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Post by Falconer on Aug 8, 2014 13:16:19 GMT -6
I picked up Robert Foster’s A Guide to Middle-earth from a used bookstore the other day. Unlike his Complete Guide to Middle-earth, (which I have used for decades due to its thoroughness and precision), this edition predates the publication of The Silmarillion. I have been wanting to check it out, because I have been wondering whether certain things about Middle-earth were known at the time of the design of D&D and AD&D. What can be gleaned from solely The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings concerning the nature of the Wizards? The kindreds of the Elves? That sort of thing. If you have any questions, I will eagerly look it up.
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Post by Falconer on Aug 8, 2014 13:36:05 GMT -6
This is interesting, from the entry on Valar:
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2014 10:43:44 GMT -6
this edition predates the publication of The Silmarillion.That's a kewl idea. Wish I'd thought of it. I have been wanting to check it out, because I have been wondering whether certain things about Middle-earth were known at the time of the design of D&D and AD&D. What can be gleaned from solely The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings concerning the nature of the Wizards? The kindreds of the Elves? That sort of thing. Very neat concept. I was just talking to a friend about "what makes canon" for Star Wars and this seems to be similar to your idea. Middle-earth seems to fall into several categories: --> Hobbit only from the 1930's --> Hobbit plus Lord of the Rings from the 1950's --> Hobbit plus LotR plus Silmarillion from the 1970's --> Hobbit plus LotR plus Silmarillion plus History of Middle-earth from the 1990's Rolling back the clock to the pre-1970's version would give a nice look at the true "Appendix N Middle-earth."
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Post by geoffrey on Aug 9, 2014 17:45:08 GMT -6
Rolling back the clock to the pre-1970's version would give a nice look at the true "Appendix N Middle-earth." That's right. The Silmarillion was published on Sept. 15, 1977. That's after the entirety of OD&D was published, and about the same time as the publication of the Monster Manual. We all know in our hearts that Gary didn't rush out and read The Silmarillion before the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide was published in Aug. 1979. Thus, Gygaxian A/D&D has nothing of The Silmarillion in it. Only The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have left their marks on Gygaxian A/D&D.
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Post by Falconer on Aug 9, 2014 17:56:43 GMT -6
Exactly! So, anything you can think of for me to look up?
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Post by geoffrey on Aug 9, 2014 21:30:24 GMT -6
How about balrogs?
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Post by Falconer on Aug 9, 2014 21:56:15 GMT -6
Excellent. He is careful not to speculate, but when he does he is spot on!
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 10, 2014 9:56:09 GMT -6
Rolling back the clock to the pre-1970's version would give a nice look at the true "Appendix N Middle-earth." That's right. The Silmarillion was published on Sept. 15, 1977. That's after the entirety of OD&D was published, and about the same time as the publication of the Monster Manual. We all know in our hearts that Gary didn't rush out and read The Silmarillion before the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide was published in Aug. 1979. Thus, Gygaxian A/D&D has nothing of The Silmarillion in it. Only The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have left their marks on Gygaxian A/D&D. Is it just me, or does it seem like we've just stumbled on a major milestone in understanding the Tolkien influence on OD&D? I mean, when I first discovered OD&D I hadn't read the Silmarillion and so I knew that it didn't shape my view of how Tolkien-isms fit into the game, but somehow I never thought about the fact that the Silmarillion didn't affect how Dave and Gary created the game, either. I feel like something obvious was just discovered here.
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Post by tkdco2 on Aug 16, 2014 1:22:36 GMT -6
Interesting! I have the Complete Gide to Middle-earth, but I didn't know it had been published before the Silmarillion. And yes, the only references to Tolkien's works in Appendix N were the Hobbit and the "Ring" trilogy (Gary's words, not mine).
What did he say about Sauron?
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 16, 2014 4:29:34 GMT -6
The real bummer for me is that I have two copies of the Complete guide -- one in hardback and the other in paperback -- and in looking at images of the previous version I'm convinced that I used to own that one ... but I'm certain that I got rid of the older one because the Complete guide was more up to date.
Now I wish I'd kept one of the older ones.
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Post by jmccann on Aug 16, 2014 12:00:45 GMT -6
Is it just me, or does it seem like we've just stumbled on a major milestone in understanding the Tolkien influence on OD&D? I mean, when I first discovered OD&D I hadn't read the Silmarillion and so I knew that it didn't shape my view of how Tolkien-isms fit into the game, but somehow I never thought about the fact that the Silmarillion didn't affect how Dave and Gary created the game, either. I feel like something obvious was just discovered here. I am curious - what elements of the Silmarillion did you consider may have influenced Gygax? For that matter, do you think the Silmarillion had any influence over later developments (the Drow perhaps)? Even if you don't accept Gygax's statements about the relative unimportance of Tolkien's writings in the development of D&D, the major points from JRRT I see in early D&D (I have not given this much thought though) are: influence on racial characteristics and relations between the races, and a source of monsters (arguable the area where JRRT had the greatest impact on D&D). Probably the Ring had some impact on early conceptions of artifacts but that influence would be just one among many from artifacts available in lots of Appendix N sources. These are all present in LOTR and The Hobbit. Somewhat related: my clearest memory of a JRRT inspired occurrence in early D&D (77 or 78, so just post Silmarillion but we had not read it) was a Nazgul on a flying beast which forced us to take cover. We rolled well and escaped disovery. That was straight out of ROTK, so we pretty clearly had LOTR in mind as an inspiration for our roleplaying.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 16, 2014 17:59:41 GMT -6
the Silmarillion didn't affect how Dave and Gary created the game, either I am curious - what elements of the Silmarillion did you consider may have influenced Gygax? I don't know that there is any particular element of the Silmarillion that I can point to, but I know that I discovered all three (Hobbit, LotR, Silmarillion) within a few years of one another and therefore tend to think of them as one large thing. A person older than myself who had been exposed to the Hobbit only, or the Hobbit-LotR combo only, might have had a very different interpretation of Middle-earth. For me, dwarves rocked in the early days because of the Hobbit. My best friend at the time loved elves and I think a lot of that was inspired by Feanor and the Silmarillion, so I'm sure that my persepective on elves was likewise biased by that work. Elrond and Galadriel were cool, but the Noldor kicked butt and took names later. Very different in style, I think. Also, there is the whole matter of wizards. While JRRT might have imagined Gandalf as being angelic maiar early on, I certainly didn't get that impression in reading either the Hobbit or LotR. So, I guess my interpretation of wizards were either (1) bad dudes like Thoth-Amon in Conan, or (2) wise spellmasters like Merlin or Gandalf. You know, stuff like that.
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