The Wayfarer's Inn

One of the things Gary Gygax has stated repeatedly is that he originally did not want Tolkienesque elements (races etc) in D&D, but included them because others in his circle liked them so much. How was Arneson's attitude to this? Was he one of the people pushing for the inclusion of elves, dwarves, hobbits, Balrogs and the like? The FFC is full of Tolkien stuff...

Havard

I can't speak for Dave, but Tolkien was the main fantasy influence for me at the time D&D was being created in Blackmoor. I think that Dave was open to anything from popular fantasy or science fiction liturature and movies at the time, since we did a stint with "Tarnsman of Gore" and one of the first monsters was from the 50's movie "The Blob". Gary was probably talking about Brian Bloom, Rob Kuntz and/or Tim Kask.