D&D General Reassesing Robert E Howards influence on D&D +

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right. This is the key point: the notion of "demi-humans" who are economically, socially, politically, and culturally variants on humans, so that they can adventure with humans, have kingdoms and armies that operate on the same map and in the same way as the human ones, etc - this is all derived straight from JRRT. Chainmail doesn't even bother filing off the serial numbers!

Well, and to reinforce this, there is NO OTHER SOURCE in Gary's famous list which does this! He COULD have listed Worm Ouroboros, which has kingdoms of what seem like different races, fairies, goblins, witches, etc. but they only seem to really differ in character traits, not physiology, from what I recall (maybe the witches had magic that the others didn't, I can't remember for sure). But Gary DID NOT list Worm Ouroboros! I can't even think of another similar work, maybe The King of Elfland's Daughter sort of comes close, though its goblins are still pretty much just boogymen.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, EGG didn't like people pointing out that his races all came from JRRT, so he sort of post hoc tried to fudge up elves a bit. Gnomes are not a demi-human race pre-1e either, so a late addition in that way, as are half-elves I believe. Half-orcs may exist in some source pre-1e, but only become playable there as well. So the 'core' races seem to all start out as Tolkienesque for sure, and then Gary starts messing a bit with elves, adds gnomes, and obviously has to change hobbit to 'halfling'. I never understood why he was so annoyed by the whole races thing though. Gary was a quirky guy though...

Half-elves were in OD&D.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Half-elves were in OD&D.

I had to go back and look...

I do not find any reference to a 'half-elf' in Book 1. They do not appear in Book 3 either, so actually NO, there's no half-elf as such in OD&D, though they are referenced as thieves in Greyhawk where they can SIMULTANEOUSLY (vs the alternating version for Elves) be fighters and magic users, and also advance additionally to 4th level as a cleric (so triple classing). In the usual disorganized fashion a later section adds unlimited thief leveling for half-elves, but doesn't explain if they MC or how it works (presumably they are just normal thieves then).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I had to go back and look...

I do not find any reference to a 'half-elf' in Book 1. They do not appear in Book 3 either, so actually NO, there's no half-elf as such in OD&D, though they are referenced as thieves in Greyhawk where they can SIMULTANEOUSLY (vs the alternating version for Elves) be fighters and magic users, and also advance additionally to 4th level as a cleric (so triple classing). In the usual disorganized fashion a later section adds unlimited thief leveling for half-elves, but doesn't explain if they MC or how it works (presumably they are just normal thieves then).

A nomenclatureal disagreement, since by the time I came along Greyhawk was considered part of OD&D by most people I ever encountered, and as such I tend to use it that way (same way I'd say "thieves and paladins were in OD&D").

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

A nomenclatureal disagreement, since by the time I came along Greyhawk was considered part of OD&D by most people I ever encountered, and as such I tend to use it that way (same way I'd say "thieves and paladins were in OD&D").

yeah, I kinda barely remember before Greyhawk myself. I think the very first character I ran there was only Fighting Man, Cleric, and Magic User as options. Stuff evolved fast back then. It IS notable, the thief is a pure Gary addition, and seems much more influenced by Lankhmar than the 3 initial classes which I'm pretty sure Dave created. The Ranger, which definitely has 'Aragorn' written all over it, was also a non-Gary creation that appeared in SR or maybe one of the very first TDs, I forget exactly. Not that Dave was overly fixed on LotR either, his Druid and Assassin classes from Blackmoor are definitely drawn from other sources, though I'm not sure EXACTLY where. I don't recall a pre-D&D fantasy work that has a 'druid' in it, though such characters as Merlin certainly are suggestive of pre-Roman religious sources.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

yeah, I kinda barely remember before Greyhawk myself. I think the very first character I ran there was only Fighting Man, Cleric, and Magic User as options. Stuff evolved fast back then. It IS notable, the thief is a pure Gary addition, and seems much more influenced by Lankhmar than the 3 initial classes which I'm pretty sure Dave created. The Ranger, which definitely has 'Aragorn' written all over it, was also a non-Gary creation that appeared in SR or maybe one of the very first TDs, I forget exactly. Not that Dave was overly fixed on LotR either, his Druid and Assassin classes from Blackmoor are definitely drawn from other sources, though I'm not sure EXACTLY where. I don't recall a pre-D&D fantasy work that has a 'druid' in it, though such characters as Merlin certainly are suggestive of pre-Roman religious sources.

Merlin doesn't seem like a D&D druid though, he's more of a D&D wizard. The D&D druid seems very much derived from an interpretation of the historical druid. In fact, the D&D druid resembles more the "modern" druid of pagan revivalism, which in itself comes from a lot of skewed history.

 

[Clint_L]

It IS notable, the thief is a pure Gary addition, and seems much more influenced by Lankhmar than the 3 initial classes which I'm pretty sure Dave created.

Credit where due: as Gygax acknowledged, the original concept for a thief class (including calling it the thief class) came from Gary Switzer and his group...or is that what you meant by a "pure Gary addition"? If so, bravo!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Merlin doesn't seem like a D&D druid though, he's more of a D&D wizard. The D&D druid seems very much derived from an interpretation of the historical druid. In fact, the D&D druid resembles more the "modern" druid of pagan revivalism, which in itself comes from a lot of skewed history.

It really depends on what sources you use though. Sure, MODERN 'Merlins' are typically seen as wizards, but if you go back to the Celtic sources, they're much more like advisors, peace makers, and a sort of 'priest'. Its really unclear what the historical druids were, we really have nothing more than a couple paragraphs about them. So, yeah, it may be that the D&D druid owes something to neo-paganism, though I wonder which way the influence actually flowed...

I mean, I was around in the 1960s, and while neo-paganism WAS achieving some level of profile at that time, I don't think it had a huge impact on D&D. IME the confluence was more in the '80s when there was a LOT of crossover between D&D and SCA groups and such (of which a fair percentage were also Wiccans). Of course, not knowing much about Dave in that respect, it is quite possible he was inspired by neo-pagan sources or was himself exposed to it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Credit where due: as Gygax acknowledged, the original concept for a thief class (including calling it the thief class) came from Gary Switzer and his group...or is that what you meant by a "pure Gary addition"? If so, bravo!

Could be, it was introduced to D&D via the Greyhawk supplement, which was written entirely by EGG and didn't involve Dave, so its form was his choice. That was my point. I mean, I guess we could then attribute the Tolkienesque nature of the Ranger to EGG as well, since he chose to copy it verbatim from the magazine into the 1e PHB (well, its not quite verbatim, I believe there were a few changes to the spell casting). Many hands go into these things.

 

[Thomas Shey]

yeah, I kinda barely remember before Greyhawk myself. I think the very first character I ran there was only Fighting Man, Cleric, and Magic User as options. Stuff evolved fast back then. It IS notable, the thief is a pure Gary addition, and seems much more influenced by Lankhmar than the 3 initial classes which I'm pretty sure Dave created. The Ranger, which definitely has 'Aragorn' written all over it, was also a non-Gary creation that appeared in SR or maybe one of the very first TDs, I forget exactly. Not that Dave was overly fixed on LotR either, his Druid and Assassin classes from Blackmoor are definitely drawn from other sources, though I'm not sure EXACTLY where. I don't recall a pre-D&D fantasy work that has a 'druid' in it, though such characters as Merlin certainly are suggestive of pre-Roman religious sources.

The ranger was in SR. I still have a tattered copy somewhere.

Yeah, there aren't any obvious fictional sources for the Blackmoor supplement classes.