Project Direction and Writing in RPGs - Do RPGs actually benefit from having more than one writer?

[IHaveHugeNick]

Some fantasy writers go out of their way to try and purge anything remotely tolkenian out of their worlds, but that still means Tolkien has impact on the content.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

By that point, they had already been sued by Tolkien's estate. The best effort to defend Gygax from his copying of Tolkien is probably this: http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/01/gygax-on-tolkien-again.html It notes a pre-lawsuit article where Gygax was already disclaiming his copying. But, please. The bestiary is lifted directly from Tolkien, the whole concept of an adventuring party is very Tolkien, the notion of "dungeons" to explore is Tolkien (and clearly modeled on Moria). And near his death, Gygax admitted that Tolkien "had a strong impact" on D&D (http://archives.theonering.net/features/interviews/gary_gygax.html).

"These rules are strictly fantasy. Those wargamers who lack imagination, those who don't care for Burroughs' Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find DUNGEONS and DRAGONS to their taste. But those whose imaginations know no bounds will find that these rules are the answer to their prayers. With this last bit of advice we invite you to read on and enjoy a "world" where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!"

This was the conclusion to E. Gary Gygax's forward to original Dungeons & Dragons, with a date of 1 November 1973. At the end of 1979's Appendix N, Gygax again mentions Howard, de Camp & Pratt (in collaboration), and Leiber as the most important influences, while dropping Burroughs and adding Merritt, Lovecraft, and Vance. Of course, TSR was soon threatened with a lawsuit by the Tolkien estate over items from Tolkien's literature appearing in original D&D. The Lord of the Rings trilogy had achieved a gradual increase in popularity to the point where the players in Gary Gygax's campaign in the early 1970s were insisting on being able to play not only human characters but also Tolkienesque elves, dwarves, and hobbits halflings, and the monster list included ents and balrogs. The fundamental elements of Dungeons & Dragons, however, owe more to several other fantasy authors individually (and collectively to a host of minor authors) than to Tolkien, as well as to the miniatures wargaming from which D&D developed.

 

[FreeKaner]

RPG writers should take their influence from Tolstoy, not Tolkien. Tolkien will obviously dominate the setting in terms of fantasy elements, you cannot do western fantasy without Tolkien. In terms of narrative structure, prose, dialogue etc. however Tolstoy is more compelling in a video game.

 

[Fairfax]

If you're writing something fantasy-related and you don't list Tolkein as an influence,

He did, it's right there.

By that point, they had already been sued by Tolkien's estate. The best effort to defend Gygax from his copying of Tolkien is probably this: http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/01/gygax-on-tolkien-again.html It notes a pre-lawsuit article where Gygax was already disclaiming his copying. But, please.

About that:

As to the removal of hobbit, ent, and balrog, that I can speak to. One morning a marshall delivered a summons to me as an officer of TSR. It was from the Saul Zaents division of ELan Merchandising, the sum named was $500,000, and the filing claimed proprietarial rights to the above names as well as to dwarf, elf, goblin, orc, and some others too. It also demanded a cease and desist on the publication of the Battle of Five Armies game.

Of course the litigant was over-reaching, so in the end TSR did drop only the game (the author had assured us he was grandfathered in, but he and his attorney too were wrong) and the use of the names hobbit, balrog, and ent–even though hobbit was not created by JRRT, and ent was the Anglo-Saxon name for giant.

I guess it’s no secret that I am not a rabid fan of the “Rings Trilogy,” so that should explain a good bit of why elves in D&D are more my conception of them than they are copies after what the Good Professor Tolkien saw them as ;-) My take was more of the British mythology based, with French “feys” the influence for the high elves.

Anyway, he wasn't denying Tolkien's influence, just rejecting the idea that he was copying Tolkien (like everyone else was doing at the time). One can argue he downplayed Tolkien's influence a bit too much at the time (like in the infamous editorial), but that was an understandable reaction. Gygax wanted to replicate Conan and F&GM adventures, not LOTR, and he wanted to make sure everyone knew that. The 1E DMG made that very clear, though most people didn't read/understand it.

