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Message: <blockquote data-quote="w_earle_wheeler" data-source="post: 2822188" data-attributes="member: 35955">Wyrms & WeirdLet'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.</blockquote>