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lowkey13
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D&D 5E Why D&D is not (just) Tolkien
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Legend
Do you know what I think? Of course you do, because everyone values my opinion. 
The original Tolkien influence on D&D wasn't nearly as great as people thought. Gygax was pretty well read on folklore and pulled much of the same influence as Tolkien did. However, since Tolkien did have a resurgence in popularity starting in the 70s, and most fantasy geeks knew him but did not know all the origination material (Wagnar, etc), we as gamers molded D&D to fit Tolkien's writings more than Gary ever did. Therefore, many of the similarities to Tolkien that people say D&D copied from were because of us, not because of Gary. And many of us gamers who did that, went on to work for TSR/WoTC, incorporating into new D&D products those similarities. I mentioned this in the other thread, but in OD&D, elves had beards. By the time 1e came out, elves were depicted in game material (books, modules, Dragon magazine) much more Tolkienesque. So it isn't so much that Gary copied all these things from Tolkien (he said he didn't), but we as gamers were most familiar with Tolkien so we made our games emulate his works, and then as we went to write articles for Dragon and go to work for a fast growing TSR company, we as gamers brought those similarities.
My $0.02 any way.
The original Tolkien influence on D&D wasn't nearly as great as people thought. Gygax was pretty well read on folklore and pulled much of the same influence as Tolkien did. However, since Tolkien did have a resurgence in popularity starting in the 70s, and most fantasy geeks knew him but did not know all the origination material (Wagnar, etc), we as gamers molded D&D to fit Tolkien's writings more than Gary ever did. Therefore, many of the similarities to Tolkien that people say D&D copied from were because of us, not because of Gary. And many of us gamers who did that, went on to work for TSR/WoTC, incorporating into new D&D products those similarities. I mentioned this in the other thread, but in OD&D, elves had beards. By the time 1e came out, elves were depicted in game material (books, modules, Dragon magazine) much more Tolkienesque. So it isn't so much that Gary copied all these things from Tolkien (he said he didn't), but we as gamers were most familiar with Tolkien so we made our games emulate his works, and then as we went to write articles for Dragon and go to work for a fast growing TSR company, we as gamers brought those similarities.
My $0.02 any way.
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lowkey13
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The influence of Tolkein is pretty huge. The man's books are the heart of modern fantasy, just like Dracula and modern vampires. But... no dnd without him?
I bet the game would look very different, but the heart of D&D was taking a mix of war games and funky dice and making something more involved. We'd still have a game.
I bet the game would look very different, but the heart of D&D was taking a mix of war games and funky dice and making something more involved. We'd still have a game.
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lowkey13
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As I said in the other thread, I believe that Tolkien's wild popularity created a fertile/receptive market for the idea of an RPG as long as it felt somewhat like Tolkien.
I'm venturing into "what if the Nazis won WWII" territory* here, but there are two ways to ask What If:
a) What if Tolkien never wrote his books? In this case it's possibly...and I think likely...that there is a reduced probability that EGG & Co. would have thought of creating a fantasy RPG out of miniature wargaming, and a greatly reduced probability that such a game would have found mass market appeal. Would we still have RPGs today? I dunno...probably. But they would look a lot different because a different game would have set the standard.
b) What if EGG & Co. were somehow either totally oblivious to Tolkien, or hated Tolkien so much that they intentionally avoided anything that might have smelled like him? In this case there would have been a receptive market, but perhaps that market would have found the product less satisfying ("What if I don't want to play a human?"). In which case, again, D&D might have failed to reach critical mass and become the dominant RPG and today some elements of D&D (HP, Vancian casting, etc.) might not be so prevalent.
So I won't go quite so far as to claim that D&D specifically and RPGs more generally wouldn't exist today (although it's possible), but they would likely look much different because D&D wouldn't have been as popular and therefore its ideas wouldn't be so dominant. As somebody said in the other thread, maybe Traveler would have become the dominant game. Just think how our RPGs would look today.
*We do know for certain that if the Nazis won WWII then there would be literary essays examining whether Mordor is a metaphor for the USSR and/or the United States....
I'm venturing into "what if the Nazis won WWII" territory* here, but there are two ways to ask What If:
a) What if Tolkien never wrote his books? In this case it's possibly...and I think likely...that there is a reduced probability that EGG & Co. would have thought of creating a fantasy RPG out of miniature wargaming, and a greatly reduced probability that such a game would have found mass market appeal. Would we still have RPGs today? I dunno...probably. But they would look a lot different because a different game would have set the standard.
b) What if EGG & Co. were somehow either totally oblivious to Tolkien, or hated Tolkien so much that they intentionally avoided anything that might have smelled like him? In this case there would have been a receptive market, but perhaps that market would have found the product less satisfying ("What if I don't want to play a human?"). In which case, again, D&D might have failed to reach critical mass and become the dominant RPG and today some elements of D&D (HP, Vancian casting, etc.) might not be so prevalent.