The bestiary is lifted directly from Tolkien,

A few creatures are.

the whole concept of an adventuring party is very Tolkien,

The racially diverse party, sure, but not the party. A. Merritt (which Gygax did say was one of the main influences) had them before Tolkien, for instance.

the notion of "dungeons" to explore is Tolkien (and clearly modeled on Moria).

Conan had dungeons before that. Moria was definitely an influence, but the archetypal Gygaxian dungeon is more Sign of the Labrys.

And near his death, Gygax admitted that Tolkien "had a strong impact" on D&D (http://archives.theonering.net/features/interviews/gary_gygax.html).

Yes, and he mentioned Appendix N there as well:

Indeed, who can doubt the excellence of Tolkien’s writing? So of course it had a strong impact on A/D&D games. A look at my recommended fantasy books reading list in the back of the original DUNGEON MASTERS GUILD will show a long list of other influential fantasy authors, though.

That's not to say that the other sources didn't also have an influence, and it may be that the use of Tolkien elements was basically an enticement to players (which is what Gygax suggests in his various statements) rather than Gygax's own desire to copy Tolkien, but there's basically no chance that AD&D would be part of mass culture if it had stuck to non-Tolkien stuff like gnolls and beholders.

The Tolkien elements didn't make D&D what it was. Having elements to let players try and replicate a more Tolkien-esque adventures helped the game's success, but that's not what made D&D popular. The most popular adventures didn't even resemble Tolkien, for example.

 

[FreeKaner]

There is no point trying to "defend" D&D as not being Tolkienesque. Not only does it fly at the face of reality, it is not like Tolkien's writing and worldbuilding isn't superior at every facet so D&D wouldn't be "degraded" by taking influence from Tolkien. D&D succeeded because it made tabletop wargames into a Tolkienesque adventure with digestible mechanics. People like adventures in fantasy worlds so it is a winning formula. Trying to deny Tolkien influence on all modern medieval western fantasy is like basically saying "I am not like the other girls". Aside from the legal concerns, it is ok to admit it.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

By that point, they had already been sued by Tolkien's estate. The best effort to defend Gygax from his copying of Tolkien is probably this: http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/01/gygax-on-tolkien-again.html It notes a pre-lawsuit article where Gygax was already disclaiming his copying. But, please. The bestiary is lifted directly from Tolkien, the whole concept of an adventuring party is very Tolkien, the notion of "dungeons" to explore is Tolkien (and clearly modeled on Moria). And near his death, Gygax admitted that Tolkien "had a strong impact" on D&D (http://archives.theonering.net/features/interviews/gary_gygax.html).

Dungeon delving modeled on Moria? By Crom and all his devils, that’s crazy talk.

There’s so much of this stuff in Howard and Leiber (often in stories that antedate LOTR, for whatever that’s worth) and their “dungeons” have a great deal more in common with D&D than anything in Tolkien. The Tower of the Elephant could be somebody’s campaign:

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_the_Elephant

Brief synopsis:

Spoiler

While relaxing in a tavern, a barbarian hears a rumor about a magnificent jewel guarded by a cruel wizard in a well protected tower.

Some classic quest-giver dialogue:

Then give ear and learn wisdom, fellow," said he, pointing his drinking-jack at the discomfited youth. "Know that in Zamora, and more especially in this city, there are more bold thieves than anywhere else in the world, even Koth. If mortal man could have stolen the gem, be sure it would have been filched long ago. You speak of climbing the walls, but once having climbed, you would quickly wish yourself back again. There are no guards in the gardens at night for a very good reason—that is, no human guards. But in the watch-chamber, in the lower part of the tower, are armed men, and even if you passed those who roam the gardens by night, you must still pass through the soldiers, for the gem is kept somewhere in the tower above."

A brief bar fight ensues. The barbarian travels to the tower, where he meets a clever thief who has the same idea—they decide to form a party. To get inside, they must swim across a river full of alligators and then battle a pride of lions that the wizard uses as guardians. Then they climb the tower, sneaking past the human guards. Upon reaching the treasure room, they’re attacked by giant spiders (come on!); the thief dies of poisoning. But the jewel isn’t in the treasure room!

