D&D 5E Why D&D is not (just) Tolkien

[Parmandur]

Maybe then. Now?

"It's like Diablo, but without a computer."

Lord of the Rings has sold way, way better than Diablo: Diablo is more mainstream than D&D, but less mainstream than Tolkien by a large amount.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Maybe then. Now?

"It's like Diablo, but without a computer."

What's Diablo?

"It's like WoW, but you play by yourself..."

Heh, well, precisely. D&D is very fringe next to Tolkien, and I think it is fair to speculate that the Venn diagram overlap for D&D players and Tolkien readers (at least attempted) is very, very high: if D&D players are not a perfect subset of Tolkien readers, it's probably damn close.

There was a lot of crossover between playing D&D and reading comics, too. Early on, D&D was disproportionately played by teenage boys and young men, there are going to be a /lot/ of correlations that have everything to do with the demographics, and not so much to do with the influences on the game or the reason for it being in the first place.

And, that correlation could be going both directions. You can read Tolkien (or REH or Vance), hear D&D is derivative of it, and check it out, or you can play D&D, and check out Tolkien (and Lieber, and Moorcock, &c) because you hear D&D is derivative of it.

I think a large proportion of D&Ders checking at Tolkien, vs a minuscule proportion of Tolkien fans checking out D&D argues against the former and for the latter, but I'm confirmation-biased, because the latter was my personal experience.

 

[Parmandur]

What's Diablo?

"It's like WoW, but you play by yourself..."

There was a lot of crossover between playing D&D and reading comics, too. Early on, D&D was disproportionately played by teenage boys and young men, there are going to be a /lot/ of correlations that have everything to do with the demographics, and not so much to do with the influences on the game or the reason for it being in the first place.

And, that correlation could be going both directions. You can read Tolkien (or REH or Vance), hear D&D is derivative of it, and check it out, or you can play D&D, and check out Tolkien (and Lieber, and Moorcock, &c) because you hear D&D is derivative of it.

I think a large proportion of D&Ders checking at Tolkien, vs a minuscule proportion of Tolkien fans checking out D&D argues against the former and for the latter, but I'm confirmation-biased, because the latter was my personal experience.

Well, sure, it goes both ways: everyone I know who has ever played D&D falls in the former camp (Tolkien to D&D), though. Literally everyone. I don't know many people who both read books and didn't read the Hobbit as a child, for that matter.

Indeed, the Tolkien influence can only work to minimize the teenage boy dominance of the hobby, given the popularity of Tolkien with the full set of demographic "quadrants."

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well, sure, it goes both ways: everyone I know who has ever played D&D falls in the former camp (Tolkien to D&D), though.

OK, so we have opposed confirmation biases.

Indeed, the Tolkien influence can only work to minimize the teenage boy dominance of the hobby, given the popularity of Tolkien with the full set of demographic "quadrants."

The hobby has always skewed heavily male, and started out skewing heavily towards young males (now more towards males who were young then, and got old!). That Tolkien had broader appeal doesn't exactly support the idea that the flow was mostly from Tolkien to D&D... though it's hardly contradicted, either, maybe D&D filtered for that demographic somehow? Because wargaming was male-dominated, for instance.

I don't know many people who both read books and didn't read the Hobbit as a child, for that matter.

I read a lot as a kid, but more sci-fi than fantasy, starting with ERB, though which is darn close to fantasy, and used to be a very common point of entry for young readers...

 

[Hussar]

/snip

But then, how many players came into D&D from Tolkien?

/snip

I'm going to take a wild stab here and say, lots. Considering Tolkien was required reading at many, many public schools in North America at the time, odds are, a fair chunk of the D&D playing public had read at least the Hobbit by the time they saw D&D. And if you've read the Hobbit, D&D is immediately recognizable.

Dwarves and elves have a very strong lineage in fantasy that predates Tolkien. They feature strongly in Norse and Anglo-Saxon mythology. Which, as Tolkien's day job was a Professor of Anglo-Saxon literature, he would obviously know very well.

The conflation of elves and fae dates from Elizabethan fantasy literature. For example, Shakespeare, but he's not the only one.

Yup, fair enough. And if Dwarves were fairies living in forests, you might have a point. The problem is though, the D&D versions of elves and dwarves are directly tied to Tolkien, right down to the racial antipathies. Sure, there are fairy stories as old as time. But, how many fairy stories have elves and dwarves that don't like each other? How many have elven kingdoms living side by side with human ones, where you have trade between them? How many stories have regular folk being able to buy dwarven goods at the local trader?

