D&D 5E Which parts of D&D came from Tolkien?

[Celebrim]

I don't give Tolkien credit for material he didn't write....Overall, I think the concept of orcs as a whole in D&D is pretty solidly Tolkienesque.

Ok, then. I'm not sure the origin of the pig-headed orcs is fully established. According to Gygax, as with several other trope codifying images in the game, it came about as the result of a misunderstanding or miscommunication with the illustrator.

This one brings up another issue I've sort of been trying to get across. What happens a game designer brings up a concept found elsewhere, but includes one or two items from one particular work of fiction and maybe one or two others from a second?

Then you have multiple sources of inspiration and you need to weigh which was the more influential, if any. It's perfectly possible for something to be derived generally from the preexisting trope.

The reality is that many of the D&D game ideas are patchworks drawn from multiple works of fiction, all too frequently I think by deliberate intent. Why make a class that only models Aragorn, for example...when you could also model Robin Hood, Orion, Tarzan, Fafhrd, etc? Of course then we need to differentiate whether we're arguing about ideas influenced by Tolkien or ideas taken from Tolkien. Are you sure which we're doing here? (And if so, who is doing it in which posts...)

Good questions. Let's consider the case of the D&D ranger class. First, one big clue is that the class is called 'Ranger', and none of the other characters you mention were commonly referred to by the term. So that's a big clue that the original class had it's primary or even sole inspiration from a character commonly referred to as a Ranger, which leaves us arguing for either Aragorn or... not much else. Further, we can find numerous things about the Ranger class that suggest the Tolkien origin, including most notably the otherwise inexplicable ability to utilize crystal balls. Even more to the point, we can't point to abilities that are derived from the characters you mention that are showing up in the ranger class. Robin Hood is noted for his pin-point archery, not his tracking ability. Robin hood is noted for having a large band of followers, not as being a loner with limited followers. (Rangers in D&D weren't trope codified as being skilled archers until Hank in the D&D cartoon, after which the concept of 'ranger' began to evolve toward a woodsman/hunter and into its present form.) We would have a hard time figuring out why Fafryd is particularly dangerous fighting orcs. All of this suggests in the case of the D&D ranger there is NOT a multi-source origin. The list of characters you mention weren't attached to the idea of Ranger until 2e, and is a clear case of backwards justification.

It seems idiotic to me to presume that a concept like giant spiders, that appears in multiple media and mythological forms MUST have come from Tolkien, even if the game variant shares one or two traits possessed by Tolkien-spiders.

As I said before, the giant spiders in D&D clearly aren't single source inspired by Tolkien. There is no apparent attempt at modeling the giant spider of Tolkien literature - no sleep inducing venom, no ability to talk, no glowing eyes, no ability to produce darkness and shadows magically. Incidentally, this is all much easier than it usually is because we have good dates for the texts and no in which direction the influence could at least potentially run. In the case of 'IT', we know that since IT is published after both Tolkien and D&D, that it couldn't have influenced either. We can't rule out though that Stephen King's deadlights aren't influenced by the evil light that was shining in Shelob's eyes.

The rule is this, if the entity shares traits with another entity and those traits are found no where else in any prior example, then it either must be descended from that entity or else shares a missing common ancestor that nothing else we've encountered shares. This rule is used extensively in bioinformatics to organize taxons on the basis of morphological or genetic characteristics. The techniques though are evolved from textual criticism, and it's pretty much the same algorithms you'd use in both cases - fundamentally both text and genetic code can be represented as strings. If the D&D spiders had evil light in their eyes, talked, hated being called attercops, could produce shadows and darkness magically, and had poison that caused sleep then unless we could show that these characteristics were all found together in other giant arachnids of fiction, we could state with great confidence that the parent meme of the D&D spider was the Tolkien spider. This is particularly true because to my knowledge, no other spiders of pulp fiction had any one of those traits, much less them all together. On the other hand the D&D spider had none of these traits, and was closely associated instead with particular species of real spiders being giants of a particular type. This suggests that while the need for giant spiders as a monster of fantasy might have in part been suggested by their appearance in Tolkien (along with other Tolkienesque monsters), the actual derivation was suggested by other sources and the primary source was likely some sort of reference text and not a work of fiction at all. None of the traits particular to a Howard spider or Burroughs spider appear in the text either.