The barbarian continues exploring. He finally encounters, not a jewel, but a strange monster: a man with the head of an elephant. Now we get some cool backstory. Elephant man is trans-dimensional entity of great power imprisoned by the evil wizard: he was once worshipped as a god in a far off jungle, but then a Zamoran traveler asked to become his apprentice and tricked him into revealing a piece of dark magic, which said apprentice used to enslave him. Elephantman asks the barbarian to kill him, remove his jeweled heart, use it to imprison the wizard, and leave it behind—it will be buried under the wreckage of the tower, which will collapse not long after elephantman’s death. The barbarian agrees to the plan and executes it.

The only difference from D&D is that Conan forgets to take the gold from the treasure room because he’s in search of greater treasure and no self respecting adventurer would do that. And that’s just one of Howard’s better stories on the subject.

Look, obviously there are Tolkien elements in there, but D&D is a sword and sorcery game through and through.

 

[FreeKaner]

That is just literally basic folk myth in every culture ever, it is not at all unique to sword and sorcery. In fact it is more that sword and sorcery is more basic, emulating old folk myths in knight-errant stories and 1001 nights or whatever.

The world as its constructed in D&D with its statis and all the elements of it is Tolkienesque. In fact it is so Tolkienesque that all these medieval western fantasy inadvertently also adopts Tolkien's real life world view which seeped into his work. That being a Catholic Luddite in a society that was transforming into a post-industrial mode, that viewed the world as losing its magic.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

There is no point trying to "defend" D&D as not being Tolkienesque. Not only does it fly at the face of reality, it is not like Tolkien's writing and worldbuilding isn't superior at every facet so D&D wouldn't be "degraded" by taking influence from Tolkien. D&D succeeded because it made tabletop wargames into a Tolkienesque adventure with digestible mechanics. People like adventures in fantasy worlds so it is a winning formula. Trying to deny Tolkien influence on all modern medieval western fantasy is like basically saying "I am not like the other girls". Aside from the legal concerns, it is ok to admit it.

It really depends on what you mean by Tolkienesque. Does he borrow some popular races and a few monsters from LOTR? Sure, but what else does he borrow? The Ranger class is partially influenced, but D&D Rangers ain’t exactly Strider.

But, really, everything else about the game could be ripped from the pages of Robert E. Howard or Fritz Leiber, with some worldbuilding/cosmology assistance from Moorock and Poul Anderson and the magic of Jack Vance. Not to mention a lot of European history. A lot of this stuff predates LOTR. I think the influence of Tolkien on the fantasy genre is often overstated. There are, of course, a ton of imitators but there’s always been more out there and, again, sword and sorcery is the older tradition.

And there’s plenty of western epic fantasy with nary a hint of Tolkien—Kate Elliott’s been doing this for decades. Where is Tolkien in Nine Princes in Amber? Where is Tolkien in Moorcock’s Eternal Champion books? More recently, not much Tolkien in Miles Cameron or Mark Lawrence, although the latter is arguably not quite what you mean, even if it absolutely takes place in a kind of fantastical feudal Europe.

That is just literally basic folk myth in every culture ever, it is not at all unique to sword and sorcery. In fact it is more that sword and sorcery is more basic, emulating old folk myths in knight-errant stories and 1001 nights or whatever.

The world as its constructed in D&D with its statis and all the elements of it is Tolkienesque. In fact it is so Tolkienesque that all these medieval western fantasy inadvertently also adopts Tolkien's real life world view which seeped into his work. That being a Catholic Luddite in a society that was transforming into a post-industrial mode, that viewed the world as losing its magic.

Which world? Tolkien didn’t even have a religion for heaven’s sake (at least not that the world knew about when Gygax was developing D&D). Gygax’s first setting was Greyhawk and that’s a pretty far cry from LOTR. There’s a lot more Lankhmar than Gondor in Dyvers or the Free City of Greyhawk.

As for emulating folk-myths, sure, but by the same token, LOTR did plenty of that, too. e.g. it seems odd to say that every elf is a Tolkienized elf. I don’t disagree about Tolkien’s reactionary tendencies, which is why I’m always telling people to read Epic Pooh. But it’s just not true that this has seeped into all western medieval fantasy. And to the extent it is, I doubt Tolkien bears that much blame. When an author chooses to write a fantasy novel in a faux medieval Europe setting, they’ve already made some reactionary political commitments right out of the gate, LOTR or no LOTR.

