of all time (though in recent time, they are being challenged). And even though there are a metric butt-load of other sources, would they have been enough to spark the interest in the genre that we have today?

Actually, isn't the Chronicles of Narnia the best selling, taking the series as a whole? Having more books helps.

Regardless, it's quite possible that our "D&D" would be the first, but not the most popular if it stuck to fantasy tropes. A 1930 D&D followed by, say, a 1936 Traveler might see Traveler take top honors, since sci-fi was much bigger than fantasy pre-Tolkien. Assuming the hobby survived the paper shortages of WW2 (which killed the pulps, pretty much), a Sci-Fi RPG would be an even more likely top seller moving into the late '40 and the '50s, with Supers entering the mix as comic books became more popular than pulps.

Keep in mind, the thread doesn't postulate "D&D in an alternate history without Tolkien's Lord of the Rings," it postulates "D&D releasing before Tolkien's Lord of the Rings" - meaning the fantasy boom LotR eventually caused might well feed back into fantasy roleplaying, which had taken a back seat to SF and supers for a time.

The popularity of fantasy might not even matter. Prior to the release of the Lord of the Rings movies and Harry Potter, sci-fi and space fantasy were much more visible genres with a much more dedicated (and often shared) fan base. The best-selling electronic RPGs are sci-fi/fantasy or space fantasy. The health of fantasy roleplaying may have little to do with the popularity of fantasy as a literary/cinematic genre.