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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 7271164" data-attributes="member: 15700">On a related note, I notice how in the beginning of Men And Magic (OD&D), Gygax specifically lists off several authors that would be the inspiration of D&D games.  And in the booklets later on, again specifically calls out literary authors as the source of inspiration.  Not Tolkien.  Now, I'm sure part of that had to do with his personal distaste of Tolkien anyway, rather than prove that Tolkien didn't have much influence.  But what it does prove is that clearly to Gary Gygax, all these other authors has just as much if not more influence to the game than Tolkien did.  You don't keep calling out a source as something that inspired you if it did not in fact inspire or influence you.  I see several arguments that D&D wouldn't look remotely like it did without Tolkien (even a retracted argument that it would never have been created without him), and those are the arguments I disagree with.  The proof is right there, in his own words in the original rulebooks.  Some things might look different (like halflings, Balor, elves, and dwarves), but most of the game would be the same.  There would still be elves, dwarves, and gnomes in the game, just different versions.  There are still dozens of other demons besides Balor.  So yeah, Tolkien had an important influence, but let's not overstate it because that means you're undervaluing all the other influences that are specifically called out right in the rulebooks themselves, let alone in later interviews.  And to repeat what [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] said earlier, do not make the assumption that just because something appears in Tolkien, that he created it.  That's simply factually not true, especially since Tolkien borrowed pretty much everything from other sources himself.  And as I mentioned earlier, I strongly suspect people are attributing influence on game aspect Y to Tolkien because they aren't familiar with Poul Anderson (or Lord Dunsany, or whoever) and just assume it's Tolkien because he had something similar and that's what people are familiar with.</blockquote>

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