 

[FreeKaner]

It is not that there aren't any other fantasy influences, fantasy is as old as at least Gilgamesh after all. It is more that how the world is constructed and formulated that is very Tolkienesque. That is how the genesis and direction of the world is imagined, how magic is seen, how societies are organised, how evil is. Especially in grand battles between forces of good and evil as an explicit, direct struggle in basically a manner of civilisation clash. It is in fact so ubiquitous it can be taken for granted and become invisible. The distinctions that are in such modern fantasy insofar they are different from actual history always seem to take the Tolkien step. This becomes even more obvious when you read fantasy that is either before or contemporary with Tolkien before his influence became so dominant as it is concurrently. This is not just about mythological creatures or what they are, most of those are picked by bits and pieces from various real life folklore around the world anyway, although Elves are always at least partially Tolkien's elves distinct from folklore. This is about how the whole of the world of fantasy basically takes places in Tolkien formulation of it.

There is also the fact that D&D itself has been very influental and Gygax himself has admitted influences of Tolkien later, then you are just looking at Tolkien's influence also being spread indirectly. Sword and sorcery is one thing of course but again that is because it is more simple (which is not a bad thing, I think a lot of fantasy is overdone esppecially in trying to explain its cosmology in a scientific method manner) that it doesn't have that many particularities to be seen directly. I like Tolkien and I don't think his influence is bad thing but it just exists and there is no denying it, especially because he is also the most popular which is always going to be a factor because many of the writers will have read him as a common point even if they differ in rest of their influences. There is also the fact that what Tolkien felt about the world when he was writing this fantasy, especially in his alienation, is also felt by many people who want to escape into fantasy. His worldview was also heavily shaped by world wars which again shapes the worldview of western audiences. This is also why I like warhammer fantasy at a level. Because in trying to be grimdark it necessarily broke many of Tolkien's conceptualisations that are present in regular fantasy.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

the notion of "dungeons" to explore is Tolkien (and clearly modeled on Moria).

Ehm....

The idea that the passage of the magical threshold is a transit into a sphere of rebirth is symbolized in the worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale. The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown and would appear to have died. This popular motif gives emphasis to the lesson that the passage of the threshold is a form of self-annihilation. Instead of passing outward, beyond the confines of the visible world, the hero goes inward, to be born again. The disappearance corresponds to the passing of a worshipper into a temple—where he is to be quickened by the recollection of who and what he is, namely dust and ashes unless immortal. The temple interior, the belly of the whale, and the heavenly land beyond, above, and below the confines of the world, are one and the same. That is why the approaches and entrances to temples are flanked and defended by colossal gargoyles: dragons, lions, devil-slayers with drawn swords, resentful dwarfs, winged bulls. The devotee at the moment of entry into a temple undergoes a metamorphosis. Once inside he may be said to have died to time and returned to the World Womb, the World Navel, the Earthly Paradise. Allegorically, then, the passage into a temple and the hero-dive through the jaws of the whale are identical adventures, both denoting in picture language, the life-centering, life-renewing act.

Dungeons are as old as the stories themselves.

 

[JarlFrank]

In before this already split-off thread is split again into "Tolkien Influences in D&D".

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Jarl, do not encourage him!

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Jesus Christ...When I logged off I thought a quarrel between Politican and everyone else is just a small, insignificant thing, but holy shit! Thread got split and it's just keeps on going...

 

[MRY]

I'm no expert on AD&D, let alone early D&D, nor am I especially knowledgeable about pulp fantasy from the 1930s. And my view is, of course, distorted by hindsight. I assume we would all agree that since the late 1980s, AD&D existed primarily as a Tolkien pastiche, with the core races of dwarves (note spelling), elves (wood and high elves, no less!), and humans, the core adversaries of goblinoids, the sense of these races as each having its own robust culture, the central framework of a multi-class, multi-racial adventure party on a campaign, the ranger class, etc. all designed to emulate the feel of Tolkien. Dragonlance is a particularly strong example of this, and my understanding (and certainly my experience) is that the Dragonlance novels and settings were something of an inflection point for D&D.

