D&D General Are You There D&D? It's Me, J.R.R. Tol-KEEEEN!

[jayoungr]

Well, is not a secret that D&D took inspiration from animes such as Record of Loddoss War, and (in the case of 5e), the current isekai animes.

Which aspects of 5E are based on isekai? And is this 2014 5E or 2024?

 

[dbolack]

Which aspects of 5E are based on isekai? And is this 2014 5E or 2024?

I have my suspicions to this answer and I expect if you will look deeper at it you'll see the influence of CRPG/JRPG on Manga and Anime as a more direct cause...

 

[Joshua Randall]

The Tomorrow People was a staple on US kids cable channel Nickelodeon in the early 80s.

The Tomorrow People ruled, and I am humming the music right now.

(U.S. American here)

 

[Aldarc]

The funniest part of this tangent is that Gary Gygax swore up and down that Tolkien was not a major influence on D&D compared to Howard, Vance, Anderson and others.

The man whose most famous character is an incredibly powerful wizard also said that he didn't understand why people would play anything other than fighters or "fighting-men."

For us Milennials, a lot of the fantasy media we consumed was young adult fiction. Harry Potter of course, but also Eragon, Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl, Spiderwick, etc. Maybe some of the weirder stuff like Abarat and His Dark Materials if you were a real freak like me. Star Wars and The Matrix if you branched out from fantasy into scifi. And of course, Lord of the Rings by way of the Peter Jackson movies, which were the absolute pinnacle of fantasy for my generation.

My foray into fantasy fiction probably began with Redwall in early middle-school. When my father saw that I was interested in fantasy, he took me to his old room in his parents' house, where he gave me a lot of what he read in the '60s and '70s. He was and is a pretty big geek who read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, particularly pulp authors. So I ended up reading Elric of Melniboné (and other works of the Multiverse), A Wizard of Earthsea, The Black Company, Chronicles of Prydain, and even older works like John Carter of Mars before even getting around to reading Lord of the Rings alongside The Wheel of Time.

I didn't read Harry Potter until I was in my mid to late 20s when all of the movies were out, and I skipped most of the other books you mention after Harry Potter. I typically avoided crazes like Harry Potter since I liked the feeling of reading on my own terms and not hype. However my partner, who is five years younger, did read Harry Potter, Eragon, and His Dark Materials in their youth. That's what makes Rowling's transphobia so tragic for my partner, who has since disavowed anything Harry Potter related. It was a pretty big hit to something that they loved as a child.

Anyway, I feel like my father had a pretty big impact on my fantasy fiction path.

 

[Shardstone]

This may be his most popular thread yet.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The prevalence of magic really isn’t a Harry Potter specific influence. Rather, Harry Potter was one of many properties aimed at young adults in the late 90s and early 2000s that were all about a secret magical world. But, really, most of us just think, if I’m playing a magic-using character, I want to feel like my character is a magic user all of the time, not just once or twice a day.

Bouncing off this, most older myths and tales didn't have their magical or magic-using beings use magic once or twice a day. Even if it was only once per the story, it didn't feel like that was all the magic they could use, just that it was all the magic that was needed. I'm thinking of things like the ancient bard who cursed a king with lesions and boils by mocking him, or Maleficent cursing the castle to sleep and raising the thorns. It wouldn't feel weird for these characters to magical thing after magical thing over the course of the day, but we are only seeing them as side characters doing the ONE magical thing that impacts the plot.

But when you get to magical characters who are the main character, they will pull magical secret after secret technique after magical pact to solve problem after problem that they face. Or throw a whole bunch at one problem before sitting down and going "hmm... need a new plan"

 

[Zeromaru X]

Which aspects of 5E are based on isekai? And is this 2014 5E or 2024?

Usually, younger players /DMs take ideas from these animes for character concepts and world-building, and WotC has been paying attention. For instance, the "wholesome" art we have in the 2024 5e, were you just find people hanging out instead of being adventuring (that was the thing of the older editions' art), is a direct influence of current isekai animes, which have a lot people hanging out and having a good time and that stuff, with battles and adventuring being left to specific story arcs.

 

[Chaltab]

Usually, younger players /DMs take ideas from these animes for character concepts and world-building, and WotC has been paying attention. For instance, the "wholesome" art we have in the 2024 5e, were you just find people hanging out instead of being adventuring (that was the thing of the older editions' art), is a direct influence of current isekai animes, which have a lot people hanging out and having a good time and that stuff, with battles and adventuring being left to specific story arcs.

I mean that's possible but I'm not sure it's an obvious conclusion. There's loads of downtime and just 'hanging out' in the Lord of the Rings too.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Sure, but that was not the focus. The focus of the time was still on the adventure thing, and the art of the editions of the time (Oe to 2e for the books, 3e and 4e for the movies) reflected that. It's during 5e that we are seeing a shift in the "tone" of the art, to reflect in the "wholesome" side of the adventurers. Just when the isekai genre in anime is massively popular, and is known for that kind of narratives.

 

[Chaltab]

Hm. I'm not saying you're wrong and I don't really watch isekai anime... primarily because as I understand it's not very wholesome and generally has some pretty messed up sexual themes. It just surprises me that 'wholesome' makes anyone think of isekai anime and not something like Delicious in Dungeon or Frieren.