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Myth confirmed! (Well, sort of.)
Jan. 25th, 2007 10:01 amI know, I know, I promised no more D&D for a little while. But this is a follow-up, ok? Cut me some slack. :-)
So, yesterday I posted about two D&D urban legends/myths, intending to start a discussion and/or asking if anyone could confirm or disprove the stories. Well, a small discussion did ensue (mainly me and two others, you know who you are), but it drifted slightly off-topic. We never did get to confirming or disproving either story. Well, today I can at least half-confirm #2, about Tolkien's non-influence in Gygax's earliest conception of his parts of D&D. (Can't say anything about Arneson, though I don't believe there's a lot of Middle Earth in Blackmoor.) Check out this page from a 2004 interview with Gary Gygax, especially:
GameSpy: How profound an influence was Tolkien on the creation of the world?
Gygax: Not that much, although he certainly assisted in popularizing it because I did put Tolkien-esque things in there. I'm not a big Tolkien fan, though. I did love the movies, but I yawned through the books. I found them very droll and very dull. I still don't give hoot about Hobbits.
GameSpy: That's interesting, because most people who look at Dungeons and Dragons tend to think that Tolkien was a much heavier influence than apparently he was.
Gygax: [Laughs] I've been reading fantasy since 1950.
Not conclusive, obviously (and, as is well known, I disagree with Gary's feeling towards LotR), as it doesn't talk about the second half of the story: that Gygax's players essentially forced him into adding Tolkienesque aspects because they wanted to play them. But I think it pretty much proves that LotR really didn't have a part in Gary Gygax's original concept of a D&D campaign. (Of course, since it was the Greyhawk supplement that introduced the "Hobbit" [later "Halfling"] race, that must not have lasted long.)
Myth Confirmed!
and I think I have definitely graduated from "geeky" to "nerdy" here...
So, yesterday I posted about two D&D urban legends/myths, intending to start a discussion and/or asking if anyone could confirm or disprove the stories. Well, a small discussion did ensue (mainly me and two others, you know who you are), but it drifted slightly off-topic. We never did get to confirming or disproving either story. Well, today I can at least half-confirm #2, about Tolkien's non-influence in Gygax's earliest conception of his parts of D&D. (Can't say anything about Arneson, though I don't believe there's a lot of Middle Earth in Blackmoor.) Check out this page from a 2004 interview with Gary Gygax, especially:
GameSpy: How profound an influence was Tolkien on the creation of the world?
Gygax: Not that much, although he certainly assisted in popularizing it because I did put Tolkien-esque things in there. I'm not a big Tolkien fan, though. I did love the movies, but I yawned through the books. I found them very droll and very dull. I still don't give hoot about Hobbits.
GameSpy: That's interesting, because most people who look at Dungeons and Dragons tend to think that Tolkien was a much heavier influence than apparently he was.
Gygax: [Laughs] I've been reading fantasy since 1950.
Not conclusive, obviously (and, as is well known, I disagree with Gary's feeling towards LotR), as it doesn't talk about the second half of the story: that Gygax's players essentially forced him into adding Tolkienesque aspects because they wanted to play them. But I think it pretty much proves that LotR really didn't have a part in Gary Gygax's original concept of a D&D campaign. (Of course, since it was the Greyhawk supplement that introduced the "Hobbit" [later "Halfling"] race, that must not have lasted long.)
Myth Confirmed!
and I think I have definitely graduated from "geeky" to "nerdy" here...
