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<blockquote data-quote="MoogleEmpMog" data-source="post: 3224568" data-attributes="member: 22882">And the mental imagery it was rooted in... BECAME (not was, became after the fact) the mental imagery of stock fantasy.&nbsp; Prior to D&amp;D's popularity (especially among burgeoning fantasy fans and authors), these things were by no means universal or even common.The arcane/divine split?&nbsp; Spellcasting clerics in armor?&nbsp; Thieves as a separate class?&nbsp; Fighters locked into heavy armor?&nbsp; Mages without said armor?&nbsp; These were gameplay constructs to force players to work together as a team.&nbsp; Simple as that.&nbsp; They created mental imagery that was later adopted as the standard by writers whose first or most memorable exposure to fantasy was through D&amp;D and/or publishing industry suits who saw the D&amp;D tropes as the salable ones for stock fantasy.Pretending that they map to pre-D&amp;D fantasy in any meaningful way flies in the face of the evidence.&nbsp; At best you can say that Gygax and Arneson took their favorite literary flavors and mixed them together in a gameable way, dropping any influences they either didn't like or didn't see how to incorporate into the play model they wanted to foster.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="MoogleEmpMog, post: 3224568, member: 22882"] And the mental imagery it was rooted in... BECAME (not was, became after the fact) the mental imagery of stock fantasy. Prior to D&D's popularity (especially among burgeoning fantasy fans and authors), these things were by no means universal or even common. The arcane/divine split? Spellcasting clerics in armor? Thieves as a separate class? Fighters locked into heavy armor? Mages without said armor? These were gameplay constructs to force players to work together as a team. Simple as that. They created mental imagery that was later adopted as the standard by writers whose first or most memorable exposure to fantasy was through D&D and/or publishing industry suits who saw the D&D tropes as the salable ones for stock fantasy. Pretending that they map to pre-D&D fantasy in any meaningful way flies in the face of the evidence. At best you can say that Gygax and Arneson took their favorite literary flavors and mixed them together in a gameable way, dropping any influences they either didn't like or didn't see how to incorporate into the play model they wanted to foster. [/QUOTE]

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