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Post by scalydemon on Sept 10, 2018 22:43:33 GMT -6
Just like the old Marvel series. What If? The amount of influence Tolkien had on D&D is debatable. What if Tolkien never existed though. No LOTR or Hobbit etc. Would D&D never have come about and be created by Arneson/Gygax? Or would it still have been created just in a slightly different form or different form? Just curious people's thoughts
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Post by sixdemonbag on Sept 10, 2018 23:12:47 GMT -6
I could see a more Conanesque game evolving with extra emphasis on Harryhausen, Burroughs, Hammer, and other pulpy influences. I could certainly see the game drifting in a more sci-fi/horror direction with some fantasy/greek myth seasoning.
Moreover, I would not want to live a Tolkien-free world, so I'm really glad this is a "Marvel's What If?" scenario!
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Post by stonetoflesh on Sept 11, 2018 9:48:41 GMT -6
So long as Howard, Leiber, and Burroughs still exist in this parallel reality I think D&D would still exist. Given the importance of Tolkien's work to the development of modern (post-1960s) fantasy, I think a related question is, would D&D be as popular?
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Post by Stormcrow on Sept 11, 2018 10:21:28 GMT -6
I think the popularity of Tolkien was the main driving force of everything fantasy in the '60s. Not the only force, but by far the biggest in the public consciousness. Without it or something to perform the same function I think it's quite possible that no special interest in fantasy wargaming would have emerged. You might still have gotten role-playing games, but either they'd remain a niche of wargaming or they'd end up based on Star Warsy science-fiction.
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Post by rossik on Sept 11, 2018 14:43:59 GMT -6
Maybe Shannara would be in Appendix N, lol
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Post by strangebrew on Sept 11, 2018 19:10:20 GMT -6
I think the popularity of Tolkien was the main driving force of everything fantasy in the '60s. Not the only force, but by far the biggest in the public consciousness. Without it or something to perform the same function I think it's quite possible that no special interest in fantasy wargaming would have emerged. You might still have gotten role-playing games, but either they'd remain a niche of wargaming or they'd end up based on Star Warsy science-fiction. I agree with this. I also feel that "role-playing games" of a sort would have eventually come about via video games, it was only a matter of time. But would tabletop RPGs be around? If so, not like we know them today. I'm also interested in what D&D would have looked like if Gary Gygax was blasted by gamma radiation or if Tolkien killed Wolverine.
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Post by sixdemonbag on Sept 11, 2018 19:23:47 GMT -6
I'm also interested in what D&D would have looked like if Gary Gygax was blasted by gamma radiation or if Tolkien killed Wolverine.
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Post by scalydemon on Sept 11, 2018 19:27:41 GMT -6
Post #1000
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Post by sixdemonbag on Sept 11, 2018 19:31:24 GMT -6
Nice mic drop there for your 1000th post, scalydemon . Gonna be hard to top that. Better start planning your 2000th now!
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Post by sixdemonbag on Sept 11, 2018 19:36:38 GMT -6
There was a precedent for Marvel influences after all:
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Post by scalydemon on Sept 11, 2018 19:40:50 GMT -6
Ha, thanks. And yes that TSR pic of the guy on the horse always seemed like straight up tracing to me.
I wonder when someone first put 2 and 2 together on that image? Was it on a message board on the internet or before that?
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Post by Zenopus on Sept 11, 2018 20:23:45 GMT -6
IIRC, Rob Kuntz (who had read the comics) pointed it out to Gygax, which is why they replaced with the David Sutherland fighter on later printings.
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Post by Falconer on Sept 11, 2018 20:44:54 GMT -6
What if Tolkien never existed though. No LOTR or Hobbit etc. Would D&D never have come about and be created by Arneson/Gygax? I doubt it. This is a simplification, I’m sure, but it seems to me D&D grew out of an existing scene, and that scene was Middle-earth Diplomacy.
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Post by sixdemonbag on Sept 11, 2018 21:03:38 GMT -6
Didn't Blackmoor have a lot in common with the old Hammer films? By that I mean: the classic spooky castle on a hill ruled by some Baron, with dungeons full of vampires, werewolves, and slimes, replete with a nearby cemetery and village, etc, etc, etc... I think aldarron did a blog post about this. Maybe he can link it for us? But anyway, without Tolkien, my official vote would be more "Hammer"/"Universal Studios Monster" horror-centric RPG. To me, the biggest question: Would there be any dragons? Or would it be Dungeons & Draculas? I feel like you kinda need Tolkien's Smaug for the titular dragon! EDIT: Found aldarron 's post: boggswood.blogspot.com/2018/08/thoughts-on-cinematic-inspiration-for.html
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Post by artikid on Sept 12, 2018 6:29:29 GMT -6
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Post by cadriel on Sept 12, 2018 12:33:36 GMT -6
It's a really fascinating question. If there's no Tolkien, I think there is no Dungeons & Dragons, but it's a near thing. So: Tolkien published The Lord of the Rings in 1954-55, but it was a relatively obscure book, only available in three hardcover volumes. It wasn't until the 1965 printings in paperback (spurred by the unauthorized Ace editions) that it became massively popular. This caused a fantasy boom, with Ballantine hiring Lin Carter to pick older fantasy novels to reprint. The Tolkien boom happened at the same time as the sword & sorcery revival. L. Sprague de Camp's anthology Swords & Sorcery was published in 1963, and it basically named the genre; Poul Anderson, Lord Dunsany, Robert E. Howard, Henry Kuttner, Fritz Leiber, H.P. Lovecraft, C.L. Moore, and Clark Ashton Smith were featured. Three years later (1966), Lancer began releasing volumes of Howard's Conan stories edited by de Camp and Carter (who also included their own work and "posthumous collaborations"). As a fascinating side note, de Camp sent a copy of Swords & Sorcery to Tolkien, who wrote his own notes on it. So the S&S revival still should have happened, although it probably would not have the momentum that Tolkien's success gave to all of fantasy literature. We still would have Conan, and the mass market paperbacks of Leiber and Moorcock (who shows up in the second de Camp anthology), but not of Lovecraft or CAS, who are in Carter's Ballantine Adult Fantasy series which wouldn't have happened. The reason I don't think there is a D&D with no Tolkien is that I don't think Chainmail has a Fantasy Supplement without it, and possibly Chainmail itself doesn't happen if Gygax isn't interested in Middle-Earth Diplomacy games. No Chainmail, no Blackmoor - I know it wasn't the primary rules for the whole campaign, but it was a significant piece. More broadly I don't think a fantasy milieu has broad currency without The Lord of the Rings. Gygax didn't accidentally put elves, dwarves, and hobbits fighting goblins, orcs, wraiths and balrogs, into Chainmail and Dungeons & Dragons. Without these elements, both games would be missing a lot of the sticking factor that they had. I generally think fantasy would be a much smaller concern. Tolkien looms so large over it and it's hard to see the Howard-influenced wave of the '70s gong as far as it did without people reading Tolkien and looking for the next fantasy novel. And of course the late '70s wave led by The Sword of Shannara and all subsequent fantasy would never have happened.