It might be that absent Tolkien, a marginal roleplaying game system called something -- probably not Dungeons & Dragons (more on this in a moment) -- would have been made by Gygax to emulate pulp fantasy adventures. But I doubt it would ever have achieved the same lasting mainstream significance, any more than GURPS or other non-Tolkien RPG systems did.

Regarding dungeons, my point is not that no fantasy ever had people going underground before (though, I will note, the mythological journey into the underworld is totally different from dungeon adventuring). And, to be sure, there are stories like The Tower of the Elephant that feel like smaller D&D modules. I guess what I was trying to get at was that using the word "dungeon" to denote a large, thriving environment, populated by different factions and rich with treasure and history, in which danger grows the deeper beneath the earth you travel, strikes me as a peculiarly Tolkienian notion. I might be wrong, and if so, I'm sure others will correct me. And the core pairing of Dungeons and Dragons seems to me lifted straight from The Hobbit (indeed, straight from "Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold"), a book that Gygax admitted to liking quite a lot. When you put that name on a game system that advertises this kind of adventure:

It strikes me as a little goofy to pretend that Tolkien had little to do with it.

--EDIT--

I guess I'll add that every time I read Gygax's denials, they strike me as so disingenuous that -- consistent with a legal norm that if you find a denial not credible, you can infer from it the truth of the thing being denied -- they make me assume the copying was conscious and significant.

For instance, when he says that D&D's use of "Ent" to describe a tree-man was not copying because "ent" was a word for giant in Anglo-Saxon, he's lying. Period. He didn't rescue the word "Ent" from an Anglo Saxon word hoard and then, by coincidence, use it to describe a tree-man. He found Ents in LOTR, copied them whole cloth, was sued, and then discovered (or was told by his lawyer) that the word had an Anglo-Saxon pedigree. Similarly, he says "hobbit was not created by JRRT" but there is absolutely no evidence to support that assertion. The word hobbit does show up in a list of folkloric creatures (https://www.etymonline.com/word/Hobbit#etymonline_v_12058) but there's no basis to conclude that Tolkien saw it, or that "hobbit" referred to anything remotely resembling the hobbits of Tolkien. Thus, Tolkien's hobbit is almost certainly an independent, coincidental creation. By contrast, when Gygax copied hobbits, he copied them from Tolkien, not from Michael Denham's 1895 monograph's listing of folkloric creatures, and he certainly didn't invent them coincidentally.

Gygax's claim regarding elves ("elves in D&D are more my conception of them than they are copies after what the Good Professor Tolkien saw them as") seems ridiculous as well, but honestly, I don't know enough about early D&D elves to fully refute it. Obviously, Tolkien's elves do owe quite a bit to folklore, and thus it is not impossible that Gygax was borrowing from elsewhere, but my recollection of D&D elves was that they were highly Tolkienian.

A quick Google search turns this up: http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2011/12/elves-through-ages.html

From the first D&D manual's description of elves:

Elves: Elves can begin as either Fighting-Men or Magic-Users and freely switch class whenever they choose, from adventure to adventure, but not during the course of a single game. Thus, they gain the benefits of both classes and may use both weaponry and spells. They may use magic armor and still act as Magic-Users. However, they may not progress beyond 4th level Fighting-Man (Hero) nor 8th level Magic-User (Warlock). Elves are more able to note secret and hidden doors. They also gain the advantages noted in the CHAINMAIL rules when fighting certain fantastic creatures. Finally, Elves are able to speak the languages of Orcs, Hobgoblins, and Gnolls in addition to their own (Elvish) and the other usual tongues. [Vol-1, p. 8]

ELVES: Elves are of two general sorts, those who make their homes in woodlands and those who seek the remote meadowlands. For every 50 Elves encountered there will be one of above-normal capabilities. Roll a four-sided die for level of fighting and a six-sided die for level of magical ability, treating any 1's rolled as 2's and 6's (magical level),as 5's. For every 100 encountered there will be a Hero/Warlock. One-half of the Elves in any given party will be bow armed, the other half will bear spears, and all will have swords in addition. Elves have the ability of moving silently and are nearly invisible in their gray-green cloaks. Elves armed with magical weapons will add one pip to dice rolled to determine damage, i.e. when a hit is scored the possible number of damage points will be 2-7 per die. Elves on foot may split-move and fire. Mounted Elves may not split-move and fire, for they are not naturally adapted to horseback. [Vol-2, p. 16]

I mean, I'm sure you can find for me some non-Tolkienian folkloric sources for having the split wood elf/high elf, the gray-green "nearly invisible" cloaks, etc., but those certainly seem straight out of Tolkien to me. I'm also not sure that elf archery is non-Tolkienian, though of course many of these features -- like elves being both good at magic and good at fighting -- are found in folklore.

