Protecting One's Self

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

(I fear to speak malignantly of Dungeons & Dragons, for I have never once been involved in tabletop roleplaying and thus must admit to a great deal of ignorance, but it is my impression that for all the enjoyment brought about by those games, they have very much furthered the proliferation of the fantasy-as-a-particular-setting and--tying it back to the topic at hand, my instinctive protectiveness of Middle-earth has made me bristle at it.)

I find the discussion of Tolkien's influence over the development of Dungeons & Dragons to be a very interesting topic.

Although, first, it needs to be said that the various settings that fall under the rubric of D&D are so numerous and diverse that "D&D" is really the only category that they can all accurately be grouped under.

However, the most prominent D&D settings are certainly applicable to this discussion.

As we've already alluded to in this thread as it relates to other items, Tolkien's influence over the outward trappings of D&D is so profound that in many respects it is just an outright copy, at least in origin. Once you scratch the surface and get into the themes of the stories told by D&D, Tolkien's influence quickly vanishes. In fact, in one respect or another, a lot of it ends up being in the line of "Saruman is the hero of the story because he claimed the Ring," something thematically Tolkien would have found abhorrent.

This is not to say that I don't enjoy a good D&D story, its just that in many ways Tolkien's influence is more apparent than real, or at least is superficial rather than substantive.

And D&D, even within one setting, is not helped by the fact that it usually ends up being written by committee. A fact that usually doesn't help anything where it is tried.

In recent years I've actually started enjoying playing in the Glorantha setting, not only as an aesthetic choice, but also because there is basically no discernible Tolkien influence there at all. For long years I've kind of viewed the Forgotten Realms, for example, as I would a piece of limburger. I'd take a look at it and notice this horrible smell of dreck and derivitiveness.

That being said, yes I did buy the early access of Baldur's Gate 3 and enjoyed it. Sue me.