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

[prosfilaes]

When people claim Dunsany and Howard as major influences on D&D, I don't see it. The Dunsanian style, for example, is not something that D&D supports at all. I can imagine stating out most of the Lord of the Rings in D&D, but there's no way to stat out Sacnoth (from "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth"). It's fairy tales, not something that could easily be stated out. Elements could have been taken from Dunsany (like gnolls have pretty clearly been traced back to Dunsany), but D&D doesn't feel Dunsanian the way it feels Tolkienian.

Robert Howard's Conan story "The Tower of the Elephant" is the greatest D&D story ever. (Conan overhears some people talking about a treasure guarded by deadly traps in a bar, and immediately runs over to the tower, and runs into a rogue who turns out to be a fellow PC, etc.) But D&D is pseudo-medieval, not pseudo-ancient, and Conan doesn't have all the humanoid races, both good and evil. If D&D was filled with evil snake cults and was less medieval, then I'd see the impacts of Howard more.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[prosfilaes]

One of the issues with teasing out how D&D "feels" (as pointed out by many) is that D&D isn't just the rules. It's how it's played.

I do not see how you could play D&D in a Dunsanian way. Perhaps a story game could do it, but it's not written in a way that invites a dice-heavy simulation.

 

[Sacrosanct]

One of the issues with teasing out how D&D "feels" (as pointed out by many) is that D&D isn't just the rules. It's how it's played.

That's why, even assuming arguendo that Gygax didn't lift very much from Tolkien (outside of the original Chainmail fantasy supplement), it doesn't really answer the question as to how a lot of D&D "feels," because so many players play it with Tolkien in mind, and because other people that have worked on D&D may have had Tolkien as an influence.

To use an example, did Ed Greenwood have some Tolkien in mind when he was creating FR? If so, isn't that part of D&D now? What about the people doing the illustrations for D&D? And so on. And when it comes to players, so many of the early players (and the later players, for that matter) had a Tolkien-heavy background, that it was necessarily reflected in how they approached and played D&D.

This is absolutely right, and goes back to my earlier comment. D&D feels more like Tolkien because that's what most players are more familiar with and thus play the game to emulate the fantasy they know. My first fantasy experiences were the Harryhausen films (Sinbad) and books like Phantom Tollboth and the Prydain series. Not Tolkien. So our games felt a lot more like them and not Tolkien. Also, the rules did help push towards a more S&S feel than Tolkien feel based on racial limitations. D&D was designed to push towards a human centric world, where most of the PCs would be human. Things like level limits was a clear mechanical way of pushing towards that style of play (not to mention Gary's own words). So that was very much unlike Tolkien, who had all races pretty much equal. The only human in a party of 15 was Gandalf (and he wasn't even really human). In LoTR, Gimli and Legolas were just as spotlighted as Aragorn. And of course hobbits were the primary focus in all 4 books. In AD&D, you couldn't have Legolas and Gimli be as equal in power as their human counterparts for most classes by the middle of the trilogy, let alone by the end of it.

Conan the Barbarian came out shortly after I started playing, and since it also fit our preferred fantasy background, our games during that time were very much S&S, and not Tolkien at all. So it goes back to how individual gamers mold their gamestyle, and not so much D&D trying to emulate Tolkien more than any other influence.


*Edit* let me expound. In D&D Gandalf would be a 5th level MU (Old Dragon Magazine article reference). Certainly he was much more powerful than that in the books. Legolas couldn't be a ranger, and I doubt he had a 17 strength, so the best he could ever be is a 5th level fighter. Gimli could only be a 9th level fighter. Clearly, in pretty much every fantasy world, D&D doesn't emulate it very good. There are always going to be issues. And we as gamers tend to push the feel of the game towards what we feel most familiar with or what our preferences are. I would posit more gamers were/are familiar with Tokien (especially with the Hobbit cartoon bringing in tons of new younger gamers), so that's the feel they actively go for in D&D (it also explains why later editions of D&D feel and look more Tolkien than AD&D originally did). While a group like mine back in the day felt more like S&S and mythology because that was our influence and preference.

 

[BookBarbarian]

*Edit* let me expound. In D&D Gandalf would be a 5th level MU (Old Dragon Magazine article reference). Certainly he was much more powerful than that in the books. Legolas couldn't be a ranger, and I doubt he had a 17 strength, so the best he could ever be is a 5th level fighter. Gimli could only be a 9th level fighter. Clearly, in pretty much every fantasy world, D&D doesn't emulate it very good. There are always going to be issues. And we as gamers tend to push the feel of the game towards what we feel most familiar with or what our preferences are. I would posit more gamers were/are familiar with Tokien (especially with the Hobbit cartoon bringing in tons of new younger gamers), so that's the feel they actively go for in D&D (it also explains why later editions of D&D feel and look more Tolkien than AD&D originally did). While a group like mine back in the day felt more like S&S and mythology because that was our influence and preference.

Totally off topic. But I would never even try to stat Legolas as a Ranger. He's an Archer with both affinity to forests and the ability to see things really far away coming from a racial trait.

