Toward the back of the original Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, there was a list of inspirational reading. Some of the suggested authors, like Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance and Edgar Rice Burroughs, were very obvious influences on the game. Others, such as H. P. Lovecraft and Roger Zelazny, were less clear but could be seen in some niche concepts. In between, there was a name that was both: wholly, inescapably iconic if you enjoyed modern fantasy, yet whose work seemed curiously distant from one of the best tabletop RPGs. That author was J.R.R. Tolkien.
At first, this might seem like a peculiar claim: how can a game full of magic rings not have a strong relationship with the book that popularised the idea of magic rings? How can a system that features a copyright-skirting people known as “halflings” and rewards them for being “thieves” not have pilfered the concept outright from Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit burglar? Yet when you delve into the relationships, the problems become clear. Rings in Tolkien’s work were artefacts of unimaginable power, limited in number or closely held, not minor trinkets left forgotten in treasure chests for adventurers to find. Bilbo was brave and stealthy, but his heroics were a far cry from backstabbing monster hordes for experience points.
