# The LOTR vs RPGs

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lotr-vs-rpgs/99826>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [March 24, 2002, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lotr-vs-rpgs/99826 "2002-03-24T06:31:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lotr-vs-rpgs/99826/21 "2002-03-26T02:44:42Z")

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tanstaafl wrote:

> [@](#):
>
> Don’t know about Mithril either.

Gygax got around this particular copyright-infringement threat by spelling it “mithral”, with an “a”, throughout 1st Edition AD&D.

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lotr-vs-rpgs/99826/22 "2002-03-26T23:58:28Z")

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So, you’ve got this stronger-than-steel, lightweight, silvery, and incredibly valuable metal, but one of the vowels is different? That doesn’t seem like enough to avoid a lawsuit, to me. And in second edition, it was definitely “mithril”, spelled properly, but “hobbit” and “treant” weren’t (and aren’t) changed back.

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