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Which parts of D&D came from Tolkien?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7264991" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I don't know how 'prevalent' it is made out to be, but Tolkien's work is clearly the direct source of dwarves, elves, treants, orcs, goblins, halflings, rangers and many many other things down to small details like there being stone giants that are exceptionally good at throwing rocks. </p><p></p><p>Are Tolkien's works the sole inspirational source of D&D? Not at all! D&D liberally borrowed every inspiration at hand. There are plenty of things that obviously did not come from Tolkien and that we know did not come from Tolkien. But since Jon Peterson's epic bit of research, most of it documented in 'Playing at the World', we can be quite certain that far more of D&D is Tolkien than even I would have believed 10 years ago, because he documented the textual history where the D&D tropes came from.</p><p></p><p>For example, before Peterson's work, I would have never imagined that 'fireball' was a Tolkien spell, because it doesn't in the slightest resemble anything actually in the Tolkien text. In the text, Gandalf specifically does not have the power to make fire out of nothing - he can only burn things. So I always imagined fireball had some other source than Tolkien. But, Peterson documented the exact origin of the fireball in D&D, and it turns out it was without a doubt Tolkien inspired, intended to represent Gandalf's fire powers, and that it comes into its familiar form as 'fireball' after some rules simplification for the war gaming crowd.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7264991, member: 4937"] I don't know how 'prevalent' it is made out to be, but Tolkien's work is clearly the direct source of dwarves, elves, treants, orcs, goblins, halflings, rangers and many many other things down to small details like there being stone giants that are exceptionally good at throwing rocks. Are Tolkien's works the sole inspirational source of D&D? Not at all! D&D liberally borrowed every inspiration at hand. There are plenty of things that obviously did not come from Tolkien and that we know did not come from Tolkien. But since Jon Peterson's epic bit of research, most of it documented in 'Playing at the World', we can be quite certain that far more of D&D is Tolkien than even I would have believed 10 years ago, because he documented the textual history where the D&D tropes came from. For example, before Peterson's work, I would have never imagined that 'fireball' was a Tolkien spell, because it doesn't in the slightest resemble anything actually in the Tolkien text. In the text, Gandalf specifically does not have the power to make fire out of nothing - he can only burn things. So I always imagined fireball had some other source than Tolkien. But, Peterson documented the exact origin of the fireball in D&D, and it turns out it was without a doubt Tolkien inspired, intended to represent Gandalf's fire powers, and that it comes into its familiar form as 'fireball' after some rules simplification for the war gaming crowd. [/QUOTE]
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Which parts of D&D came from Tolkien?
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