Vance and Tokien as influences on D&D

Bob Miller · 09 Jun 2007, 17:19 · from 2007-June.txt.gz

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From: bob_bageera at hotmail.com (Bob Miller)
Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:19:01 -0500
Subject: (urth) Vance and Tokien as influences on D&D
In-Reply-To: <f5d95ac0706050734o2ffb1a1at532d21833f8e8289 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BAY135-F33E3BF82625B8BA8AA2DDD88240 at phx.gbl>

On 6/4/07, aaron <aaronsingleton at gmail.com> wrote:

>Any other Vance fans subscribe to the list?
>

One observation....  I've heard that Tolkien's work was a large inspiration
for the Dungeon and Dragons tabletop games.  Just after reading about 100
pages of Tales of the Dying Earth, I'd say that it looks like the D&D
creators took a LOT of inspiration for their magic systems from it, much
more than anything they would have gotten from Tolkien.  Gandalf's magic was
much more organic, subtle, and undefined than the mechanisms and
descriptions (including spell names) I've seen in the book I'm currently

Good points and observations.  I haven't seen an interview with Dave 
Arneson, but Gary Gygax who is the author of most of the first couple 
generations of D&D books will tell you that LoTR and Vance's work was, at 
least. om the back of his mind.  Magic item Robe of Eyes in D&D directly 
related to one of the short stories.  Halflings were originally called 
hobbits and the Tolkien Estate made TSR change the name.

I guess I'm a minority person on Vance.  I always thought the Dying Earth 
stories relatively weak beside much, not all, of his other stuff.  Of 
course, I never did read anything from Cugel's Saga inclusive on.
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