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<blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 7265779" data-attributes="member: 15700">Well, I think the game would look much different without halflings, dwarves, and elves (all three are pretty much Tolkien).&nbsp; Gary was very human centric anyway, so we'd see the game with a much more human angle than we already did.&nbsp; But we'd still have orcs.&nbsp; The name orc comes from Beowulf, and in folklore, orcs were monstrous humanoids.&nbsp; So they would still be in D&amp;D without Tolkien.&nbsp; Original D&amp;D orcs looked nothing like Tolkien's orcs anyway.But to your point, I agree with you.&nbsp; It's like the comment I made way early on.&nbsp; More people are familiar with Tolkien than with Poul Anderson, by a large amount I'm guessing.&nbsp; I imagine there is a LOT of confirmation bias going on as to what parts of D&amp;D were inspired by who because of that bias and the fact that most people never read Poul.&nbsp; So they assume it was from what they are familiar with, like Tolkien.&nbsp; And then as D&amp;D grew, and people got hired on to create more material, that confirmation bias became official.&nbsp; Like how orcs changed from nothing like Tolkien, to now being almost exactly like Tolkien.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sacrosanct, post: 7265779, member: 15700"] Well, I think the game would look much different without halflings, dwarves, and elves (all three are pretty much Tolkien). Gary was very human centric anyway, so we'd see the game with a much more human angle than we already did. But we'd still have orcs. The name orc comes from Beowulf, and in folklore, orcs were monstrous humanoids. So they would still be in D&D without Tolkien. Original D&D orcs looked nothing like Tolkien's orcs anyway. But to your point, I agree with you. It's like the comment I made way early on. More people are familiar with Tolkien than with Poul Anderson, by a large amount I'm guessing. I imagine there is a LOT of confirmation bias going on as to what parts of D&D were inspired by who because of that bias and the fact that most people never read Poul. So they assume it was from what they are familiar with, like Tolkien. And then as D&D grew, and people got hired on to create more material, that confirmation bias became official. Like how orcs changed from nothing like Tolkien, to now being almost exactly like Tolkien. [/QUOTE]

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