The point I want to make does not pertain directly to JRRT, but does touch upon Christopher and the estate in terms of their views on LotR RPGs. John Rateliff makes his living working with videogames, developing guides and such. By all accounts, he has the blessing and approval of CT for his two-volume work on the Hobbit. In fact, the way it's generally been described is that the estate asked him to do for the Hobbit what CT was already doing with LotR and the material for Silm.
The interesting thing is that Rateliff is the author of a guide for a LotR RPG. See
here. Admittedly, an RPG of this type is not a fanfiction or a piece of straight writing. It is a videogame. Still, it's interesting to me that Christopher felt comfortable with Rateliff, given this aspect of his background. I believe that at the time their relationship started Rateliff was working in the Marquette archives and was in graduate school. He took over the Hobbit project from an older colleague who unexpectedly died (and took many, many years to finish it!
) As far as I know, Rateliff's relationship with CT has continued to be cordial. Isn't Decipher a licensed product that grew out of the movie? Still, it's interesting that Rateliff's involvement with a videogame/movie has not posed a problem for the estate.