Perhaps. Zeus's eagle is fairly obscure, but we do know that Gygax (or whomever) took a fair bit of other things from Greek myth: Minotaurs, chimeras, sphinx (at least the riddle part). Intelligent, anthropomorphized, or talking animals aren't even slightly unique in myth and fiction. Several different types of animals in the 1st edition MM were uncharacteristically intelligent (particularly giant versions). Standard dolphins were more intelligent than the average human!

None of that is really telling. Yes, intelligent talking animals are pervasive in fairy tales, and Tolkien was very consciously imitating fairy tales by having pervasive talking animals. So it could be that the author of D&D was inspired by the general trope in creating his new meme, and not by any one source in particular. But, again, if we can find elements in the new meme that are unique to a source meme, then almost certainly the new meme was at least in part inspired by the source meme. And the more connections we can find of this sort, the more likely it is that the source meme wholly or mostly was the single source inspiration, and not that both the source meme and the new meme had some other common parent.

Except that they were in this case, with some slight variation (see influenced vs taken from). The name is pretty much straight Anglicized "old norse". They are god-like or spirit-like being in norse myth in the shape of wolves, that exhibit intelligence. The bit about being ridden by savage humanoids is from Tolkien, and the o in worg is no doubt an attempt to avoid lawsuits from the Tolkien estate. Gygax furthermore took a number of other things from Norse myth such as certain deities, particular magical hammers, folding boats...

I feel like I'm going no where in this. Yes, I am very familiar with Norse myths. Yes, 'warg' is wolf even in some modern Scandinavian languages. But it doesn't matter because if we observe features in the new meme that are unique to a source meme, we can be fairly sure that wargs are inspired directly from that source meme and not a literary sibling of some older text. In other words, as soon as we see worgs being ridden by goblins, in so much as we are talking about wargs, we can be pretty darn sure that the writer was inspired by Tolkien and not the Northern European myths that inspired Tolkien. Now, on the other hand, if you can find a document you can show might have been known to the author, that has wargs spelled 'worg' and has them being ridden by goblins, then this might suggest a stronger link to that document and you might deprecate the Tolkien link or at least show that the Tolkien link was but one of many possible sources of inspiration. But right now, we can be pretty sure that it is a direct lift. Even had the author encountered the concept of 'warg' in some older text prior to encountering them in Tolkien, it's obvious he took Tolkien as the definitive work and that it dominated his imagination. The Tolkien origin is sufficient under Occam's Razor to explain the text we encounter. If you want to point to any other source, you have to find some feature of the D&D worg common to that source but not to Tolkien.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Celebrim]

I disagree with this in a very fundamental manner. First, biology and genetic characteristics are not techniques that have evolved from textual criticism.

Second, while a person can make analogies between the two, they are fundamentally different because in genetics and biology, you can naturally trace parentage (which is what you are using this analogy for) safe in the knowledge that creatures descend from each other.

Well, not exactly. There is this thing called 'genetic drift' were chunks of code leap between species. Particularly in the case of plants and microorganisms 'descent' is no more easily traced than it is in a body of text as there can be multiple parents.

The reason that this distinction is important is because texts (whether the text is a movie, a book, a music, or any form of communication) are not the same. The author of the text is calling upon all sorts of sources, both known and unknown to the author. There is no clear "sole parentage" that can be determined.

You'll note I never argued otherwise. I have frequently said that in many cases you can find evidence of multiple parentage and that multiple parents would be the hypothesis that best fits the textual evidence. I've even described how you'd come to that conclusion.

