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

[Celebrim]

I'm not sure how you can square your burden of proof when it comes to Tolkien as opposed to other authors. After all, other than the regeneration, Anderson's trolls are different in some aspects than D&D trolls, yet most people would acknowledge the basis.

I think you answer your own question. If D&D's trolls have some feature that can only be found in one place, then in all likelihood the principle inspiration had to be that place. But the evidence for the Anderson troll being the basis of the D&D troll is much stronger than that even:

Here is the Anderson troll:

"He was perhaps eight feet tall, perhaps more. His forward stoop, with arms dangling past thick claw-footed legs to the ground, made it hard to tell. The hairless green skin moved upon his body. His head was a gash of a mouth, a yard-long nose, and two eyes which were black pools, without pupil or white, eyes which drank the feeble torchlight and never gave back a gleam....Like a huge green spider, the troll's severed hand ran on its fingers. Across the mounded floor, up onto a log with one taloned forefinger to hook it over the bark, down again it scrambled, until it found the cut wrist. And there it grew fast. The troll's smashed head seethed and knit together. He clambered back on his feet and grinned at them."

Here we have in one piece of text not only green skin, a very long nose, and long dangling arms - features that while telling are probably not unique to this troll - but the critical unique piece regarding the rapid regeneration of limbs. To argue against the Anderson troll you know have to show how this combination was not only not unique to Anderson, but that the authors of the D&D monster manual also had access to those other sources for a regenerating troll with a long nose, stooped posture, dangling arms, and about 8' tall that should be slain by fire. Now, I've read a lot of Swedish folk lore, and I've never encountered this combination before anywhere but in Anderson. Hence, this passage is extremely compelling evidence for the Anderson origin of the D&D troll.

On the other hand, virtually every thief of literature can move silently, hide in the dark, and climb sheer surfaces.

Yes, Jack is a computer programmer. It doesn't mean that parts aren't lifted....

No, it doesn't. But you've given zero evidence of such a lift. Find me the passage in Jack of Shadows that shares with D&D the sort of things that distinguish the D&D thief from the ordinary sort of things conjured up by the term 'thief' (prior to the introduction of the D&D thief itself).

Just like the dissimilarities in Amber doesn't mean that large swaths of the Illusionist class weren't lifted (and, for that matter, was probably why I kept playing them even though the class was terrible).

I don't necessarily disagree that the Illusionist wasn't lifted from Amber, but that's a different conversation. Finding a correspondence between specific spells in the Amber series and specific spells in D&D would for example be evidence, especially if they had similar naming conventions.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Mistwell]

So looking further into the L. Patt rules, as I previously mentioned it's pretty much a certainty that the L. Patt rules influenced the writing of the Chainmail rules, and the later borrows from the former.

And as I mentioned, the Leonard Patt rules are a wargame for re-creating the Lord of the Rings.

For those who have not looked at the link to those two page rules, here's the text from the intro and a summary of what's to be found there:

Rules for Middle Earth, by L. Patt.

For those of you who have read J.R. R. Tolkien's famous trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, Middle Earth needs no introduction, for others, some is necessary. Middle Earth is a mythical land peopled by many creatures, men elves, dwarves, and hobbits. The story concerns the struggles of the good men of the west to destroy the Ring of Power belonging to the evil Lord Sauron and thus bring to an end his threat to the peace of Middle Earth. Sauron created many evil creatures to aid him in his attempt to destroy the men of the West, including the Orcs, strange dark creatures made in mockery of the elves.

The rules and uniform information presented below are by no means complete and are only a guide to start a Middle Earth wargame. Figures include medieval knights in chain mail and many men-at-arms. Orcs, dwarves, hobbits and trolls are harder to find but this problem can be solved by making conversions of Airfix figures. The rules below are set up to fit within most Ancient or Medeival rules and were simply an addendum to the NEWA ancient rules used to play the game.

[The game goes on to describe Dragons, Wizards and some of their spells like Fireball, Men, Ents, Orcs, Orcs, Heroes, and Anti-heroes. ]

As Jon Peterson from Playing At The World writers, "...We find many elements in Chainmail that unmistakably derive from Patt...."

 

[Tony Vargas]

The Arab alchemists/wizards came to believe that Solomon's ring was magical and had the power to command demons, and this was the source of the numerous magic rings in the Arabian Nights tales. ...

Ring? As in the Seal of Solomon?

that shares with D&D the sort of things that distinguish the D&D thief from the ordinary sort of things conjured up by the term 'thief' (prior to the introduction of the D&D thief itself).

Is there a lot? The Read Languages ability? The related deciphering and using scrolls normally only usable by wizards? Usable weapons and armor don't much stand out, except maybe for the sling - otherwise most notable as the weapon of David that slew Goliath, not very a very thiefly archetype. A Roguish character in leather would certainly be nothing unusual.

 

[Mistwell]

Also, two seconds of googling-

"Gary Gygax wrote in issue #2 of The Excellent Prismatic Spray (2001) that Jack Vance’s Cugel the Clever and Zelazny’s Shadowjack were the greatest influences on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons thief class as described in the The Players Handbook (1978)."

