What if Lord of the Rings never existed?

[Lord High Executioner]

If it exists at all Dungeons & Dragons is probably pretty different - which of course would impact the development of roleplaying games generally, and through them Computer roleplaying games.

D&D came from combining medieval war-games with unconventional encounters, so it may well appear anyway, just with ogres instead of orcs, munchkins instead of hobbits halflings, etc.

Not necessarily all that different. As the story goes, Gygax didn't like* LOTR, and only included hobbits, for example, because
he had players who did like it and insisted on their presence and availability.
Well, I guess it depends on how different you consider it to be without halflings, treants, balrog-like balors and Aragorn-ish rangers.

Meanwhile the D&D trolls and elves owed more to the ones created by - ALL TOGETHER NOW - Poul Anderson.
Seriously, I may misremember, but I recall pausing while reading The Broken Sword with the thought "Did he just
practically state elves have a 90% resistance to Charm and Sleep spells?".
And somewhere at the back of my mind is the claim that Gygax's personal preference was Barsoom...
Not to mention that some of the real icons come from cheap plastic toys eventually identified as bootleg knock-offs
of Ultraman monsters.

The question is whether D&D would have made it as big if there had been no Tolkien juggernaut, which I guess leads
back to the original, rephrased, question of how instrumental LOTR was for contemporary and later fantasy success.

*In fact, more reliable/confident/close sources may have used a stronger word.

 

[Tom_B]

Glad someone brought up Poul Anderson but disappointed that no one has mentioned

Jack Vance

 

[Ditzy Vixen (RossN)]

Not necessarily all that different. As the story goes, Gygax didn't like* LOTR, and only included hobbits, for example, because
he had players who did like it and insisted on their presence and availability.
Well, I guess it depends on how different you consider it to be without halflings, treants, balrog-like balors and Aragorn-ish rangers.

Meanwhile the D&D trolls and elves owed more to the ones created by - ALL TOGETHER NOW - Poul Anderson.
Seriously, I may misremember, but I recall pausing while reading The Broken Sword with the thought "Did he just
practically state elves have a 90% resistance to Charm and Sleep spells?".
And somewhere at the back of my mind is the claim that Gygax's personal preference was Barsoom...
Not to mention that some of the real icons come from cheap plastic toys eventually identified as bootleg knock-offs
of Ultraman monsters.

The question is whether D&D would have made it as big if there had been no Tolkien juggernaut, which I guess leads
back to the original, rephrased, question of how instrumental LOTR was for contemporary and later fantasy success.

*In fact, more reliable/confident/close sources may have used a stronger word.

I think for me that's the really important part. While Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson might well have cooked a fantasy RPG that at least resembles our version of D&D without the rocket fuel of LOTR it might have much more difficulty cracking the mainstream.

I remember reading that the oldschool D&D inspired Mazes & Minotaurs was based on a what-if Gygax and Arneson drew from Ray Harryhausen style Greco-Roman movies like Clash of the Titans rather than sword and sorcery..

 

[Lord High Executioner]

Glad someone brought up Poul Anderson but disappointed that no one has mentioned

Jack Vance

D'oh!

 

[Lord High Executioner]

I remember reading that the oldschool D&D inspired Mazes & Minotaurs was based on a what-if Gygax and Arneson drew from Ray Harryhausen style Greco-Roman movies like Clash of the Titans rather than sword and sorcery..

The nit-picker, of course, notes that they did draw from them (and that Clash of the Titans came nine years after Mazes & Minotaurs).
Wasn't it "specifically/primarily Greek mythology rather than Harryhausen"?

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Glad someone brought up Poul Anderson but disappointed that no one has mentioned

Jack Vance

I had skipped him because much of his Dying Earth stuff was written after 1960, but apparently the first collection was publised in 1950, pre-LOTR.

 

[thekingsguard]

As others pointed out, fantasy looks much more like Sword and Sorcery- Howard, Lieber, Moorcock, Smith and the like.

 

[marathag]

If it exists at all Dungeons & Dragons is probably pretty different - which of course would impact the development of roleplaying games generally, and through them Computer roleplaying games.

D&D came from combining medieval war-games with unconventional encounters, so it may well appear anyway, just with ogres instead of orcs, munchkins instead of hobbits halflings, etc.

Some history.

Miniatures, or toy soldiers that go back hundreds of years with 'Flats' cast from lead.

Plastic was cheaper, plus higher detail than the lead flats of the era with the Elastolin miniatures from West Germany being popular, some of which were of Knights and Men At Arms.

