Mastodawn

So going back to another thing I do not like about the Dragonlance modules, are all the clones of things from Lord of the Rings. Now, granted, D&D ripped off things from Lord of the Rings, but Dragonlance reaches what I feel is excessive.

Companions of the Lance = Fellowship of the Ring
Cataclysm = Fall of Númenor
Knights of Solamnia = Dúnedain
Dragon Orbs = Palantir

Note also, the plot of the Dragon Orbs is it draws you in (sometimes) and some elf king is driven helpless by evil through the Orb which is like how the Palantir worked via a connection to Sauron.

There is a scene where the players can summon ancient knight ghosts to help in a critical battle around a tower. Just like Aragorn.

The name of the different elves, Qualinesti, Silvanesti, Kagonesti compared to Tolkien's Calaquendi, Moriquendi (although I am sure some Dragonlance afficiando will point out the "i" ending is very ancient roman as prior art).

There is more. More than I can fit in a post.

And I am sure some will say that all fantasy owes a debt to Tolkien, is inspired by Tolkien, but for me, it is just on the side of "too much".

#dnd #rpg #ttrp #dragonlance #tolkien

Show thread

mhd 1d ago

@randomwizard It was the time for literal Tolkien rip-offs, though. Shannara comes to mind, but there seemed to be a general tendency to do LotR takes, especially after Star Wars brought the bogus Monomyth back into popular parlance.

And, well, there also was the other major influence.

Show thread

randomwizard 1d ago

@mhd Sword of Shannara is #1 on the Tolkien rip off list

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/607.Most_Obvious_Tolkien_Imitators

I have never read Sword of Shannara, but I have read The Iron Tower, and woo boy, I can not imagine a book that could possibly steal the ideas and concepts of Tolkien more than "The Iron Tower".

Dragons of Autumn Twilight is 6th on the list.

Most Obvious Tolkien Imitators (52 books)

52 books based on 217 votes: The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, Eragon by Christopher Paolini, The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, The Elfstones o...

Show thread

mhd 1d ago

@randomwizard I haven't read that, but a quite a few of the books on that list. ;)

And to be fair, as much as there were quite a few ones that hewed a bit close to Tolkiens example, there's also the trend of doing this a bit too much. I mean, Tolkien himself took a lot from previous myths. The ring from the Völsunga saga served as source for both the One Ring and the Arkenstone (plus some slices from the Forbidden Fruit, of course). If I remember correctly, that saga also had plenty of dwarves, a dragon and a re-forged sword…

Between Norse myth and the Grail as the Mother of All Quests, superficially we could also go with a huge Wagnerian influence–and I'm sure Tolkien himself would be the first to get angry about that.

Re-telling stories in fantasy is okay, I think, as long as you add something good to your re-telling. I'd much rather see a good take on "EDO fantasy with a quest" than a mere mechanical innovation. Which, I think, you see a lot now, after every author played GURPS and/or D&D and thus wants to show us their world-building and magic system. The equivalent of military sci-fi…

Now, did the (original) DL novels add something to the story? I'm not that sure. The Draconians are superficially more colorful (literally), work pretty much the same as the orcs/uruk-hai/half-orcs in the plot. I'd consider gully dwarves a net negative. I think the different characters are a bit less myth-based, as the writing style is more modern and it's coming from a friggin' RPG party. Then again, that's usually a part where many quasi-Tolkiens score their points.

For me, if it didn't have the bonus of being tied to a RPG ("Look, he's casting feather fall!"), I'd rank it a lot lower. (But still better than the second trilogy, which is basically "High level D&D sucks" in novel form.

Show thread

randomwizard 1d ago

@mhd Your posts remind me of the old internet where people would write interesting things and not devolve into "i am right, you are wrong".

I personally, feel, there is something different about Tolkien ripping off old Norse legends, Beowulf, Anglo-saxon stories, and even Wagner's Ring of Nibelungs. Mainly, time (and a little bit of context in regards to Wagner).

People who were into fantasy novels, read Lord of the Rings, which were published in 1954, and got super popular in the late 60s, early 70s.

Then Dragonlance publishes a derivative as a novel in the mid 80s, in the same sort of media, format. So the people reading it, are much more familiar with the details between the two.

Now, the crux of the matter gets into "How much can you copy something?" and "How long do you have to wait until you can copy something?" which are very subjective.

A court has never even ruled on are the various D&D derived rules acceptable (Dangerous Journeys comes to mind).

Show thread

mhd 1d ago

@randomwizard I think gaming rules are an interesting point of view here. If I remember correctly, the big legal issue here is where you're drawing the lines between "just rules" (which can't be copyrighted) and their artistic expression. There once was a trial about some version of Tetris, and it was quite interesting for which details the distinction was made (certainly not intuitive to a non-lawyer). As a side note, it's quite likely that the LotR wouldn't be so popular without some serious breaches in copyright anyway ;)

I would say that if we're going by similar rules for the DL background/novels, I think most of the more blatant ripoffs aren't on the shoulders of Weis/Hickman, but Gygax/Arneson. I mean, D&D probably was the ground zero for "EDO fantasy", simply by being popular and then this snowballing into "everyone is doing it" justifications for fantasy authors, never mind a few of them probably playing the game. But for the DL novels, not doing that never was an option.

As for their own Tolkien-adjacency, I'd rate that a lot less than some of the "challengers". The party setup is different (they're all adventuring veterans, so neither the upper crust of hero-dom or bumbling everymen as in LotR), the quest structure, too. Sure, you got some balls (erm…) and a bumbling wizard, but neither are exactly Tolkien's most pure innovations. And the cosmology/ideology have both common items and some major differences, just like the Catholicism and Mormonism that influenced them do.

And that's why I wouldn't call Weis/Hickman to be the most egregious copycats. But neither are they ones who did more interesting things with the subject matter, even back then (that "award" probably goes to the Thomas Covenant series).

Their crimes against module-writing are much worse ;)