Moreover, even if a studious exhumation of folkloric graveyards could find you enough pieces to Frankenstein together Tolkien's elf -- as I'm sure is the case, since Tolkien didn't create ex nihilo -- it still beggars belief that Gygax indepedently followed the "Good Professor" in this Frankenstein work and made the same monster without consciously setting out to do so.

None of this minimizes the importance of D&D, but in recognizing that importance, and Gygax's, there's no reason to downplay LOTRs and Tolkien's.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah, to get this back on track...how would you even accomplish a single-writer RPG the size of PoE1 or Deadfire? That's just not a reasonable proposition. Avellone is arguably the most prolific writer in the industry but even for him PST was a monumentally exhausting effort. It still wasn't enough to write the whole thing and number of other people also have writing credit.

So if the most productive writer in the industry works the hardest he ever worked in his life and still needs the team of other writers as support, what on earth are we talking about here? People seem to have this notion that True Incline (tm) can only be accomplished by locking someone like Avellone in the basement for 2 years, juicing his food with huge bags of speed and waiting patiently until a masterpiece comes out.

That's just not how any of this works.

 

[MRY]

Right: as I said in my response to Roxor's editorial:

I think there are some people whose response would be that this is an argument to return to the much slimmer text of RPGs before the mid-90s and to focus on other means of story-telling than dialogue. That is a whole other debate, and one that's a little hard for me to wrap my head around because it is at least a little bit like saying, "If you find fantasy novels too long-winded, you should just watch fantasy movies." There obviously is a huge swath of players who like dialogue-tree-based RPGs, and so I think trying to abandon the form altogether is probably not a great idea.

It may be multiple writers is a necessary evil to achieve that kind of RPG. A single writer would need to be more economical about trash quests, deep-lore circular dialogue trees, and opportunities to emote your political preferences (see, e.g., AOD). Obviously, the question, "Do RPGs that are too big for one person to write benefit from having more than one writer?" has an easy answer (yes). I understood the question to presuppose that the RPGs we are talking about could be made by one person, since otherwise it is such an easy one to answer.

The harder question is whether the benefits of 1M words of text outweigh the benefits of a single author. The answer has to be "it depends." Sometimes, players want something sprawling like POE, and in those circumstances, the answer is yes. But since AOD is the only RPG I've finished in many years, I would say that the larger content is more downside than upside.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I thought a quarrel between Politican and everyone else is just a small, insignificant thing

Joined: Nov 4, 2017

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Joined: Nov 4, 2017

What my date of registration have to do with anything in this case? Next time voice any of your concerns about my comment in form of elaborate comment, instead just copy&quote my registration date.

 

[JarlFrank]

Regarding dungeons, my point is not that no fantasy ever had people going underground before (though, I will note, the mythological journey into the underworld is totally different from dungeon adventuring).

Plenty of underground ruins in the short stories of Clark Ashton Smith, for example.
Likely a bunch of other pulp era fantasy writers, too.
Not to mention Indiana Jones style action archaeologists, who were also popular pulp characters.
Places like R'Lyeh in Lovecraft's mythos could, arguably, also qualify.

The "protagonists explore underground ruins filled with danger" plotline hasn't been invented by Tolkien, it's been done by fantasy before.

http://eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/220/the-tomb-spawn
http://eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/22/the-charnel-god
http://eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/61/the-empire-of-the-necromancers

(coincidentally, Smith's short story "The Empire of the Necromancers" is considered to include the first occurence of the word "lich" for an undead creature in modern fantasy, even though here it just refers to a common zombie)

EDIT:
Not saying that the Tolkien influence in D&D isn't there, just saying that oldschool pulp fantasy also had its fair amount of influence on it.

