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I haven’t been anywhere. Everything I know about America I learned from D&D. Like other people seem to have learned their history.

The “vibes” I get from early D&D are Wild West. Nothing remotely medieval. Which is why I’m asking people to explain what they mean. So far all they can come up with are things that have always been around, or never existed, like wizards in robes and pointed hats.

Things that have been around since the Iron Age and are still used now. (Bronze age for armour). Pretty sure wizards never existed, and “cunning men” didn’t were robes and pointy hats. Several castles within 30 miles of were I live. At least one is still lived in by a king. I know a few of...

Early modules, such as Keep on the Boarderlands, Village of Hommlet etc. it’s the same Wild West stuff that you find in Howard and Burroughs.

I’m familiar with the word. What I can’t see is anything in D&D that is identifiable as distinctively medieval.

That term again. WTF is a medieval trapping????????? And Dragonlance couldn’t be more American if it dressed in Stars and Stripes and sang the star spangled banner.

So, not D&D then. Lets look at a few things: Medieval Europe: monotheistic religion dominates politics. D&D: multiple polytheistic religions scrap with each other but rarely have significant political power. Medieval Europe: climate mostly cold and wet, largely forested. D&D: climate...

If you don’t know what a medieval trapping is, how do you know if a game has them or not?

What is a “medieval trapping” when it’s at home? And why can’t I have it in my imaginary world?

I suspect that if I ran a Dark Sun game with cannibal halfling as a player option, I would get a 100% halfling party.

So what’s the difference between fantasy medieval and fantasy imaginary?

Which part? Pretty much everything I have said is matter of fact, not of opinion.

Maybe they were doing their best, but our understanding of history has changed since the 70s, and American education has always been pretty sketchy on anything that happened more than 400 years ago.

The OPs argument is invalid - they claim it was medieval (which it never was) then they list a bunch of things that have always been part of D&D, and for some unaccountable reason call them Steampunk.

One thing worth mentioning: Ed Greenwood was a hippie (and still is). Ergo it's unsurprising that FR is more influenced by Tolkien than other settings (apart from Dragonlance).

Of course it's useless, because the OP clearly has no idea what steampunk means (or medieval for that matter), and appears to be using it as a catch-all for "stuff I hate". But they as for an explanation of why they are wrong, which is simple - the stuff you are talking about has nothing to do...

Tolkien was like 100 times more popular than D&D in the US in the 70s. It just wasn't comparable. LotR was a cultural phenomena, D&D was an obscure spin off from wargaming.

Nah, LotR was largely unknown in the US until it was embraced by hippie culture in the early 70s and became suddenly massively popular. It went from there into D&D, not from D&D into the US.

It should be by pointed out that waistcoats and pockets are in the book, not just the movies. Bilbo’s outfit is directly based on Tolkien’s own drawing. But even more telling is Tolkien’s illustration of the hall of Bag End, which has an aneroid barometer (invented 1843) on the wall.

D&D was largely inspired by Burroughs, Howard and Lovecraft, but at around the time of the commercial publication of D&D LotR suddenly became hugely popular in the US, so some Tolkien stuff was added in, in pretty much the same way that stuff from Harry Potter, Fourth Wing etc have been added...