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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 7354379" data-attributes="member: 21169">Another Tolkienesque element that's been present in D&D since the start is the dualistic struggle between good and evil. Law and Chaos in OD&D and B/X aren't the same as Law and Chaos in Moorcock, they're really just different terms for good and evil, probably taking inspiration from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions and The Broken Sword.There's an interesting passage about this on page 112 of the 1e DMG. Gary is basically saying that a D&D campaign might look like Conan but it's really an epic struggle between good and evil. This quote does perhaps resemble Moorcock's Eternal Champion series more than anything else, but there's some Tolkien in there too, given that Gandalf, Saruman and Sauron are the supernatural servants of divine beings.One can interpret Conan as dualistic - the struggle between the corrupting force of civilisation (evil) and the virtuous barbarian (good) but it's not as clear-cut because Howard also has forces of savagery represented by apemen and other beasts as something to be avoided.I will happily admit that a clear struggle between good and evil is not limited to Tolkien and can be found in many other sources that influenced Gygax such as Abraham Merritt, August Derleth, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Manly Wade Wellman and, ofc, Christianity.There's also dualism in Zelazny's Jack of Shadows and Amber series, and in Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East series. The influence of the Cold War is obvious in the latter and I think also present in the former. I'm sure it must've also affected Gary Gygax's thinking.</blockquote>

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