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

[Maxperson]

Yes, American ideas certainly evolved from European ideas. That doesn't make them the same thing.

The little changes on the outside really don't change the core. If you take a chocolate disk, cover it in a colored candy coating and stamp an L on it, it's still an M&M, even though it's not.

 

[5atbu]

Not overly worried as it was a product of it's time.

Generally a bad idea to use real life cultures in games extinct ones are kinda safe (Egypt, Greece, Rome etc).

Even then...

 

[Helldritch]

The little changes on the outside really don't change the core. If you take a chocolate disk, cover it in a colored candy coating and stamp an L on it, it's still an M&M, even though it's not.

True
And M&Ms are still Smarties to me. Whether you put an M or an L...

 

[Mordhau]

Yes. It was based on Remo Williams.

Also, the Cleric was not really based on really clergy (although the edged weapon thing Wass added by Gygax due to inspiration from Bishop Odo), but Hammer Horror vampire hunters.

And so on. Here's the list-

D&D General - D&D History 101: Origins of Classes

So I wanted to do a short series on some of the history of D&D, and I thought I'd start with a fun and relatively easy one- the original class system, as codified in the AD&D (1e) Player's Handbook of 1978. For those of you unfamiliar with that 1e PHB, it was a...

www.enworld.org

@Mordhau

If I wasn't busy, I'd love to engage your post a little more (Mikhail Bakhtin FTW!). I would say that I agree that the "western" (broadly construed*) had a profound influence on early D&D, but I also think that early D&D had more influences for the adventure space- and that the orientalist/Said sense was, in fact, not one of the primary ones other than as a pale reflection as might be picked up from the gestalt of the western and/or pulp fiction that was read.

But maybe this isn't the thread to develop that thesis?**


*It's similar to someone noting that Star Wars is fantasy, not "science fiction." Many of the concepts of the "western" are hard-baked into the American ethos- even moreso for people who were adults in the 1970s.


**I'm unfortunately preoccupied though the New Year other than the occasional brief post. So ... Happy Holidays to All, and Happy New Year if I don't get to say it!!

I don't think the Oriental colonial stories were all that big an influence really, and even then at second hand, although I think what was there was has faded away.

What is notable is, I don't think there was ever really a pulp tradition of adventure stories set in medieval times in western Europe. (Almost all of R.E.Howards fictional medieval stories are Crusades stories).

There was a historical fiction lineage going back probably to Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, but I don't think this ever really translated into the pulps.

(I might be wrong, but if there was such a thing, they don't seem to be very well remembered, which may be telling in itself)

 

[Helldritch]

Given D&D's obvious lineage with pulps, are we seriously claiming that the Western isn't a major source of inspiration for D&D?

Really?

Not the only source, of course, but, thematically? It's a pretty darn big one. Where do you think the pulps got it from?

Don't you remember the tales of knights in shinning armor roaming the countries to right the wrongs and protect the innocents and to fight dragons where ever they maybe? And what about Lancelot du Lac? Pelenor? And so many others? This is more what inspired Gygax and Annerson than old Westerns.

Again, westerns might have had an influence on a scenario or two, but not the whole game.

 

[Mordhau]

Don't you remember the tales of knights in shinning armor roaming the countries to right the wrongs and protect the innocents and to fight dragons where ever they maybe? And what about Lancelot du Lac? Pelenor? And so many others? This is more what inspired Gygax and Annerson than old Westerns.

Again, westerns might have had an influence on a scenario or two, but not the whole game.

In some surface detail perhaps, but by the nature of the stories, as soon as we start worldbuilding they have nothing really to offer.

 

[Maxperson]

True
And M&Ms are still Smarties to me. Whether you put an M or an L...

I thought Smarties were those sour multicolored candies in the clear wrappers.

 

[Faolyn]

Yeah the Lone Wolf and Cub vibes are pretty strong, as are echoes of samurai/ronin stuff, and Westerns, etc.

Also, maybe just watch it. It's good!

I don't have Disney+, alas, and can't afford to.

 

[Helldritch]

In some surface detail perhaps, but by the nature of the stories, as soon as we start worldbuilding they have nothing really to offer.

Really? This is exactly the stories that inspired the fantasy genre....

I thought Smarties were those sour multicolored candies in the clear wrappers.

M&Ms are copies of Smarties. Chocolate bits in candies with different color coating. But both are good to eat and less good for my belly.

 

[Voranzovin]

Don't you remember the tales of knights in shinning armor roaming the countries to right the wrongs and protect the innocents and to fight dragons where ever they maybe? And what about Lancelot du Lac? Pelenor? And so many others? This is more what inspired Gygax and Annerson than old Westerns.

Again, westerns might have had an influence on a scenario or two, but not the whole game.

I certainly remember those stories, well enough to recognize how little DnD resembles them, whatever Gygax and Arneson might have intended. Part of the problem with the Paladin class in earlier editions is that it attempted to graft the tropes of chivalric romance onto a game that was never really designed to support them. If it was, "Lawful Stupid" behavior would be rewarded, instead of regarded as disruptive to the game.