 

[MRY]

Agreed. Tolkien is definitely not the only influence. It's not just the pulpy tone, there are other specific things, like Van-Helsing-style clerics and magic-users really have no counterpart in Tolkien, for instance, and as Gygax notes, the whole god system is plainly not Tolkienian.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Joined: Nov 4, 2017

What my date of registration have to do with anything in this case? Next time voice any of your concerns about my comment in form of elaborate comment, instead just copy&quote my registration date.

Messages: 546

 

[Raghar]

20 years ago, people who were in lead either wrote stuff themselves or appointed person with talent who was doing more than story and dialogue writing to handle stuff.

Look for example on Morrowind. The main quest, story, and story related dialogue is easy to be written by one person. Item descriptions, and in game books doesn't need to be written by the same person. Story consistency is guaranteed to be done well when there is only one writer. And if he doesn't have time to write item description, or other texts other developers can be appointed to do these tasks.

Writing decent amount of text isn't difficult, it's just time consuming. Using one writer to write each chapter and have proper consistency is nearly impossible.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I'm no expert on AD&D, let alone early D&D, nor am I especially knowledgeable about pulp fantasy from the 1930s. And my view is, of course, distorted by hindsight. I assume we would all agree that since the late 1980s, AD&D existed primarily as a Tolkien pastiche, with the core races of dwarves (note spelling), elves (wood and high elves, no less!), and humans, the core adversaries of goblinoids, the sense of these races as each having its own robust culture, the central framework of a multi-class, multi-racial adventure party on a campaign, the ranger class, etc. all designed to emulate the feel of Tolkien. Dragonlance is a particularly strong example of this, and my understanding (and certainly my experience) is that the Dragonlance novels and settings were something of an inflection point for D&D.

Dragonlance was created by TSR in 1984 as an epic, Tolkienesque series of 12 linked adventure modules, to capitalize on the increasing popularity of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Tolkien-knockoffs in fantasy literature. TSR even decided to publish its first-ever novels as an accompaniment, a gamble that paid off beyond their wildest dreams, resulting in the publication of many scores of AD&D novels over the next dozen years. Of course, this occurred while Gary Gygax was off in California, and has nothing to do with the creation of Dungeon & Dragons a decade earlier. Gygax's own Greyhawk campaign setting was not Tolkienesque and neither was Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign setting.

As for the D&D bestiary and its origins:
Reality: Men
Classical Mythology: Medusae, Gorgons, Manticoras, Hydrae, Chimeras, Minotaurs, Centaurs, Dryads, Pegasi, Elementals
Medieval Legends/Folklore: Goblins, Kobolds, Hobgoblins, Ogres, Giants, Skeletons, Ghouls, Wights, Wraiths, Spectres, Cockatrices, Basilisks, Wyverns, Dragons, Gargoyles, Lycanthropes, Unicorns, Nixies, Pixies, Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves, Hippogriffs, Rocs, Griffons, Djinn, Efreet
Tolkien: Orcs, Hobbits Halflings, Treants
Other Fantasy/Horror Literature and Film: Trolls, Zombies, Mummies, Vampires
Original: Gnolls, Purple Worms, Invisible Stalker, Ochre Jelly, Black Pudding, Green Slime, Gray Ooze, Yellow Mold

As previously mentioned, due to players wanting to imitate characters from The Lord of the Rings, Tolkienesque elves, Tolkienesque dwarves, and hobbits halflings were added as player-character races, but the influence of Tolkien was limited. Sword-and-Sorcery in general was far more important to the creation of D&D than Tolkien's influence, and even Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber individually are arguably more important than Tolkien --- Gary Gygax certainly thought so when he wrote D&D's forward in November 1973 before the Tolkien estate threatened him with a lawsuit.

 

[MRY]

Dragonlance was created by TSR in 1984 as an epic, Tolkienesque series of 12 linked adventure modules, to capitalize on the increasing popularity of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Tolkien-knockoffs in fantasy literature. TSR even decided to publish its first-ever novels as an accompaniment, a gamble that paid off beyond their wildest dreams, resulting in the publication of many scores of AD&D novels over the next dozen years. Of course, this occurred while Gary Gygax was off in California, and has nothing to do with the creation of Dungeon & Dragons a decade earlier.

