Let's talk about which 4th edition element comes from where

[Alisair Longreach]

The Psion goes back to the 2. ed. Psionicist class which was an update of the first edition Psionics rules. Psionics itself was inspired by certain novels by Paul Anderson and Alfred Bester who probably got inspired by the late 19th century Mesmerism fad.

The Ardent comes from the 3.5 class in Complete Psionic.

The Battlemind comes from the 3.0 Psychic Warrior class which was inspired by the Jedi of Star Wars.

The Runepriest might be inspired by the 2. ed. Runecaster class from the Vikings historical reference supplement.

The Seeker is inspired by the 3.0 Arcane Archer prestige class.

The Artificer comes from the 3.5 Eberron setting and was probably inspired by the Artifice school in the 2. ed. supplement Player's Option: Spells & Magic and maybe further back to the Tinker Gnomes of Dragonlance.

 

[MortonStromgal]

- Combat roles: Explicit in World of Warcraft. Of course, defender = fighting man, controller = magic user, leader = cleric and striker = thief. Note that WoW is based on Diablo, which is based on older rogue-like games and MUDs, which are based on D&D and date back all the way to 1975.

Combat roles existed in MMOs long before WoW. WoW is really EQ1 all over again in a slightly different world and removing the parts people complained about. (Admittedly borrowing some things people enjoyed from other MMOs)

As a friend of mine likes to say. Bilzard was smart they removed the suckage from EQ1 then called it WoW.

 

[mneme]

4e eladrin are pretty explicitly a merging of the 3e planar "eladrin" and the 3e "grey elves" (which pretty much all elven wizards were, as Int bonuses were hard to come by).

As such (since Grey Elves = high elves, where 3e "high elves" are actually wood elves), yeah, it dates back to Tolkein.

Rangers in D&D come from Aragorn (and the English concept of Ranger, but the numenorian rangers were the proximate source).

 

[TerraDave]

Hmm...

On roles: first three classes in OD&D: Fighting Man, Magic User, Cleric. Fighting Man and Wizard really come from the Chainmail rules, with one as the frontline fighting hero, basically a tank in today' parlance, and the wizard as artillery, almost litteraly. Cleric was added for non-game reasons, but also filled a support and healing role important for sustained play. The early theif was not about DPS. The fighting man and magic user filled that role, and remember, artillery...

Dave Noonan has a good rundown on this here. Basically the three fit almost too well together. The wizard was, after a few levels, super amazing. But to balance this super vulnrable (actually, normal human vunrable). Enter the fighter. Both these guys would get hurt...and no healing surges...so enter the cleric.

And for--decades--you couldn't really have a D&D party without these guys. Partial exception for fighter, thanks to all his subclasses.

(The thief is a whole other story. He was "needed" reallly for non-combat roles, but these could be filled by spells. 3E came closest to making the class esential).

Oh. And the influance of these on all their computer clones is well documented and noted widely in the industry.

 

[AllisterH]

About time the elves got separated.

Pretty much from 1e, elves were doing duble duty as rangers and wizards yet their stats couldn't cover both...so of course, every "traditional" campaign setting separated the two.

Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Mystara...I think only DS had 1 type of elf.

 

[TerraDave]

Eladrin: the 4E designers have said "these are high elves". I don't think its a big mystery. Though they did borrow the name from a loosely related entity that had been made redundant.

In game terms, the elf-split goes ways back. Arguably, the first OD&D elves, who would alternate between fighting with swords and casting spells, were Eladrin. If anything, the "elf" evolved latter, orginally just a monster manual entry. AD&D elves couldn't even take levels in ranger!

Other stuff (this is all its D&D predacesor):

Classes, races, and levels: OD&D
experience points and treasure as rewards: OD&D
Magic items (including with "+" and "powers"): OD&D

D20 roll over a target number: OD&D
D20 unified mechanic: 3E (based on Gamma World??)

"At will" magic: 3E Warlock
Encounter Powers: 3E psionics (??)
Daily Powers: OD&D spells.

Hit Points: OD&D
Armor as damage avoidance: OD&D
Non AC defenses: Star Wars Saga or, yes, mental defense in Gamma World. And 3E touch attacks.