The Strategy and Tactics magazine, specializing in paper chit and hexes overlaid on basic maps for wargames, expanded out in 1967 with a game to use those figures,
_Siege of Bodenburg_ that used those figures. The game was from Henry Bodenstedt, who owned a hobby shop with those Elastolin minis, the game to drum up sales.
It had good response from the readership

This game was demoed at the first GenCon in 1968, and Gary Gygax was one of those players.
Next year, Gygax and Jeff Perren expanded on those rules (four whole pages, at first) for larger combats, that was later expanded for jousting and single combat.

Gygax and Don Lowry met at GenCon III in in 1970, and started Guidon Games, that had had _Chainmail_ in 1971 with more detailed rules, plus a Fantasy section to add in what was popular at the time, Tolkien, Howard, Lieber and Moorcock.

Tactical Studies Rules later bought the rights all of Guidon Games, for the TSR catalog
Chainmail, plus Arnesons's _Blackmoor_ campaign, made D&D

Over in the UK, the same had been happening, with Donald Featherstone doing conventions for Wargames with miniatures, historicals in the 1960s
This would influence Rick Priestly, who would have in the 1970s a Fantasy Roleplay ruleset called _Reaper_ thru the Nottingham Toy Soldier Shop in 1978

This wasn't strictly Fantasy, but Sci-Fantasy, that would shortly lead to _Warhammer_ and _Warhammer 40k_

So in the end, D&D wouldn't have Orcs ,Hobbits, er Halflings, but would have Dragons and Goblins, and the modified alignment system from Moorcock

 

[Lord High Executioner]

As others pointed out, fantasy looks much more like Sword and Sorcery- Howard, Lieber, Moorcock, Smith and the like.

Post-LOTR fantasy did look much more like Sword and Sorcery than the original question and Tolkien's stature implies.
Not to mention that "the first comprehensive paperback edition" of Conan began publication after the American LOTR
paperback editions and, eventually, by the same publisher that published the unauthorized one (in 1965)

 

[Gillan1220]

Some other fantasy book would take its place.

 

[Reflection]

Some other fantasy book would take its place.

But that book might be radically different from LOTR.

 

[Gillan1220]

But that book might be radically different from LOTR.

It would definitely be different from our timeline's recognizable perspective. In addition, also the LOTR memes that took the Internet by storm in 2011-2012 would not exist.

 

[Nick P]

No Lord of the Rings = no movie trilogy = a much lower tourist count for New Zealand.

It also means we don't get the charm of Leonard Nimoy singing about Bilbo Baggins - groovy video man!

 

[thekingsguard]

Post-LOTR fantasy did look much more like Sword and Sorcery than the original question and Tolkien's stature implies.
Not to mention that "the first comprehensive paperback edition" of Conan began publication after the American LOTR
paperback editions and, eventually, by the same publisher that published the unauthorized one (in 1965)

Actually, the first really successful Conan reprints predate The Lord of the Rings, especially on the American side of the pond. The most notable was the Gnome Press hardcover which came out in 1950, five years before LOTR was published in Britain.

Plus, LOTR didn't really start picking up in the US for another decade - mid 60s or so.

The Hobbit admittedly was published in 1937, but a very different kinda story pre-LOTR and Middle Earth.

 

[Paul_Sussex]

Surprised no-one has come up with two of my favourites - E R Eddison - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Rücker_Eddison - and William Hope Hodgson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Land .

 

[acgoldis]

Would the Oz franchise prove influential? Particularly if the entire series were filmed after the success of Wizard in 1939.

 

[Lord High Executioner]

Actually, the first really successful Conan reprints predate The Lord of the Rings, especially on the American side of the pond. The most notable was the Gnome Press hardcover which came out in 1950, five years before LOTR was published in Britain.

Plus, LOTR didn't really start picking up in the US for another decade - mid 60s or so.

That's why I specified the paperback editions of both.
You'll note that it was with the paperback editions of the mid-sixties that LOTR started picking up, and
it's the Lancer/Ace paperbacks (and Frazetta covers), starting after that, that are given the credit for
introducing Conan into popular culture.

 

[Derek Pullem]

This may be heresy but I would strongly argue that D&D and roleplaying promoted the success of Lord of The Rings and other fantasy novels rather than the other way around.

 

[Lord High Executioner]

This may be heresy but I would strongly argue that D&D and roleplaying promoted the success of Lord of The Rings and other fantasy novels rather than the other way around.

The fantasy fiction success/wave/resurgence of the sixties began a decade before Dungeons & Dragons was published, but once both existed they
fed into each other.