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<blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 7264710" data-attributes="member: 15700">Do you know what I think?&nbsp; Of course you do, because everyone values my opinion. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> The original Tolkien influence on D&amp;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.&nbsp; 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&amp;D to fit Tolkien's writings more than Gary ever did.&nbsp; Therefore, many of the similarities to Tolkien that people say D&amp;D copied from were because of us, not because of Gary.&nbsp; And many of us gamers who did that, went on to work for TSR/WoTC, incorporating into new D&amp;D products those similarities.&nbsp; I mentioned this in the other thread, but in OD&amp;D, elves had beards.&nbsp; By the time 1e came out, elves were depicted in game material (books, modules, Dragon magazine) much more Tolkienesque.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; My $0.02 any way.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sacrosanct, post: 7264710, member: 15700"] 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), [I]we as gamers[/I] 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 [I]us[/I], 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. [/QUOTE]

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