So I won't go quite so far as to claim that D&D specifically and RPGs more generally wouldn't exist today (although it's possible), but they would likely look much different because D&D wouldn't have been as popular and therefore its ideas wouldn't be so dominant. As somebody said in the other thread, maybe Traveler would have become the dominant game. Just think how our RPGs would look today.
*We do know for certain that if the Nazis won WWII then there would be literary essays examining whether Mordor is a metaphor for the USSR and/or the United States....
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lowkey13
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That only seems to be disagreement with my first and lesser claim. (And even then, I would still argue that creating a medieval "rpg" is still not a "fantasy" rpg.) Even if they invented D&D exactly as it is, would it ever have become more popular than...well, than miniature wargaming itself was, in the absence of a huge Tolkien fan-base? I'm very, very skeptical. I know the reason I started playing way back then (~1981) was because of Tolkien.
This is more complicated. But to provide a (possible) counter-example, it's similar to asking "What if every school didn't teach the Great Gatsby?" Or, in other terms, "Why is to Kill a Mockingbird so popular?" (Because it coincided with paperback books being used in schools). Was there a cultural zeitgeist for fantasy at the time, that Tolkien fulfilled (that wasn't there when he first published, or at least not to the same extent), or did Tolkien create it? Chicken or egg? I happen to think that the late 60s and 70s were receptive to it (see also movies, other books, etc.) and that Tolkien moved into that space. As did D&D; but if not Tolkien, it would have been others.
That's the trouble with counterfactuals; they can't be disproven.
Sure. And I *think* I'm being pretty explicit that this is just conjecture and my opinion.
Sacrosanct
Legend
I agree with lowkey13. I mean, let's look at the timelines. The Hobbit was written in 1937. The LoTR in the 50s. They were out a long time before the resurgence of the 70s*. Sci-fi/fantasy started to sharply gain in popularity in the 60s, and hit a high in 70s. That means that the fantasy resurgence of the 60s/70s would have happened even if Tolkien never existed. Guys like Michael Moorcock began writing in 1950, before LoTR, and were inspired by S&S authors like Howard.
So even if Tolkien never existed, there were still authors like Howard, Lieber, Lloyd Alexander, Moorcock, etc. The fantasy resurgence of the 70s still would have happened. Tolkien is simply the most popular, that's all. And seeing as how the SCA and Tékumel started in the 60s (before the resurgence of the 70s), it stands to reason that RPGs would have been created even if Tolkien never existed, and would look very much like they do now. Maybe not halflings or Balrogs, but those are actually pretty small contributions compared to the whole game. As I (and others) have pointed out in the other thread, many of the things people are crediting Tolkien for creating (flying eagles, lycanthropy, etc) he didn't create, but took right out existing myth. So they still would be here without Tolkien.
*When I talk about the resurgence of the 70s, I'm talking about how Tolkien, despite the books being decades old, didn't get mainstream popularity until this decade with the rise of sci-fi/fantasy in general, and he really became mainstream with the Hobbit animated film in 1977. Which actually proves that D&D would still be popular without Tolkien, because D&D took off before Tolkien suddenly rose in popularity with that movie. Prior to the movie, he was no more popular than the aforementioned authors.
So even if Tolkien never existed, there were still authors like Howard, Lieber, Lloyd Alexander, Moorcock, etc. The fantasy resurgence of the 70s still would have happened. Tolkien is simply the most popular, that's all. And seeing as how the SCA and Tékumel started in the 60s (before the resurgence of the 70s), it stands to reason that RPGs would have been created even if Tolkien never existed, and would look very much like they do now. Maybe not halflings or Balrogs, but those are actually pretty small contributions compared to the whole game. As I (and others) have pointed out in the other thread, many of the things people are crediting Tolkien for creating (flying eagles, lycanthropy, etc) he didn't create, but took right out existing myth. So they still would be here without Tolkien.
*When I talk about the resurgence of the 70s, I'm talking about how Tolkien, despite the books being decades old, didn't get mainstream popularity until this decade with the rise of sci-fi/fantasy in general, and he really became mainstream with the Hobbit animated film in 1977. Which actually proves that D&D would still be popular without Tolkien, because D&D took off before Tolkien suddenly rose in popularity with that movie. Prior to the movie, he was no more popular than the aforementioned authors.
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