Anyway, feel free to ignore my nitpicking of how people think about things I also think about.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Tony Vargas]

Totally off topic. But I would never even try to stat Legolas as a Ranger. He's an Archer with both affinity to forests and the ability to see things really far away coming from a racial trait.

Anyway, feel free to ignore my nitpicking of how people think about things I also think about.

The point was that Legolas, in 1e AD&D, couldn't be a ranger, and since he didn't display MU or Thief abilities, could only be a fighter, and that with a harsh level limit... in 1e.
In 3e, he could have been a Ranger, though he didn't exactly go around casting spells, so only up to 3rd level, the rest could've been fighter - or, 3.5, a Scout, which wouldn't have been too bad (woodsy, light armored, skirimishing bonus). In 4e, he'd've been a Ranger (Archery build), and been doing the crazy tricks out of the LotR movies via 'powers' (indeed, it looks like whoever wrote the 4e Ranger watched that movie, a lot).

D&D has never been great at emulating any particular character. For instance, if you recall the old Giants in the Earth column in The Dragon, the characters in it typically broke all the rules - humans with multiple classes, non-humans breaking level limits, oddball magical abilities, etc... And a number of it's conventions - Vancian magic, most notably, Clerical healing, hard weapon & armor restrictions, etc - fly in the face of genre, too.

That makes it harder to say what it's 'based on,' since, whatever it may have been trying to emulate, it failed to do so very well.

 

[pemerton]

Robert Howard's Conan story "The Tower of the Elephant" is the greatest D&D story ever. (Conan overhears some people talking about a treasure guarded by deadly traps in a bar, and immediately runs over to the tower, and runs into a rogue who turns out to be a fellow PC, etc.) But D&D is pseudo-medieval, not pseudo-ancient, and Conan doesn't have all the humanoid races, both good and evil. If D&D was filled with evil snake cults and was less medieval, then I'd see the impacts of Howard more.

Good post, but there is one really striking difference between REH Conan stories (including Tower of the Elephant) and D&D: Conan prioritises doing the right thing (eg saving Yag-kosha) over getting the treasure.

To get this sort of outcome in D&D, you need to depart from the AD&D XP rules, and really from the 5e ones also.

A second difference is that Conan's adventures rarely involve planning and logistics, whereas this is a big part of AD&D and a feature of most other versions of D&D also. (4e is a bit of an outlier in this respect.)

D&D has the tropes of JRRT and of REH, but in its default playstyle - especially in the classic editions - it pushes in a directin much closer to a tactical war game. (Which is no surprise, given its originators!)

 

[Caliburn101]

The Lord of the Rings was extremely popular well before that cartoon came out: the books were published by n the '50's, and widely read by a large audience, not to mention the phenomenal success of the Hobbit since the 30's. Hell, the Silmarillion had been published by then, and is a viable source text.

Good lord, you'd think people would know LoTR was a book before it was a movie - especially people who pride themselves on the incisiveness of their Google enshrined research!

I guess what makes me laugh and shake my head the most about all this ridiculous storm in a teacup is that it would probably tickle Gary no end to think that his every word and relationship, his acts and actions about nothing more than a game would in future be dissected and put under such scrutiny to the point that should he have been so inclined, he could probably have stated his own cult!

He reportedly said he just wanted to be remembered as the guy who loved games (or words that that effect - if you want the precise quote - GOOGLE IT).

I think I can confirm without too much controversy that the energy and enthusiasm with which he spoke about it with me underline that statement, so even though that is one of the many statements he made according to someone else on the internet, I can believe it of him.

I was once an archaeologist. I say that because something which is taught in that scientific discipline are techniques for the avoidance of cultural confirmation bias, and rushing too quickly to simplify something found - "you should only put the finds in a box... not what you think about them" was a phrase I remember being taught at university when I studied it.

I read what you have stated Parmandur, and it occurs to me that there is a lot of a version of this very mistake being made on these forums by some of the more strident respondents. It is entirely likely that 'Arneson having created turning' and 'Gary didn't like it' is entirely consistent with the idea of it mirroring the Bombadil scene. One should think about how unique things still come about around the table when creative minds get together.

It's a group-think situation, and Gary was probably telling me about his input, or indeed someone elses that had been memorable for him.

Who knows?

Hell, if I had thought I be being accused of making it all up decades later I'd have asked him for a signed statement! lol

We do waste our time on trivia eh...?

 

[Harzel]

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. There are certain rules (genetic, for example) that allow this to be easily traced.

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. 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). 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).

Of course, the reason that this matters is that textual criticism is not a scientific endeavor; hardly. Similarities to a prior work can be evidence of allusion, of borrowing, of another source that both sources used, or, and this happens, serendipitous similarities. Sometimes, multiple people have similar ideas because of a prevailing zeitgeist, or sometimes different people have similar ideas without any prior knowledge of the other. It happens, because it's not biology.

For some reason, I now desperately wish to author a long article entitled On the Mating Behavior of Tropes and Memes. However, I am uncertain what the thesis or other content would be and where I should try to get it published.