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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jay Verkuilen" data-source="post: 7776654" data-attributes="member: 6873517">There are plenty of folks who claim, more or less, that Tolkien was the primary influence; indeed some have on this thread and it used to be even more common back in the day. In terms of market in the 1970s, 100%, that was truly one of the big drivers of the popularity of fantasy literature. Gygax acknowledge such even in the 1970s. (Nor am I holding him up as a paragon of virtue. It's pretty clear he screwed Dave Arneson, for example.) Some of us claim that the influence on Gygax has been overstated and that it was largely due to the demands of the fan base that elements like halflings, treants, etc., were included. Many, many other elements are as prominent as the Tolkien-isms in D&D, all the way back. I used to doubt that, too, but when I read books from the list I was convinced otherwise. In fact, having a copy of the 1E DMG handy I looked at the text, but you can find the rest <a href="http://www.digital-eel.com/blog/ADnD_reading_list.htm" target="_blank">here</a>. The concluding paragraph says:Having read many of the books on the list, and many of the articles Gygax cites as his primary interests, I believe him. For instance, with regards to Tolkien, he has The Hobbit in caps (indicating a stronger influence) compared to Lord of the Rings, which I think makes total sense. The tone and many of the devices in The Hobbit align quite a bit better with the feel of Ye Olde D&D. One way to consider this is, if D&D really was driven by homage to Tolkien, why did TSR fail to ask for the license from the Tolkien estate and left it to the upstart no-names Iron Crown Enterprises?Ultimately, though, folks have to make up their own minds, but I do hope it's not based on cherry picking the obvious JRRT-isms without reading The Dying Earth, Three Hearts and Three Lions, or Lankhmar to see what came from those---it was a lot, and these other authors and works really deserve to be remembered.</blockquote>

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