Cultural influences in roleplaying

[hawkeyefan]

Absolutely. This was something I tried to capture in the OP - there was a bleed from the punk attitude of comics and music in the UK into the RPG scene.

It was there in the artwork of Brian Bolland and John Blanche and Carl Critchlow (who drew Thrud the Barbarian in White Dwarf and also worked on 2000AD, and later provided art for 3E and MtG). It was there in the writing of Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman.

I mentioned once to @pemerton that the UK roleplaying scene of the time felt like its own little subculture of punks and goths and artists and misfits and malcontents. It wasn't 'nerd' culture - it was a broader melting pot of subversive and (as you say) satirical attitudes.

Although I live in the US as opposed to the UK, that kind of punk counterculture is something I've only become aware of retroactively. In many fields, but particularly in my case in comics. All of that work in the UK that was railing against the government of the time and then how much of an impact all those folks had on the medium, especially as they found their way to US comics.

I don't really think that vibe was quite what was in place when I was young at that time in the states. Or that perhaps I was too young or immature to actually be aware of it. I think there were common elements and themes that came up in a lot of pop culture, and although there was certainly a punk aspect to some of it, what I took from it was more about being an outsider as opposed to a rebel? I don't know if that's the best way to say what I'm thinking, but hopefully that makes sense.

 

[Xamnam]

Oh, and I don't have much inspiration I can point to on music as far as D&D style play, but when I finally get around to running Ultraviolet Grasslands, I'm going to have a time putting together a playlist of stuff like King Gizzard, Oh Sees, The Sword, Hawkwind, Uncle Acid, Sleep, etc. both for inspiration and table music. That's half my drive to run the game, and the other half probably comes from watching Trigun.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think that these days, D&D absolutely counts as a cultural influence. You've got bands that openly sing about it, movies and shows about it, and you can buy tons of D&D-themed clothing. Not just stuff the D&D fans like, but stuff specifically catering to us and our experiences.

I'm a little surprised nobody has mentioned D&D itself as a cultural influence. When introducing someone to a new game, I can often cite how it's different from D&D in order to get them to understand something quickly. (Note: I don't bad mouth D&D when I do this. I just point out how this game is different.) In my years of gaming, I've found many players will often play the game as if its D&D and this is especially true of fantasy games. I remember having to explain to players in Legend of the Five Rings the looting the corpses of their enemies just isn't something they'd do because of the strong cultural taboo against touching the dead.

It's absolutely true that if you take a goth, metal, or punk musician and dig a little below the surface, there's a strong chance you'll find someone that does or did game. In the 90s, heck, my gaming group was filled with people from bands, including myself.

Absolutely. This was something I tried to capture in the OP - there was a bleed from the punk attitude of comics and music in the UK into the RPG scene.

It was there in the artwork of Brian Bolland and John Blanche and Carl Critchlow (who drew Thrud the Barbarian in White Dwarf and also worked on 2000AD, and later provided art for 3E and MtG). It was there in the writing of Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman.

I mentioned once to @pemerton that the UK roleplaying scene of the time felt like its own little subculture of punks and goths and artists and misfits and malcontents. It wasn't 'nerd' culture - it was a broader melting pot of subversive and (as you say) satirical attitudes.

 

[Hriston]

A book that influenced my RPGing early on was Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall which I came across while visiting a relative's home in London in the Summer of 1981. Subsequently, my first D&D character was a paladin named Albion that I played up to 10th level. He wasn't a giant like his namesake, but I imagined him as tall, strong, fair, and beautiful, as the son of Neptune is described in the book, if I recall correctly. Other characters from the book that left an impression on me (and my RPGing) were Caractacus, Boadicea, Arthur, and Merlin.

The AD&D core books were also influential. My second character, for example, was a half-orc fighter/cleric named Ogrithion Magion, which was my own corruption of "ogre mage" from the entry in the MM. His backstory was suitably tragic for one of his race, although perhaps more heroic than suggested by the core books.

