D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[Faolyn]

Sure. I also get that nobody has shown any kind of proof that inspiration has come from it. Every example has had multiple non-american west examples that could have equally been the inspiration. If you're going to claim inspiration, you have to show specific evidence of it or if you can't show evidence, show a quote from a designer saying that's where they got the inspiration.

And what, exactly, would you consider evidence or proof? Do you even know how artistic inspiration works? Because it's not something that necessarily leaves a paper trail, especially when the artist takes inspiration from multiple sources.

You may wish to read this short article. It's not "proof" by any means, but it should let you understand what some of us mean by inspiration.

What I really want to know is why you're so adamant about D&D not having any western roots to it. It also has pulp and sci-fi roots to it. It was never just based on pure Medieval Europe.

No. I'm saying that beyond will be a dragon territory, perhaps a mind flayer in a cave, etc. Generally it's just individual monsters or a few monsters of a type. If it's say orcs or hobgoblins, then it's the frontier of the human country, but there's civilization beyond.

And that's exactly what real-world frontiers are like. Except with humans instead of orcs and hobgoblins. The Old West is a frontier only if you don't consider Native Americans as having civilization.

There are also, at conservative estimate, approximately a million different sentient creatures capable and willing to have societies. More so in earlier editions. Even more so when you realize that some of these creatures--like dragons and mind flayers--have civilizations that are very different from the norm. You are literally never going to be that far from some sort of civilization.

And if that's how you count frontiers, as being far from any civilization, then as I said, the Old West isn't a frontier either.

 

[Azzy]

D&D has wrestled with this for a long time, struggling to balance the basic structure of higher level people having power with the incongruity of applying that through real world structures, "why does the king need to be 20th level?" (And how did he get there?) is a question I've seen asked many times over the years.

I read the bolded text in David Byrne (of the Talking Heads)....

And you may find yourself in a beautiful castle, with a beautiful queen
And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"

 

[Faolyn]

Maybe, but the Monk abilities seem more Chinese Kung Fu fantastic than Kung Fu the series. The old Chinese Kung Fu movies had monks moving faster than normal. Cane didn't move particularly fast. He also didn't strike super quickly like they did in the movies. Nor did he do super damage with a single strike, but I've seen those old Kung Fu movie masters destroy a tree with a finger strike.

Gygax apparently claimed that it was inspired partly by a book series called The Destroyer, whose protagonist was a cop from Newark who was trained in a fictional Korean martial art and who was also an avatar of Shiva. Whether Gygax was correct, I don't know.

 

[Azzy]

Gygax apparently claimed that it was inspired partly by a book series called The Destroyer, whose protagonist was a cop from Newark who was trained in a fictional Korean martial art and who was also an avatar of Shiva. Whether Gygax was correct, I don't know.

I've seen it claimed that both (Kung Fu and The Destroyer) served as inspiration. (The original player wanting a character like Cain, and some of the monk abilities being based on abilities in The Destroyer.) Damned if I can reference where I read that, though.

 

[Vaalingrade]

...OK, do you get that nobody is saying that D&D is a 1-for-1 match with westerns? We're saying that the game took some inspiration from it.

Why admit that when we can spent fifty pages arguing the semantic point with all comers until the heat death of the universe?

 

[Vaalingrade]

I've seen it claimed that both (Kung Fu and The Destroyer) served as inspiration. (The original player wanting a character like Cain, and some of the monk abilities being based on abilities in The Destroyer.) Damned if I can reference where I read that, though.

I went to try to find it too, but Google now returns mostly ways to build Cassandra Cain as a monk.


... I'm okay with this.

 

[Maxperson]

Gygax apparently claimed that it was inspired partly by a book series called The Destroyer, whose protagonist was a cop from Newark who was trained in a fictional Korean martial art and who was also an avatar of Shiva. Whether Gygax was correct, I don't know.

I'm much more inclined to take Gygax at his word than an assumption that involves a class with abilities that 95% of don't match Cane.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

What I really want to know is why you're so adamant about D&D not having any western roots to it. It also has pulp and sci-fi roots to it. It was never just based on pure Medieval Europe.

Gygax is actually pretty explicit about the Western/Frontier analogy in his explanation of D&D's economy.

"Think of the situation as similar to Alaskan boom towns in the gold rush days,"

--1e PHB, p35

"The prices and costs of the game are based on an inflationary economy, where a sudden influx of gold and silver has driven everything well beyond its normal value [...] if the economy of the area is one which more accurately reflects that of medieval England, let us say [...] such an influx of money would cause an inflationary spiral."

--1e DMG, p90.

 

[Mordhau]

I've seen it claimed that both (Kung Fu and The Destroyer) served as inspiration. (The original player wanting a character like Cain, and some of the monk abilities being based on abilities in The Destroyer.) Damned if I can reference where I read that, though.

Here it is

 

[Maxperson]

Gygax is actually pretty explicit about the Western/Frontier analogy in his explanation of D&D's economy.

The DMG actually shows that Alaska isn't the inspiration. Adventurers bringing back lots of money is.

DMG page 90: "An active campaign will most certainly bring a steady flow of wealth into the base area, as adventurers come from successful trips into dungeon and wilderness."

That means that the PHB quote was just Gygax looking for a real world example of the inflation inspired by successful adventurers so that players could better understand what he was saying.