Worlds of Design: In the Shadow of Tolkien

How much does Tolkien’s body of work influence you fantasy role-playing games?

When were you first interested in Tolkien's works compared to when you played FRPGs

  • I was interested in Tolkien's works well before I got into FRPGs

    Votes: 93 46.5%
  • My interest in Tolkien's works and FRPGs happened about the same time

    Votes: 73 36.5%
  • I became interested Tolkien's works well after I got into FRPGs

    Votes: 29 14.5%
  • I've never been a fan or influenced by Tolkien's works

    Votes: 5 2.5%

The answer is likely predicated on if you came to Tolkien before you came to FRPGs.

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Picture courtesy of Pixabay.

"Nobody believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal aesthetic might seem real. But it is true." - J. R. R. Tolkien

I read the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) when I was in my late teens, about seven years before original Dungeons & Dragons was released. (The Hobbit came later for me.) This is long before any LOTR movies, of course. Most of you have read LOTR (or watched the Peter Jackson movies) long after the release of D&D, I suspect, but still we can ask which came first for you, LOTR or D&D?

Which Came First (for You)?​

I’d suppose that Tolkien is likely to have a greater influence on your gaming if you came to Tolkien before you came to fantasy role-playing games (FRPGs).

This also might depend on when you started playing FRPGs. When I first played D&D (1975) the assumption was that the GM would mine fantasy novels and stories, and myths and legends, for ideas for his/her campaign. I remember hunting down Stith-Thompson’s Motif Index of Folklore Literature (in Duke Library), surely not something many GMs do today (even though today it’s a free PDF rather than huge paper volumes). There were few adventure modules and even fewer ready-made settings to buy. With this approach, Tolkien would be one author amongst many, maybe foremost but still just one.

Gary Gygax listed in Appendix N of AD&D the novels/novelists that had influenced him, including many long preceding LOTR. I’ve read most of the books listed in the Appendix, but I suspect many younger people have read few of them. Working from the list, Jeffro Johnson in his book Appendix N: the Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons, by reviewing these books, has ably demonstrated that there were a lot stronger influences on D&D than Tolkien.

Tolkien’s Expanding Influence​

Even before the Ralph Bakshi LOTR movie (1978) I gauged the likelihood that someone would like D&D according to whether or not they’d read The Lord of the Rings. (Many give up because the book starts slowly.) If they had not read it, prospects were much less rosy. Now, with many movies (Peter Jackson’s, Bakshi’s, and the Rankin Bass follow-up to Bakshi, and others more obscure), and even a LOTR TV series (Rings of Power), I don’t rely on my old view. On the other hand, so many more people are aware of LOTR (and of RPGs) than in the pre-movie past.

More recently, adventure modules and even settings of all kinds can be found online, including many that are free. GMs don’t have to make up adventures or settings, they can use someone else’s creations. Further, many of the old fantasy authors are virtually unknown to recent generations. But with the movies, Tolkien is even more well-known than when there were only books. Do the movies make Tolkien a stronger influence? Or do GMs today just accept whatever adventures/settings they acquire and not change much? For most these days, likely the latter.

Beyond Tolkien​

If you want more discussion of Tolkien’s influence, see my previous articles (Escaping Tolkien and Reassessing Tolkien’s Influence). As I wrote this, I asked myself, what’s the biggest influence likely to be, after Tolkien?

Conan the Barbarian (whether the savage Robert E. Howard version, or the more tempered ones by other authors that followed)? Wheel of Time? Game of Thrones? Dresden Files? David Eddings’ Mallorean and Belgariad? Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn? Harry Potter? Superhero movies? Something from Appendix N days such as Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions?

Your Turn: Do you think the timing on your exposure to Tolkien’s works influenced your FRPG play?
 

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Lewis Pulsipher

Lewis Pulsipher

Dragon, White Dwarf, Fiend Folio
I agree with you. His world building wasn't as detailed or as deep as Tolkien's. In a lot of ways it might better for an RPG because I think he left a lot more room for the "players" as it were and he mirrors what a DM is likely to do in a new campaign, adding on as needed. It's also not nearly as black and white about "these races good, these races bad", for example, nor is it quite so epic in scope overall, though of course still pretty epic.
Right - Dawn Treader could be fairly easily recontextualised as a series of modules chained together within a wider campaign arc, where those modules don't have a lot to do with each other in detail but are brought together in theme.
 

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Right - Dawn Treader could be fairly easily recontextualised as a series of modules chained together within a wider campaign arc, where those modules don't have a lot to do with each other in detail but are brought together in theme.
Good insight. I never thought of it that way but yes, each of the books could quite well be thought of as different campaigns set in the same world, with the final one being a weaker finale with a bunch of the original players being able to return---all except Susan's player, who'd bailed on RPGs in the meantime.
 

I would assume the amount of people who have LotR as a formative influence on their fantasy roleplay decreases with each generation; I would also assume there's probably a bump for mid-Millennials who saw the Peter Jackson trilogy in their teen or tween years.
The latter, yes, the former less than yoy may assume: the Hibbit and Lird of the Rings continue to be hot sellers and, importantly, are intergenerational bedtime stories. Tge Hobbitbis being read to children whose parents had it read to them by their parents, who had it read to them by their parents, and so on.

Usually literature fades into obscurity about the time the author dies, making it overb50 years past the authors death is extremely rare, and by that time is in the "won't fade with time" category like Dracula or Sherlock Holmes.
 


Tolkien gives his orcs and trolls urban working class accents
It's much weirder than that: some of the Orcs actually have upper class or public school accents in the novels. Thry aren't joined by class, but by occupation: the Orcs all talk like British soldiers from WWI. Some talk like officers, using modern logistical and organizational lingo.
 

It was always my favorite Narnia story, by far.

It's tough for me to pick a favorite, but I did highly enjoy The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I agree that it could be a series of loosely linked adventure modules.

The Horse and His Boy is pretty good. I remember that I went into it expecting to not like it because the description on the back made it sound like it would not include any of the characters I had already been familiar with. For a big chunk of the story, it doesn't. So, I was very surprised when a book that I expected that I would not like managed to pull me in. With hindsight as an adult, I think it was also cool to see Lewis writing in a way that portrayed other cultures and alluded to other religions (I think Islam) in a way that I feel acknowledged different world views in a respectful way.

I think, if I had to pick a favorite, The Silver Chair might be a strong contender. It was surprisingly dark compared to the other books, and I think I ended up reading it at a time when I was going through some of my own personal struggles, so I remember it well. It was also interesting to see a version of Lewis's writing that took a turn toward some harsher themes, but while still retaining a feel that fit within the context of the other books. Maybe it's just rose tinted glasses on my part, but I feel that Lewis was pretty good at writing battles and conflict when need be.

Of course, like most people, my first exposure to his writing was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I still have a fondness for that story as well. I think what stuck with me the most from that book was the portrayal of the 'White Witch.' While she is clearly the villain, she is also written in a way that makes it understandable how Edmund might fall under her sway. She's portrayed as tall, powerful, beautiful, and a competent military commander. She's Darth Vader if he also had the fortune of looking something like Hannah Waddingham. It's because of this book that I sought out Turkish Delights.
 


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