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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Harzel" data-source="post: 7265461" data-attributes="member: 6857506">By that measure, I think you are probably correct.  I'd certainly have to give you fanzines.  For books and movies, I suspect you are right, but don't have any data (other than anecdotal); if you do, that would be interesting.  Although in browsing to see if I could find any data, I came across the claim that the term 'high fantasy' was not invented until 1969 (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fantasy" target="_blank">Wikipedia article on High Fantasy</a>).I was thinking of 'popularity' more in terms of total readership.I assume you mean compared to high fantasy.  There were certainly other book and movie genres that were much more common.  Also, I believe the claim of yours that I was responding to compared Tolkien to other individual authors, not entire genres.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_inspired_by_J._R._R._Tolkien" target="_blank">This article</a> musters only one example: "Ursula Le Guin's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthsea" target="_blank">Earthsea</a> series, beginning with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wizard_of_Earthsea" target="_blank">A Wizard of Earthsea</a> in 1968."  That paucity would seem to bolster your point.But to get back to the OP's subject - I largely agree with [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION]'s assessment in the OP, although even talking strictly influences on Gygax, I would accord Tolkien a bit more stature.  In particular, I have a really hard time not seeing Tolkien in D&D's elves, dwarves, half-elves, and hobbits, er, halflings, particularly their status as potential main protagonists, who find alliances with each other and humans fairly acceptable (though perhaps not quite ideal).  Also, Gygax certainly name-checked Tolkien early on, so he was at least thinking a lot about Tolkien with respect to D&D.That said, even if you allow that Gygax drew a number of significant game elements from Tolkien, it seems to me that especially as Gygax (and Arneson) originally conceived of the game, the driving force, the mechanics, the expected motivation for PCs, seem more Howard (and others), than Tolkien.  Even in The Hobbit you have to strip away a lot before you are down to kill monsters and take their stuff.</blockquote>

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