Deuce Traveler
2012 Newfag
The "How much did Tolkien influence D&D" thing is always so strange. Gygax certainly downplayed it despite all the obvious things he did crib from Tolkien, but I almost feel like it was more as an over reaction to all the people whose idea of fantasy starts and ends with Tolkien. Considering how much stuff was taken directly from various other stories I don't think you can really claim that they retroactively were what stuck. Early D&D is very much the fever dream mixture of a lot of late 60's/early 70's era paperback fantasy/horror/sci-fi.
Gary and others were pretty clear that they were into the high fantasy adventures in Appendix N and were trying to emulate the feel of those books with all their weirdness. But Tolkien was always the king of the genre, so for commercial purposes they had to cater to that large demographic of fantasy fans. Financially, it would be foolish not to do so. But you can tell how little Gary Gygax liked hobbits by how crappy their stats were compared to everyone else. Also, cribbing Tolkien too much was more trouble than it was worth, such as when the Tolkien estate went after TSR and they had to change 'hobbits' to 'halflings'. If you want to see the very weird science-fantasy stuff the TSR staff was into consider that the first licensed setting was Tékumel in 1974. (I fucking love Tékumel, although I only discovered it 12 years ago).
https://www.tekumel.com/
But much to my personal disappointment, lay fans of fantasy didn't want the weird world of Tekumel. They wanted something familiar. The Blackmoor setting did its fair share of trying to keep closer to science fantasy, with its lost technology and the Temple of the Frog. Greyhawk came next as a setting (mostly due to the falling out of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson... may he be remembered forever), and as a sort of compromise closer towards the pure fantasy based on Western Europe that Tolkien fans wanted, but with science fantasy elements like what was found in the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks module. Even the mind-flayers, which were created later, are closer to science fantasy and weird fantasy than anything Tolkien would create. It was a losing battle, though, as the game grew in popularity and more and more people drove TSR towards a more Tolkien-esque flavor of adventures.
The chronology of DnD settings tells you all you need to know about that trend:
1974: Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne
1976: Wilderlands of High Fantasy (Not TSR licensed, but gets an honorable mention for its influence)
1977: Blackmoor
1979: Greyhawk
1981: Mystara (Like it and its Hollow Earth companion, but stuff is creeping away from the weird...)
1984: Dragonlance (Oh no... this is a troubling trend in the wrong direction... )
1985: Lankhmar (Pretty sure they just did it because the license was available and they were fans.... never really supported...)
1987: Forgotten Realms ... and now we've gone full vanilla.
Now TSR would go on in the late 80s and early 90s to create a slew of campaign settings that were great, but not pushed as the official setting of the game (Dark Sun, Planescape). That was reserved for Forgotten Realms until TSR crashed and burned and 3rd edition used Greyhawk for a few years before Eberron took over. I have a soft place in my heart for Eberron even though the campaign setting felt more like pulp superhero action. Eventually Forgotten Realms made it's comeback though, in all its vanilla glory.