Why in the seven hells was Lord of the Rings the template for Dungeons and Dragons, and not Conan?

You're missing out. The Dying Earth sometimes has more ideas in a single chapter than other novels throughout their entire length.

>high-minded
>death to literature itself
>or perhaps the modern world... wasn't all bad.
>Oh, fuck! Not another elf!

>Why in the seven hells was Lord of the Rings the template for Dungeons and Dragons, and not Conan?
it wasn't

It's funny because Tolkien, as a hardcore Catholic, hated his hippy/new age religion fans.

I'm glad it wasn't based on conan. the magic in dnd is for scientists. the magic in conan is really risky. if there is anything I hate worse than a "perils of the warp" situation, its magic with retarded price tag attached it like lovecraftian magic

Kinda this. In games where there's a fuckheug rollchart you have to make every time you cast a spell to determine whether your spell shoots off like normal, it shoots of with a cloud of purple doves, or it fails and your kneecaps explode, I just play a boring-ass fighter.
Half the time the magic in such games is terribad anyways.

>LotR is pretty incidental to the history of D&D.

What are you smoking. D&D literally ripped LotR content wholesale, prompting Tolkien's estate to *threaten legal action* to make Gygax change it. For god's sake,the game shipped with Balrogs and Hobbits! When he got cornered about it Gygax threw up some stuff about how it barely mattered and it was a marketing move anyway or something, which was clearly bullshit. Some decades later in 2000 he finally went so far as to admit that LotR had, quote, a "strong impact" on D&D.

OP is going too far calling LotR the "template" for D&D, but it was clearly--and by Gygax's own words--a big influence on it. Calling it "incidental" is ignorant at best and disingenuous at worst.

Because D&D came out of wargames, and wargamers wanted to fight the War of Five Armies.

The only lawsuit was over halflings, which were not in OD&D at first.

It attempted to capitalize on well-known fantasy races. No one is disputing that. You need to learn a tad more about the history of D&D, because LotR's influence was incidental. Yes: Tolkien's estate forced them to change Hobbits to Halflings.

That's not a template built on D&D. Orcs, elves and dwarves could'a been smorgs, orgs and borgs for all it mattered to what made D&D what D&D is.

Halflings were called Hobbits originally, then had to be taken out because Tolkien('s family?) threatened to sue.

They weren't even in the game originally.

Another time when the hippies were right. They don't get enough credit, them hippies. Doing away with conformism, bringing about the sexual revolution, getting respect for LotR they gave it their all.

Some other people have sort of said it, but not quite as explicitly. Gygax wrote what stories he was trying to emulate, and Conan is on the list, and LotR is not. The only thing D&D took from LotR is elves and dwarves, which aren't very LotR-ish anymore.

Conan is the template, retard.

The Lost City module is a love letter to Red Nails, for example

Hippies are a deplorable cultus.

Oh shut up, Nixon's head in a jar, you're not fooling anyone.

You're an idiot.

Conan was the template from the beginning. Also The Dying Earth. They are two of Gygax's primary inspirations.

Tolkien only provided Gygax with a number of races to use. That's it. Even then, he changed them to suit his tastes.

Later editions -- particularly 3e and later -- drew more heavily on Tolkien because Tolkien got an enormous burst of mainstream exposure at the end of the 20th century and start of the 21 century. Races and classes morphed to converge with the newly popular conception of fantasy.

Nope. Tolkien said that. Look it up.

>Also The Dying Earth
It's funny how little people mention this, considering the magic system is even referred to as "Vancian". D&D magic is pretty far removed from the way it's portrayed in Tolkien.

wasn't there a bunch of explicitly conan themed modules at the beginning that were discontinued due to rights issues?

IIRC sorcerers in Howard's fiction had to give up something esoteric in order to gain the ability to cast spells. Something along the lines of their libido or past memeories.

*memories

Found the feedora donning bathrobe faggot players who just play wizards to conquer with their projected "superior enlightened intellect"

Also on the topic, D&D wasn't based on either on those. It CLAIMS to be based on conanesque S&S, but also rips of plenty of themes from Tolkien, albeit in extremely bastardized and trivialized way.
Ultimately it misses the point of both and fails to capture the feel of either.

Usually one at a time though.

Gygax himself said he hated LotR and prefered Conan.

Just when I thought JRRT couldn't be more awesome.

D&D isn't LoTR nor it is Conan or Jack Vance. It's actually mishmash of them all and more with purpose of being generic fantasy template to run any kind of adventures. This is also why it's so successful. There's something for everyone. Just look at FR which has Tolkien, Conan, sci-fi/magitech, Lovecraft, dinosaurs, weeaboo, pirates, Arabian nights, poo in the loo and so on.

It's funny how non-casters are useful in every fantasy setting that isn't D&D.

>Orcs, elves and dwarves could'a been smorgs, orgs and borgs for all it mattered

No, they really couldn't have. They we're straight ripped from middle-earth along with their characteristics.

>LotR
>Conan
>Not The Wizard of Oz
Plebs, all of you!

Thankfully he was more concerned with the mechanics while Arneson had more control over the theme and tone.

Dude, enough already.

>conformism
Nothing wrong with conforming, just depends on what you're conforming to.

If it's voluntary, sure. Mandatory conformism sucks. I'm glad I don't have to wear a monkey suit to keep my job like I would have in the 50s.
The central tenet of the hippies from the earliest days was "do your own thing." It's funny that the later arrivals took that to mean "dress and act and talk like everybody else," but I suppose that's standard for any popular movement. Still, they managed to make society much more open to different ways of being, which is a big win in my books.

>(and others)
Why is anyone acting like D&D was based on one specific thing? A reading of prettymuch any of the D&D material from the late 70's and early 80's make it pretty obvious the Gygax was reading a TON of various fantasy fiction (and plenty of mythology).

LOTR, Elric and Dying Earth are just the most obvious influences, but by no means the only ones. There's no doubt GG had read Conan, the fingerprints are there. That and plenty of other pulp I'm sure.

Early D&D was basically a mashup of every fantasy trope that existed at the time, and I think that was by design. The whole intent was to give players a ruleset on which they could build THEIR adventures - which could be whatever they wanted. The obsession with a unique "canon" setting was a later development.

This kind of magic seems more credible for me than "I have a physic phd so with my sheer childhood-power-illusion willpower I can bend reality".
I really prefer the idea that only spirits (including fairies, gods, demons, etc) have the power to bend reality, and that you need to actually negociate with them for supernatural favors.
Some will become kinda your regulars and friends if you keep a good relationship and reputation with them, and you have to manage your own reputation in the spirit world:
For example if you are a dick to fire spirits they will accept more easily deals with rival sorcerers to fuck you hard, while water spirits may see you as a buddy and you may have better deals with them. Maybe.
That makes your magic user character way more deep, challenging and fun than just Science is Magic without having to roleplay actual science knowledge.

Makes sense. The LOTR has pretty poor pacing and Conan has a lot more personality.

The obsession with canon settings has kinda poisoned the scene for me.

RIP Mystara.

It actually is. DND is about adventuring, dungeons, monsters, combat on a personal scale, larger than life (eventually) persons.

From LOTR DND took the idea of the races and the fellowship, but it's not really important in the game itself, at least not the way tolkien did it.

Is this just a thinly veiled Conan discussion thread or just bait?