So, there's that too. *sigh*

(I mean, it's not like it was both one of the few books called out by name in Appendix N, and also kinda obvious to the players at the time? Or just to the players in my area, I guess?)

Wait wait wait...we know with certainty where the Thief came from. You don't have to guess, and we know exactly what Gygax's "inspiration" for it was, and it was a phone call from the Aero Hobbies guys. He wrote it down, at the time, contemporaneously, and we have his notes. You can read about it here...there's really no doubt where he got the thief rules. There was a follow-up post here and also here as well, where he and one of the Aero hobbies guys laughs about how Gygax got the thief rules from them.

So you'd have to ask the Aero hobbies guys what their inspiration for the Thief class was. It surely isn't an appendix which Gygax slapped on years later.

That last post actually explains some of it:

It came about like this, one group had a dwarf who wanted to try picking locks with his dagger, so I had the idea for a Burglar class, which we drew up like a Magic user but with skills (like Lock picking) instead of spells. The consensus was to call the class “Thief”. Gary Switzer called Gygax long distance (a kinda big deal in those days) from his shop Aero hobbies and Gygax ran with the idea.

Later, when I met Gygax at a con, he got a little threatening said he could sue us. I brought up the Thief class, and he glowered, then laughed and said “One good steal deserves another, OK, we’re good then, I won’t sic the law dogs on you!”. We then hung out a bit. I got to play a session with Arneson (who was “play by the seat of his pants” rules but had a incredible imagination).

Thus the intro to the MofA !
Switzer didn’t tell us until later he had spilled the beans to Gygax, so we thought the class had been ripped off. Thus we wrote the MofA in 1976 and printed it in 1977. First 200 copies then 1000 copies. 2nd ed had less typos and more art. Aimee and Troy did almost all the art. Larry did the typing and some monsters, Hugh did the editing and sales, the shapeshifter and samurai classes, etc. Hargrave, Jeff Tibbets, Mathis, Steve Lucky and a few others helped distribute it.

Today of course, the MofA appears crudely done. But it was the first outside TSR D&D supplement ever printed, and esp the only one not to be sued. (My buddy Dave Hargrave got a lawyer letter which is why he had to change stuff around for Arduin).

I am going to have to carefully read over my copy to answer specific questions. More later.

Some of this is D&D history never before written down, folks.

So that's it. Sort of a let down I suppose - there's really no "inspiration" there except some player wanted to pick some locks and the DM came up with a thief class from there. And now, the above is not speculation or bragging, as you can see on Gary's end he writers it down and mentions he did get the idea from those players at Aero Hobbies.

 

[Yaarel]

The thing is, the stuff that really matters in D&D − such as the races that you can play − is Tolkien.

The Elf is the Tolkien Elf. The Halfling is the Tolkien Halfing (Tolkien also called his Hobbits ‘Halflings’). The Dwarf is the Tolkien Dwarf. And so on.

There could be very different ways of designing of designing the Elf or the Dwarf. Heh. Except plagiarizing Tolkien prevents such alternatives.

 

[Yaarel]

And there are too many small races. D&D needs some large races!

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Only if they get rid of 2 races for every one they add.

 

[Parmandur]

He started writing that book in the late 60s as a hobby writer. He was going to law school at the time and that was his focus as a career (that's what he told me anyway last time I spoke to him about 5ish years ago). The book wasn't actually published until 1977--a few years after he finished it. Which wouldn't have happened if Tolkienesque writing was as popular as people are saying (I imagine it would have been sooner if Tolkien was a big as people are saying so they could capitalize on the popularity). So you can't really use that books as an example of how popular Tolkien was in the 60s since it was a hobby write at first, and then wasn't published until '77.

Again, looking at the sort of stuff that was appearing in fanzines and what was being published prior to the late 70s was almost exclusively S&S and not Tolkienesque high fantasy. That is what was more popular at the time. It wasn't until the late 70s (years AFTER D&D) that we saw an explosion in high fantasy, from the Hobbit movie to Sword of Shannara.

Therefore, to the entire point of all this, everything points to D&D being D&D even if Tolkien never existed. The timeline does not lie. The material created during those years don't lie. Even Gary himself addressed this issue the year D&D was released.

Yet he felt the need to address it, because it was in folks minds.

You are accusing folks of overestimating Tolkien's influence, and as far as Gygax goes maybe so; but you seem to be underestimating the popular phenomenon of Tolkien's work in the 40 years prior to a TV cartoon.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yet he felt the need to address it, because it was in folks minds.

You are accusing folks of overestimating Tolkien's influence, and as far as Gygax goes maybe so; but you seem to be underestimating the popular phenomenon of Tolkien's work in the 40 years prior to a TV cartoon.

I have not seen any evidence that Tolkien was not only the primary influence, but such a strong influence that the game may never have been made without him or that his influence was exponentionally greater than any other author. In fact, all evidence points to those claims being untrue. Therefore, when people are making those claims, I feel perfectly comfortable saying those people are over estimating his influence.

Yes, he was very popular. Yes, he had some influence. But not nearly as much as some people are claiming. What evidence do you have that Tolkien had a MUCH bigger influence in fantasy during the 60s and early 70s over Howard, Lieber, Moorcock, or Lovecraft? Because what most people were writing during that time certainly isn’t it.