D&D Was Inspired by More Than LOTR

The extent to which Dungeons and Dragons is inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's work has frequently been misunderstood and overstated. Although Tolkien's books are obviously important to the fantasy genre and were influential on many particular Dungeons and Dragons campaigns undertaken by groups of players, Tolkien can sometimes seem the single straw that those unfamiliar with fantasy and adventure writing grasp at when trying to understand where this game came from and how to situate it vis-a-vis literature. Recent film releases have not helped correct this misperception. Many writers have assumed that Tolkien's books are the basis for the gamefor instance, Christian opponents of the game have assumed this (Weldon and Bjornstad 1984, 49). This confusion is not restricted to outside observers. Some players of Dungeons and Dragons have similarly thought that the game was Tolkien-inspired and Tolkien-centered. The official statement from TSR, the makers of the game, in response to letters from such players is that "D&D was not written to recreate or in any collective way simulate Professor Tolkien's world or beings ... this system works with the worlds of R. E. Howard, Fritz Leiber and L. S. de Camp and Fletcher Pratt much better than that of Tolkien" (Kuntz 1980). Middle Earth was created for the sake of a single adventure, as TSR saw it, while other fantasy literature, more closely related to Dungeons and Dragons, has been set in a world rich with continual adventure.

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The original Dungeons and Dragons rules were intentionally left incomplete so that different groups of people could adopt different styles of play. In a rare moment of lucidity, one Christian critic of the game noted that "Dungeon Masters play the game differently. Some dislike situations in which characters get killed. Others feel a game is successful only when half the players die in battle" (Robie 1991, 47).The extent to which chance, theater, or puzzle solving is involved depends on the particular group playing Dungeons and Dragons. Yet the general framework of the game (not just its particular setting and fantasy theme) was clearly important to what would follow.Aarseth (1997) writes that the "Dungeons and Dragons genre might be regarded as an oral cybertext, the oral predecessor to computerized, written, adventure games" (98).

Were the original rules left intentionally vague? I don't think so. The rules were incredibly details, but only on certain aspects for which the author was obsessed with, like racial modifiers and encumbrance. It's just that the players skimmed over the complexities.