D&D 5E First literary concept of the "Adventuring Party"?

[Rocksome]

One of the concepts that has always bothered me in D&D is the concept of the adventurer. There are very few examples (outside of D&D novels) where characters motivation is "to be an adventurer". Typically a characters motivation is much more personal: revenge, patriotism, saving a loved one, a quest for remedy, a magical mcguffin that will save the town. Typically the rest of the part of also individuals who are also drawn to the same mission for personal reasons of their own.

As such, I don't really think that the D&D idea of an "Adventuring Party" really exists outside of RPGs where it's simply convenient for hand-waving peoples motivations away.

It's why I typically start my campaign by establishing the PCs in "their home" and start events unfolding that threaten their home. Maybe they are part of a secret organisation tasked with protecting the realm on a mission to uncover the latest threat to the king, maybe they are a blacksmith who lost his forge and his family when the goblins attacked. Maybe they're a cleric that had a dream that the tragedy was coming and the only thing that could prevent the destruction of the home was the Shiny Box of Power.

 

[Yaarel]

If you count as an ‘adventuring party’ the hero and his sidekick, then it is the most ancient party of all, right from the earliest emergences of human civilizations. Compare Gilgamesh (warrior king) and his sidekick Enkidu (beastly savage). The cuneiform texts are about 600s BCE, but the stories are thought to derive from a reallife king who lived during the early bronze age, say 2600s BCE.

 

[Yaarel]

The D&D adventuring party seems mostly like a modern sports team. Each member has a specific role in the game.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Some of the other threads got me thinking. When did we see the first real concept of an adventuring party in literature? By adventuring party, I mean a group of would-be heroes with unique skill sets working together to embark on an adventure. The intellectual (scientist/wizard), the warrior (fighter/soldier), and the scoundrel (thief/scout)

Some classic medieval examples would include Roland's twelve peers and a couple of the Arthurian legends. (E.g. quest for the holy grail). Often the characters have overlapping base roles, but have distinct characters and strengths.

 

[EvanNave55]

Can you back that up with some examples? When I read the question I initially assumed there would be loads too, but if the essential elements are taken as:
- a group of people
- aspiring to be heroes but initially unknown
- exceptional and complementary skills

...then there aren't as many as you'd think. My own Norse example (up there ^ somewhere) actually falls down completely on #2 now I think about it (by any standard, Loki and Thor were already famous) and barely passes #1.

The first example I thought of was actually 'the fool of the world and the flying ship', but as far as I can tell that's mid/late C19th, so too late to be worth mentioning. We're probably missing loads, so any more examples would be welcome.

Yeah, the criteria (meant to distinguish between most of the other stories out there) are what we think of a typical fantasy adventuring party:

Intellectual who avoids physical combat mostly. The magic user or scientist for example.
The warrior, who is there for security, protection, and/or is the one who shines when the fighting starts
The rogue, who is the scout, sneaky guy, does the less honorable dirty work, etc
All are on an adventure to find riches, gain glory, or exploration.


With that criteria, it pretty much eliminates the apostles, or cavemen, or even the three musketeers (since they had largely overlapping skills, it was their personalities that set them apart).

If those are the criteria (which I would hardly consider to be the only possible representations of an adventuring party) Then no Neanderthals would not work because to get the academic type and rogue type civilization, society, and technology must have advanced enough to allow for people to start specialising into specific fields (rather than every person being a hunter/gatherer) and for there to be codified laws (oldest known written example: Hammurabi's code 1754 BC) and inventions such as locks (we're still not entirely certain when they were invented, but atleast 6,000 years ago in Ancient Egypt from the quick search I did). So tales involving such characters could potentially date back to ~1,700 BC. However you said they had to not just have tales of there adventures but for this group to specially seek out treasure and heroics? That narrows it down A LOT more but I'd still say at least two or three thousand years ago.

In my opinion however that is far too narrow a vision of what an adventuring party is. After all you've just thrown out almost every party of individuals that have gone on adventures together (A.K.A. adventuring party) in history. To me an adventuring party is merely any group of individuals frequently (though not always) with varying skills sets whose deeds and adventures are talked about in tales, folklore, legends, etc.