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Post by DungeonDevil on Sept 15, 2018 20:20:17 GMT -6
We'd be sitting around here chatting about how amazing Cavaliers and Roundheads is! Without JRRT's influence on the hobby, though, it's possible that other fantasy/S&S authors would have come to the fore and combined with the DNA of historical miniatures wargaming. Who knows, perhaps Warriors of Mars would have done better (assuming the ERB estate didn't have a cow over IP issues). If fantasy didn't grab the public's attention, then, in the wake of Star Wars, scifi RPGs would have been much bigger.
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Post by Punkrabbitt on Sept 15, 2018 21:06:29 GMT -6
I think the legacy of pulp fantasy and adventure... John Carter, Conan, Pellucidar, etc. would have bloomed into frpg ground eventually. I was on that path myself as a child, after seeing Star Wars but before reading LotR. I acquired Holmes D&D in 1980 and that sort of derailed my friends and I from our own weirdness.
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Post by Stormcrow on Sept 15, 2018 21:42:32 GMT -6
Pulp fantasy was around for decades before the publication of The Lord of the Rings, but it never became a phenomenon of popular culture the way Tolkien did.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2018 22:37:45 GMT -6
Chainmail started with Jeff Perren after he and Gary saw Elastolin 40mm. If you're going to speculate study a bit of the history first.
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Post by scalydemon on Sept 16, 2018 11:45:57 GMT -6
IIRC, Rob Kuntz (who had read the comics) pointed it out to Gygax, which is why they replaced with the David Sutherland fighter on later printings. Oh, to be a fly on the wall during that conversation.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 16, 2018 12:51:42 GMT -6
IIRC, Rob Kuntz (who had read the comics) pointed it out to Gygax, which is why they replaced with the David Sutherland fighter on later printings. Oh, to be a fly on the wall during that conversation. "Hey, look, Gary, that picture is copied from this comic book." "Huh. Guess we better change it."
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Post by cadriel on Sept 17, 2018 7:38:26 GMT -6
Chainmail started with Jeff Perren after he and Gary saw Elastolin 40mm. If you're going to speculate study a bit of the history first. If this is directed at me, I've certainly studied the history. The Lake Geneva rules in some form would have existed without Tolkien, but the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement wouldn't. There was real and specific demand for a Tolkien-ish wargame that this was responding to, and the Fantasy Supplement is specifically what Arneson used in constructing his Blackmoor campaign. Whether Chainmail without a Fantasy Supplement is published in a Tolkien-less world - who knows? Too many variables are different.
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Post by rossik on Sept 18, 2018 7:55:05 GMT -6
I dont know, i just think that if it was not for tolkien, maybe another author would show up. Like "Professor Neiklot", heheh. Maybe Chainmail would be created with another author in mind. Maybe Howard, or with more mythological stuff
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Post by xerxez on Sept 18, 2018 12:35:54 GMT -6
It is concievable to me that a fantasy role playing game like D&D would have still come about without a JRR Tolkien.
How different and how popular it would have been would be the rub.
A childhood spent reading and re-reading the Hobbit and watching the Rankin Bass film certainly made my first games of D&D more relatable and when I DMed gave me a good resevoir to draw from. I always had a big love for the classic fairy tales too, though, so that would inform it just as much in the absence of Middle Earth.
In the way of similar fantasy works predating Lord of the The Rings was Eddison’s Worm Orobourous and another book by a different author named The Well of the Unicorn, none of the fantastical races but plenty of heroic fantasy.
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Post by rossik on Sept 18, 2018 12:55:04 GMT -6
I had no clue who Tolkien was, or even the existence of LotR and Hobbit before i get into D&D. So, the reference for me was material that had Tolkien as reference. If those material still existed if tolkien was not to be, than maybe it would not affect much my perception of the game. regardless of how to game would be
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Post by Falconer on Oct 1, 2018 22:09:28 GMT -6
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