This can become error when an assumption is made (for example, Tolkien came first, therefore it must be Tolkien unless it id definitively proven otherwise).

Look, I've already blocked on person over this sort of crap. I HAVE NEVER SAID ANYTHING OF THE SORT. I have never argued that if Tolkien came first, therefore it must be Tolkien. There are many things I have a great deal of patience over, but one thing I have no patience with is pulling this sort of crap where you invent things quite opposed to my clear intention and blithely attribute them to me. If you think I've said that if Tolkien came first, therefore it must be Tolkien, pull up the quotes that lead you to believe that. If I have, I will certainly apologize for creating the misunderstanding. Do not however slander me about something I've very obviously not said when anyone could pull sentences up showing that I said things exactly to the contrary.

Of course, as we all know, Tolkien's work was highly derivative, both of pre-existing myths as well as other sources (including prior literary sources, more contemporary literary sources, as well as events such as WW1 and 2). When you discuss the issue of giant spiders and Tolkien, we have the same issue with Tolkien and Burroughs that we do with Gygax and Tolkien (pre-existing work, author read it, clear similarities, author claims he didn't like it and any similarities are coincidental).

The question of where Tolkien derived his ideas of spiders from is fundamentally different than where they came from in the Monster Manual. Did Tolkien's spiders come from Burroughs? We can make that hypothesis and apply the same standards of criticism to it that we applied to rule out Tolkien as the sole or even primary source of the spiders in the monster manual. For example, did Tolkien's spiders frequently have more than eight legs? Where they called out as being particularly vulnerable to other own venom? If we could find things like that which are unique to or nearly unique to the EGB spiders, then we could establish that Tolkien was primarily influenced by Burroughs. Similarly, if the Monster Manual spiders had these EGB features but lacked features found in Tolkien, then we could establish that both the MM spider and the Tolkien spider were primarily inspired by the EGB spider.

Look, I'm a published author in peer reviewed journals in bioinformatics. I assure you that when it comes to establishing taxon links between species that thousands or millions of years extinct are often there is no more "precision" in that than there is in textual criticism. There is only a high probability that the link is not coincidental, and you can assign that probability on the basis of several assumptions. We cannot "know" anything because there is a finite probability that even long sequences of genetic code could independently evolve through a series of mutations. Nonetheless, you can get published doing this stuff, plenty of people's whole careers are spent doing this sort of stuff, and a reasonable person can be convinced from the available evidence that this is the most likely explanation (pending further evidence, which might overturn the theory).

Textual criticism is not that much different from that which for all your words, you basically concede when you write:

"IMO, it's fairly obvious that Gygax borrowed from a wide range of sources, and the case that he borrowed from Tolkien is incredibly strong in some cases (Ranger, Halfling) and beyond weak in other cases (named magic swords)."

Yes, you are quite right. But you have those opinions and hold them to be obvious, and hold that those opinions can be held with different degrees of confidence precisely because you don't think that textual criticism that much different than science. You wouldn't hold those opinions if you didn't think there were strong similarities with respect to the rigor with which you can pursue the two disciplines. Or, if you don't actually think these things, then stop using words like 'obvious', 'strong', and 'weak' as if you really did believe that that these things were quantifiable and not just opinions of the same sort as "chocolate is my favorite ice cream".

 

[lowkey13]

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[Flexor the Mighty!]

All this has me wanting an RPG that is Tolkien free, one totally inspired by HPL, CAS, Howard, Lieber, etc. Humancentric, no elves or dwarves or hobbits.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Flexor the Mighty!]

Not CoC, a fantasy RPG. I need to look at Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. But the 2e books is 80 bucks and one of those all in one huge tomes that will undoubtedly fall apart. I should have grabbed the boxed set.

But I'm getting off topic.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Flexor the Mighty!]

Lovecraft and insanity is a feature in all my games. The group in my pre 5e game had just accidentally released a great old one right before the campaign ended to start 5e.

 

[lowkey13]

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