One of the first games I DMed was for my older brother who introduced me to D&D. His character was a Native American style ranger travelling across the map of Greyhawk from the folio edition. The campaign, as long as it lasted, consisted of random encounters rolled up from the tables in the DMG.

 

[John Dallman]

One thing that's struck me about the British RPG scene is its punk influence. There's a strong satirical, antiauthoritarian attitude.

I came to RPGs in 1979, and my biggest influences were the books of Tolkien and Michael Moorcock, Asterix albums, and heavy rock music: Motorhead, Deep Purple and Hawkwind. Plus other people's homebrew settings: I realised fairly early on that TTRPGs are a narrative form of their own, and trying to "do" books, songs or TV shows in them doesn't work to my satisfaction.

The RPG subculture I was inside was full of science and engineering students. We had very limited respect for E. Gary Gygax and TSR, because a lot of what they wrote seemed silly to us. We were being fairly postmodern in our plots and imagery, although we'd never heard the term, and we didn't take ourselves seriously.

Nowadays, I'm deliberately trying to pick up new cultural influences, by running an occult WWII game set in India.

 

[Manbearcat]

There have been a lot of impacts when it comes to works that have affected my running of games. All the standard ones like Tolkein and Star Wars and 80s toys and so forth. But I think three particular works and 1 genre might be the most consequential to me in terms of themes that my running of games has orbited around along with the sparking of the imagination of that 7 year old and the years just after that:

Bridge to Terabithia

Where the Sidewalk Ends

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger

Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (which is verrrrrrrrrrry Western-ey) and several actual Westerns: The Magnificent Seven, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Silverado

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

In some ways, I'm the opposite. Gaming is what led me to Moorcock (when one of my players showed up raving about Elric and his black blade). And Moorcock led me to Hawkwind.

Tolkien at least, I came to before gaming.

I came to RPGs in 1979, and my biggest influences were the books of Tolkien and Michael Moorcock, Asterix albums, and heavy rock music: Motorhead, Deep Purple and Hawkwind. Plus other people's homebrew settings: I realised fairly early on that TTRPGs are a narrative form of their own, and trying to "do" books, songs or TV shows in them doesn't work to my satisfaction.

The RPG subculture I was inside was full of science and engineering students. We had very limited respect for E. Gary Gygax and TSR, because a lot of what they wrote seemed silly to us. We were being fairly postmodern in our plots and imagery, although we'd never heard the term, and we didn't take ourselves seriously.

Nowadays, I'm deliberately trying to pick up new cultural influences, by running an occult WWII game set in India.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In some ways, I'm the opposite. Gaming is what led me to Moorcock (when one of my players showed up raving about Elric and his black blade). And Moorcock led me to Hawkwind.

Tolkien at least, I came to before gaming.

I wasn't actually much of a fantasy fan before I started playing D&D. An SF fan, yes, but if West Coast D&D fandom didn't have a fair bit of SF seeping into it, I'm not 100% sure it'd have caught me (though I was always interested in mythology and monsters, so it had that going for it).

 

[chaochou]

Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (which is verrrrrrrrrrry Western-ey) and several actual Westerns: The Magnificent Seven, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Silverado

All those were influences for me. I'd say only The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Josey Wales were widely shared by the rest of the people I gamed with back then. We didn't play much with an overt western emphasis - I think there was a game or two of GURPS Wild West (or whatever it was called) and the old Avalon Hill Gunslinger.

I bet you're an Afro Samurai fan.

 

[pemerton]

Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (which is verrrrrrrrrrry Western-ey) and several actual Westerns: The Magnificent Seven, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Silverado

All those were influences for me. I'd say only The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Josey Wales were widely shared by the rest of the people I gamed with back then. We didn't play much with an overt western emphasis - I think there was a game or two of GURPS Wild West (or whatever it was called) and the old Avalon Hill Gunslinger.

I love the aesthetic of The Seven Samurai, and also Yojimbo. But I don't think I've ever successfully incorporated it into RPGing.