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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1875959" data-attributes="member: 7240">Thanks Cithindril for your restraint in not engaging this argument more fully; that's something I have a tough time resisting, as you can see. I would indeed be happy to correspond with you further privately on this question. I'm pleased to see that our actual views about paladins are not that far apart in that we both see Arthurian literature as the primary source. This nicely leads into the case that Gez makes. Gez is, in a sense, adopting the Jerry Bruckheimer position regarding how texts work. Bruckheimer's Arthur was an attempt at the "historical" Arthur. For him, portraying Arthur was about discovering (however ineffectually) the individual to whom Bede devoted one line in his Ecclesiastical History of Britain. For most of us, portraying Arthur is about discovering the individual whose court Chretien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Thomas Mallory and others portrayed centuries later. For me, D&D is the game that has evolved from people playing it and publishing about it for the past 30 years. D&D does not live in the mind of its creator. If understanding D&D was simply about discovering what Gary Gygax intended, we would resolve our questions simply by posting to Gary's Q&A thread. Just look at the other texts Gygax recommends. Lovecraft and Derleth are some of the most prominently featured writers; in the first edition of the DDG, the Cthulu mythos was prominently featured. Yet, over the ensuing quarter century, these elements have substantially receded from D&D and are now represented in different gaming traditions. Original D&D was a semi-coherent hodgepodge of neat ideas that have been gradually systematized in the past three decades through new editions, third party material and an evolving community of players. To make a religious analogy, original Scripture is not all that matters here; we are part of an open canon system with a rich exegetical tradition. What concept existed in Gary Gygax's mind when he wrote the class is but a small part of what the class is today.</blockquote>

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