The broken sword influenced DnD, D&D

Gary Gygax lists it in Appendix N of the 1979 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide, his published list of the fiction that shaped the game. Poul Anderson is listed for three books, The Broken Sword among them. Its cold, amoral elves and trolls, drawn from Norse saga rather than from Tolkien, fed the game's darker picture of the fey. ​Law vs. Chaos: Anderson's core worldview (developed in Three Hearts and Three Lions and The Broken Sword) directly birthed D&D's entire Alignment System.