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[Sacrosanct]

Jason and the Argonauts is your answer -- The Argonautica, written by Apollonius of Rhodes in the 3rd c. BC, fits your definition perfectly. A group of amateurs banding together on a quest, each with different skills that emerge over the course of the adventure. They pick up new party members (Medea). It's even a joke for Apollonius that Jason brings very little to the party; it just happens to be told from his perspective. (Apollonius refers to Jason as amechanos, "without device" or "useless" more than once). The hero Heracles starts off on the adventure, and everyone wants him to lead, but he's too high level, and by the end of the first book (there are 4 books), he's left and off adventuring on his own. It would even be possible to assign individual argonauts to particular classes (e.g. Orpheus as the party bard).

There were earlier accounts of this adventure, but they don't survive; earlier versions of Jason present him older, already established (e.g. Euripides' tragedy, Medea).

As the question is framed, I think the examples earlier than this do not count -- we don't have a "party" in Homer (either Iliad or Odyssey); and while Gilgamesh and Enkidu go on an adventure together, they are more like Heracles; not an adventuring party. (There are lots of examples of this type -- two heroes fighting alongside one another). But for a proper party, Apollonius' Argonautica is the earliest model we have.

So my guess was actually right in my OP? I better write this down. Doesn't happen very often

 

[Sacrosanct]

One of the concepts that has always bothered me in D&D is the concept of the adventurer. There are very few examples (outside of D&D novels) where characters motivation is "to be an adventurer". Typically a characters motivation is much more personal: revenge, patriotism, saving a loved one, a quest for remedy, a magical mcguffin that will save the town. Typically the rest of the part of also individuals who are also drawn to the same mission for personal reasons of their own.

As such, I don't really think that the D&D idea of an "Adventuring Party" really exists outside of RPGs where it's simply convenient for hand-waving peoples motivations away.

It's why I typically start my campaign by establishing the PCs in "their home" and start events unfolding that threaten their home. Maybe they are part of a secret organisation tasked with protecting the realm on a mission to uncover the latest threat to the king, maybe they are a blacksmith who lost his forge and his family when the goblins attacked. Maybe they're a cleric that had a dream that the tragedy was coming and the only thing that could prevent the destruction of the home was the Shiny Box of Power.

Maybe it's playstyle, but hardly any D&D game I've played in is the PCs' motivation is to be an adventurer either. They are all like any other literary fantasy work. It's why we have plot hooks and backgrounds for each PC. They way you describe how you play is similar for how I play, and everyone I know--to establish a personal stake in why they would join. Ever since I started playing in 1981, each PC had a personal motivation for why they went on the adventure. In the few cases where the PC's main goal was to be an adventurer in itself, it was modeled after literary and real world examples, like expedition leaders. "Adventure" is a broad term. So I'm not sure why you would think that D&D is unique in that simply being an adventurer is the primary motivation for most characters when we have actual tools built in (plot hooks, backgrounds) that make PCs' motivations other than just to be an adventurer. D&D seems to represent literary and real life examples on an almost perfect ratio IME.

 

[Hriston]

The Argonauts are probably the earliest example from literature of an adventuring party. Another from Greek mythology would be the Calydonian Boar Hunt. Some of the same figures were participants. Also, I think the leaders of the Achaeans in the Iliad form somewhat of an adventuring party, with Odysseus taking the sagely/thiefly role and Achilles best representing the warrior.

In Norse mythology, you have Thor, Odin, and Loki fulfilling the fighter, magic-user, and thief roles respectively, but I'd have to do more reading to see if there are any surviving stories of all three of them going on an adventure together.

The "Five-Man Band" trope seems to be the crystallization of this concept: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveManBand. Its probable origin was either Le Morte d'Arthur or Journey to the West.

 

[Kobold Stew]

The Argonauts, the caledonian boar hunt, and the Trojan war are the big-three panhellenic events in Greek myth.

In reverse order: We have multiple detailed portraits of the Trojan war, but none of them fit the adventuring party mode (closest is Iliad 10, when Odysseus and Diomedes go off an a night-time escapade and kill Dolon).

There is only one extended description of the boar hunt (Ovid; the others are bare summaries), and it's essentially a roll-call. No personalities, very little individuation, and (apart form Atalanta) very little nuance or motivation. Ovid is writing seven centuries after Homer.

As I said above, we've lost the earliest written accounts of the Argonauts (all post-homer anyways), but Apollonius fits the bill.

 

[Kobold Stew]

T
In Norse mythology, you have Thor, Odin, and Loki fulfilling the fighter, magic-user, and thief roles respectively, but I'd have to do more reading to see if there are any surviving stories of all three of them going on an adventure together.

I think you'll find that Odin is different than you expect. He bargains his eye for wisdom, but disguises himself. I'm thinking Rogue/druid.

I know of no story that has the three of them adventuring together.