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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 9417015" data-attributes="member: 7023840">Snarf lies.[SPOILER]B2 (Keep on the Borderlands) is a classic of D&D history, and a well-known module. I am reasonably certain that Gygax had no political intent in writing the module. I am reasonably certain that most of the people who went through the module (especially at the time) didn't think that there was anything political about it. And yet ... it is intensely political, in the way that it reflect a particular ideology of the time (blah blah semiotics blah blah Barthes' Mythologies etc.).To start with, the very concept of D&D at that time was rooted in American exceptionalism and myths of the Old West; yes, it had the additional trappings of fantasy, but fundamentally it was borne from the Western, and from a generation of adults that grew up on that genre. The saloon becomes the inn. The adventurers are the gunslingers. Authority is weak or absent. Power is achieved through violence and can only be countered with violence; both good and evil are simply manifestations of that violent impulse. Every problem has a simple, easy-to-understand solution; and that solution is to kill the problem. B2 makes this more explicit- while some liken it to generic "colonialism," it is actually much closer to a fantasy re-imagining of the old Western trope- you have a stockade in the wilderness, and there are "savages" (ugh) that threaten the march of civilization. Again, this isn't just an adventure, this is the assumption that there is a worldview that is reflected in the adventure. Civilization is good. Violence is appropriate and necessary against others that keep you from expansion. If you look at the Gygax quote that started this thread, you know that while there was no intent to put this in, he obviously reflected the influences that he had.Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes that cigar is a pe... um, something else. [/SPOILER]</blockquote>

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