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

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

I didn't get my own subscription until TD#11, but we all read the earlier ones. I remember that specific number because it has the famous Tom Wham "Snit's Revenge" game in it, which was actually a super fun and challenging game!

 

[Clint_L]

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.

Switzer and his group came up with the concept and basic mechanics for the thief as a class that specialized in out of combat utility, and Switzer phoned Gygax and pitched him the idea, which Gygax then developed into the version that was published. He acknowledged Switzer's contribution in the original publication, though he misspelled his name.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I didn't get my own subscription until TD#11, but we all read the earlier ones. I remember that specific number because it has the famous Tom Wham "Snit's Revenge" game in it, which was actually a super fun and challenging game!

Hmm. You sure? I thought those showed up in the early Dragons; there wasn't a whole lot of room in the SRs, since they were, as I recall, only about 8 pages long.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hmm. You sure? I thought those showed up in the early Dragons; there wasn't a whole lot of room in the SRs, since they were, as I recall, only about 8 pages long.

TD#11, The Dragon #11, yes. So that was still in the era of bi-monthly issues, but obviously a while after SR morphed into TD, which then later of course lost the 'The', etc. I assume Snit Smashing, the original Snit game, was in one of the earlier numbers of TD, but I don't actually remember ever seeing, some of the older kids in our group probably clipped that out and played it. Those were early days, there was only one set of D&D rules for all of us to share. Mail ordering something that was almost $20 with shipping was beyond feasible for 12-13 year olds back then...

 

[Thomas Shey]

TD#11, The Dragon #11, yes. So that was still in the era of bi-monthly issues, but obviously a while after SR morphed into TD, which then later of course lost the 'The', etc. I assume Snit Smashing, the original Snit game, was in one of the earlier numbers of TD, but I don't actually remember ever seeing, some of the older kids in our group probably clipped that out and played it. Those were early days, there was only one set of D&D rules for all of us to share. Mail ordering something that was almost $20 with shipping was beyond feasible for 12-13 year olds back then...

Sorry, I read that as a reference to SR for some reason. Not enough sleep last night.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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.

That would depend on which source you are using for Merlin. At the time that D&D was created the "current" version of Merlin was Disney's version of T.H. White's Sword in the Stone.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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.

Archaeological evidence is accumulating that the Roman accounts of druids were fairly accurate, and not the negative propaganda it was was dismissed as. I.e. more Wicker Man than Peace and Love.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That would depend on which source you are using for Merlin. At the time that D&D was created the "current" version of Merlin was Disney's version of T.H. White's Sword in the Stone.

I had no idea that movie was made in 1963 till this post. I saw it as a kid in the theater in like 1981 or 1982 and always just assumed that was when it came out.

 

[ichabod]

TD#11, The Dragon #11, yes. So that was still in the era of bi-monthly issues, but obviously a while after SR morphed into TD, which then later of course lost the 'The', etc. I assume Snit Smashing, the original Snit game, was in one of the earlier numbers of TD, but I don't actually remember ever seeing, some of the older kids in our group probably clipped that out and played it. Those were early days, there was only one set of D&D rules for all of us to share. Mail ordering something that was almost $20 with shipping was beyond feasible for 12-13 year olds back then...

Snit Smashing was in Dragon #10, and The Awful Green Things from Outer Space was in Dragon #28. Wham's Wikipedia entry lists four other games of his which were published in Dragon, but I'm not familiar with any of them.

 

[Yora]

Archaeological evidence is accumulating that the Roman accounts of druids were fairly accurate, and not the negative propaganda it was was dismissed as. I.e. more Wicker Man than Peace and Love.

D&D's idea of protecting nature against civilization has always been very late-20th century.