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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Parmandur" data-source="post: 7274305" data-attributes="member: 6780330">No, you have the causality backwards: Gygax is a well-established unreliable narrator, on so many counts (see also, Arneson, Dave): his word really is of little import on any factual matter. In addition, what the 1974 quote proves is that, in 1974, people were bringing up the Tolkien influence in the text that he felt bound to address. That it was before actual legal action is also not material, given that he must have known that legal action was a possibility.Now, I have said repeatedly that Tolkien is not the primary, and hardly the only, influence on D&D: but it is an obvious influence. And we cannot know what the wargaming scene would have looked like in the late 60's/early 70's in a non-Tolkien inspired alternate 20th century, either way. Maybe RPGs would have started with something like Top Secret, maybe RPGs would have never been invented. Such is beyond our knowledge, just as a second Kennedy term or a 21st century Confederate States of America.</blockquote>