Tolkeign's inspiration?

[Raynor]

Rpg's are based a lot on the fantasy literature; although the fantasy genre didn't started with him, he sure gave it a great push. We could say he established the general characteristics of the dwarves, elves and hobbits (or halflings, a term also used in Lotr,Silmarillion, UT, and not only) as we find them in the majority of games.

[Brys]

RPGs in general definitely were - fantasy RPGs at least, as almost everything in fantasy is in some way influenced by Tolkien. But Tolkien was far from the only influence on them - Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, Robert Howard etc also had a great influence on it. Much of D&D is based on Jack Vance's writing rather than Tolkien, though of course Tolkien's influence in them is also evident.

[cornelius]

I only know for Morrowind.
the Morrowind orcs, and also a bit of de dweemer-dunmer stories. The telvanni mansions are definetly Tolkien-inspired

[Thunderchild]

thats not strictly true - Allot of RPGs come from Japan where JRR and other western thems arn't as ingrained into the story and look of the game, such as the early final fantisy or mana games - even now allot of the out of japan games westen theming is only skin deep

[HieroGlyph]

RPGs, D&Ds, HPLovecraft & Roger Zelazny...
No, not just Prof. Tolkien...
(He far from appreciated this diversion though...)

[Edit: er, not sure this should really be moved to author discussion, after all...]

[HieroGlyph]

... Since, folks maybe should check out the 'Rogue-like' games Moria, Umoria and later Angband and its mods...
Then theres question of where 'Rogue' came from itself...