Gary Gygax Interview

 TheOneRing.net has conducted an interview with Gary Gygax, asking the Dungeons & Dragons creator several questions about the comparison between J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels and the fantasy RPG. Check it out:

Q: Did you actively base D&D on Tolkien’s world, adopting some of the preferences of the species, and their behaviours and all that from Tolkien?

A: No. As a reader of fairy tales and myth from childhood, and later fantasy and history too, I used all manner of interests I had to create the D&D game. It sprang from an amalgam of medieval history and miniature wargames set in that period, then the fantasy material as originally covered in the supplement of the CHAINMAIL rules as published in 1971.

The initial treatment of “Law” and “Chaos” was inspired by Michael Moorcock’s treatment of good and evil in his “Elric” and other fantasy books written prior to 1970.

The world setting I used, “Greyhawk”, was likewise a sort of conglomerate of history and fantasy.

Frankly, I used as many sorts of fantasy and horror concepts as I could, spread them liberally but not in depth, so as to cover as much as possible in a small work, thus make it as appealing as possible to the potential audience.