Right, which is why I said I'm assessing D&D through the lens of hindsight. Whatever the influence Tolkien had at the inception (more on this in a moment), my point is that the role D&D has today is basically dependent upon its wholesale incorporation of Tolkien.

As for the D&D bestiary and its origins:
Reality: Men
Classical Mythology: Medusae, Gorgons, Manticoras, Hydrae, Chimeras, Minotaurs, Centaurs, Dryads, Pegasi, Elementals
Medieval Legends/Folklore: Goblins, Kobolds, Hobgoblins, Ogres, Giants, Skeletons, Ghouls, Wights, Wraiths, Spectres, Cockatrices, Basilisks, Wyverns, Dragons, Gargoyles, Lycanthropes, Unicorns, Nixies, Pixies, Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves, Hippogriffs, Rocs, Griffons, Djinn, Efreet
Tolkien: Orcs, Hobbits Halflings, Treants

No, the goblinoids in D&D are lifted from Tolkien, as are the undead, see here: http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2012/03/wraiths-through-ages.html and http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2012/03/back-from-dead.html.

When wraiths were first introduced to Chainmail, they were simply called Nazgul. Their characteristics were clearly lifted from the Nazgul. And wights were all but expressly based on barrow-wights. Indeed, I'm not sure the word "wight" as an undead creature was used in fantasy before Tolkien, and there he was lifting a specific translation of a saga that used "barrow-wight" for a draug.

This is the sort of thing that rustles my jimmies on the subject. The rule isn't "anything that existed as a vaguely associated concept in folklore before Tolkien wasn't copied from Tolkien"; and if that is the rule, it's not clear to me why "trolls" are attributed to Three Hearts, Three Lions when trolls are endemic in folklore. Though the regenerative aspect seems Poul Anderson's creation (I think? it's not even that central in the story as I recall), Anderson's gloss on troll seems much less distinctive than Tolkien's gloss on wights, wraiths, goblins, etc. The impulse to credit Anderson and derogate Tolkien smacks of a guilty conscience!

Anyway, Gygax is great, and I love that he put together Appendix N, and he obviously was very well read (better read than me!) in the fantasy genre, and a skillful assimilator of many sources. I just think downplaying Tolkien is kind of lame.

 

[Mikeal]

Dragonlance was created by TSR in 1984 as an epic, Tolkienesque series of 12 linked adventure modules, to capitalize on the increasing popularity of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Tolkien-knockoffs in fantasy literature. TSR even decided to publish its first-ever novels as an accompaniment, a gamble that paid off beyond their wildest dreams, resulting in the publication of many scores of AD&D novels over the next dozen years. Of course, this occurred while Gary Gygax was off in California, and has nothing to do with the creation of Dungeon & Dragons a decade earlier. Gygax's own Greyhawk campaign setting was not Tolkienesque and neither was Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign setting.

As for the D&D bestiary and its origins:
Reality: Men
Classical Mythology: Medusae, Gorgons, Manticoras, Hydrae, Chimeras, Minotaurs, Centaurs, Dryads, Pegasi, Elementals
Medieval Legends/Folklore: Goblins, Kobolds, Hobgoblins, Ogres, Giants, Skeletons, Ghouls, Wights, Wraiths, Spectres, Cockatrices, Basilisks, Wyverns, Dragons, Gargoyles, Lycanthropes, Unicorns, Nixies, Pixies, Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves, Hippogriffs, Rocs, Griffons, Djinn, Efreet
Tolkien: Orcs, Hobbits Halflings, Treants
Other Fantasy/Horror Literature and Film: Trolls, Zombies, Mummies, Vampires
Original: Gnolls, Purple Worms, Invisible Stalker, Ochre Jelly, Black Pudding, Green Slime, Gray Ooze, Yellow Mold

As previously mentioned, due to players wanting to imitate characters from The Lord of the Rings, Tolkienesque elves, Tolkienesque dwarves, and hobbits halflings were added as player-character races, but the influence of Tolkien was limited. Sword-and-Sorcery in general was far more important to the creation of D&D than Tolkien's influence, and even Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber individually are arguably more important than Tolkien --- Gary Gygax certainly thought so when he wrote D&D's forward in November 1973 before the Tolkien estate threatened him with a lawsuit.

Actually gnolls came from Lord Dunsany books.