I mean good grief, D&D even pulled the writing systems for both races straight from Tolkien. Sure, it might be somewhat different (copyright laws being what they are), but, if you look at elven script in D&D, it looks pretty much identical to Tolkien's. Is there a particular reason that dwarves use Celtic looking runes? Why? Oh, right, Tolkien.

Did Tolkien originate all his ideas from thin air? No, of course not. But, there's a direct line of decendence going on here. It's not really a coincedence that you have Hildebrant Bros doing art for D&D.

 

[Lehrbuch]

Yup, fair enough. And if Dwarves were fairies living in forests, you might have a point. The problem is though, the D&D versions of elves and dwarves are directly tied to Tolkien, right down to the racial antipathies. Sure, there are fairy stories as old as time. But, how many fairy stories have elves and dwarves that don't like each other?

Well, in Norse / Germanic myth (which Tolkien was an expert in) Dwarves are usually portrayed as skilled craftsmen who live underground. Whereas as elves are more portrayed as enchanters. Although admittedly Norse myth is ambiguous as to whether dwarves are a type of elf or something different. They are antagonistic to normal elves though, dwarves being a sort of anti/dark-elf.

How many have elven kingdoms living side by side with human ones, where you have trade between them?

Half-elves occur in Norse myth. And wars with elves happen in Norse myth. Queen Skuld in the Saga of Hrolf Kraki is an elven sorceress who assembles an army that includes elves, she fights with magic, including reanimating her slain soldiers, and conquers and rules Sweden for a time.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm going to take a wild stab here and say, lots. Considering Tolkien was required reading at many, many public schools in North America at the time,

I went to the wrong public schools in the 70s. We got Where the Red Fern Grows, Charlotte's Web, and Wind in the Willows.... ;(

odds are, a fair chunk of the D&D playing public had read at least the Hobbit by the time they saw D&D.

Then there was Bakshi doing Hobbit & LotR in the late 70s, too.

And if you've read the Hobbit, D&D is immediately recognizable.

It's not like any of the stuff in D&D is that un-recognizable. You've got knights in armor, wizards, the spells & magic items drew from all the heck over mythology, fantasy literature, movies &c - and the monsters, too. The skeletons & black pudding, of all things, made D&D immediately recognizable to me as a fan of Harryhausen and b-horror movies, who'd never heard of Tolkien at the time.

Also, the flaming sword thing, for some reason, really resonated. There wasn't a flaming sword in Tolkien, was there? But there was in the Bible - angel's had 'em.

By the time I saw the Hobbit on TV, and started plowing my way through LotR, though, the stuff in it was very recognizable from D&D. "Hey, Glamdring, there's that Sword, +1/+2 vs goblinoids..."

It's not really a coincedence that you have Hildebrant Bros doing art for D&D.

I know! They were practically a household name after they did the Star Wars poster!

Well, in Norse / Germanic myth (which Tolkien was an expert in) Dwarves are usually portrayed as skilled craftsmen who live underground. Whereas as elves are more portrayed as enchanters. Although admittedly Norse myth is ambiguous as to whether dwarves are a type of elf or something different. They are antagonistic to normal elves though, dwarves being a sort of anti/dark-elf.

Yeah, the svartalfar made it into D&D as Dwarves, as Drow, and as xvarts. Amusing, that.

 

[Hussar]

As I said, I'm sure that Tolkien was drawing on earlier material. Yup, not going to disagree there.

But, does anyone seriously think that the chain of ideas for dwarves and elves skips Tolkien and draws from those same Norse sources? Really?

 

[Tony Vargas]

But, does anyone seriously think that the chain of ideas for dwarves and elves skips Tolkien and draws from those same Norse sources? Really?

Nah, just not all from Tolkien, him, the myths, and whatever else.

Thus the Norse dark elves providing 2 races and a monster, gorgons & medusae being separate monsters even though Medusa was an individual gorgon, etc... D&D was syncretic and profligate with the borrowing as the language it was written in...

Speaking of which, this is the thread where you brought up Shakespeare, right?

Another one occurred to me MacBeth's "no man born of woman" and Eowyn being able to defeat the Nazgul. Both were breaking a Geas in the traditional Celtic sense of a taboo that presaged the means or circumstances of your death.

I'd often thought the D&D geas an odd variation on that, then there was that short story someone linked, where it was straight up mind control, much more D&Dish.

Gygax pulled from all over, it seems, and the more you dig the more influences...
I wonder if any of it was original, at all?

 

[Yaarel]

So, about 55% of voters feel Tolkien is definitively influential in D&D, the source for the most important aspects of D&D or even that there could be no D&D as we know it without his work. An additional 35% feel Tolkien is more influential than other scifi authors.

90% acknowledge D&D's intellectual debt to Tolkien.