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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Storm Raven" data-source="post: 3225146" data-attributes="member: 307">No, Gygax and Arneson didn't have any obligation to do any of the things they did when putting together what became D&D. What they did so was create game constructs that would work for the wargame based simulation they were making to add on to a standard tabletop man-to-man wargame.The original classes were fighting men, magic-users, and clerics. Or, infantry, artillery, and medics. The thief class, the ranger class, the paladin class, and so on, were add-ons. I suspect that the conversations creating those classes went like this:Ernie: "Hey Dad, I just read that Cugel the Clever book you lent me. I want to play a character in your dungeon wargame like Cugel."Gary: "Write it up."Ernie: "Cool."And so on. The classes were probably created using an ad hoc "what did the guy who wanted to play the character read last week" basis. Not on any "tap into the universal images of fantasy fairy tales" basis.And if he was going for a Tolkien based game, he did a bad job of it. Wizard bear no relation to Gandalf. Fighters don't seem to be like any member of the Fellowship - they all get along fine with little or no armor through 50% of the Trilogy.I think he was going for a Vance/Lieber/Howard inspired game. The conventions of the game fit those adventures much better. Not perfectly, and certainly not enough to really say that you could play most of the characters in those games. But the tone and feel, yeah, that's the source for that.</blockquote>

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