Using a grid, with each square being 5'x5': Combat and Tactics 1994
Opportunity Attacks (aka Attacks of Opportunity): Combat and Tactics 1994
Individual initative: 2E (~1989) optional rule based on very confusing 1E precedent.
Fixed initiative: 3E
Different die for different weapon damage: Greyhawk Supplement I.

Paladin (as defender with leader and charisma): Greyhawk Supplement I.
Thief (as backstabbing skill person): Greyhawk Supplement I.
Rogue (as agile damage dealer): 3E.
Barbarian: Dragon Magazine, pre 1983 (both the class of that name and the D&D berserker)
Monk: Blackmoor Suplement II.
Druid: Eldritch Wizadry, Supplement III

Halfling: OD&D (and Chainmail)
Halfling as boot wearing trouble makers: Dragonlance.
Drow: Hall of the Fire Giant King
Drow as PCs: Unearthed Arcana (1E)
Lolth: Vault of the Drow

Orcus and Demogorgan (aka the coverboys): Eldritch Wizadry, Supplement III
Artifacts as a unique magic item with own systems: Eldritch Wizadry, Supplement III
Psionics: Eldritch Wizadry, Supplement III

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Also, on Combat Roles:

WoW's Tank/Healer/DPS/Puller/Support/CC designation comes from -Everquest-, when grouping had developed player sensibilities for what was needed in order to take down mobs-- You needed a Puller to grab the right amount of mobs, support to get your team above the mob's level of power, crowd control to keep the pull manageable, and Tank, Healer, and DPS were all the same familiar roles. WoW condenced that, giving Crowd Control and Pulling across all classes to a much lesser degree, and buffing not really being necessary in order to defeat mobs efficiently.

Diablo had -nothing- to do with it.

D&D development just came to the same conclusion that WoW development -eventually- did--that half-assing two roles doesn't balance against doing a single role well. It only took almost 30 years of table-top gaming to figure it out.

Uh... Not disputing anything about the history of roles within CRPGs/MMOs but the roles have always existed from OLD D&D onwards. They were instantiated in different concepts as the game progressed, but the whole idea was a direct lift from D&D in the first place. OD&D had fighter (tank/defender), cleric (leader/buffer/healer), and magic user (artillery/controller/striker), plus the thief which showed up in Greyhawk which really doesn't take on much of a distinct role, more like utility/striker/scout. With the advent of additional classes role stopped being really specific to a given class and the more derived classes to an extent have some degree of split, but every class has effectively had more-or-less a primary role.

I think it would be more accurate to work it back from OD&D into the concepts it was based on, table top gaming. TTGs are fundamentally simulationist and were designed to simulate warfare. Its easy enough to see that things map pretty cleanly back to basic military force arm distinctions, which in turn are just a practical reflection of reality. You have infantry (hold ground, block the enemy, resist attack), cavalry (high mobility, offensive force projection), artillery (area denial, force projection), and the command function, plus other miscellany like medics, recon, etc. OD&D characters simply reflected these and that was the genesis of roles, which feeds directly into the computer games by direct emulation of D&D.

Overall any game where you have a distinction between character types is going to devolve down to something role-like. Its just very natural. 4e certainly didn't need to get it from other games, it was there in whole cloth already. I'm sure they DID follow the lead of games like WoW or EQ to actually plaster it on the classes explicitly for all to see, but you didn't have to play much OD&D/1e/2e to know all about it anyway.

 

[interwyrm]

- Feats: 3.0

Fallout came out in 1997, and had perks every 3 levels which were essentially feats.

D&D 3.0 Came out in 2000.

 

[TerraDave]

Feats: Weapon Specialization was introduced in late 1E. 2E had non-weapon proficiencies and weapon proficiencies that charecters recieved every few levels and these could be used to buy what would become skills, but also things like Blindfigthing, weapon specilization, etc. Supplements would elaborate on this and by mid 1990's many of the feats that would be in 3E were out there. The name "feat", that seems to be 3E, though 2E also used the term "talents" as well as proficincies.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Healing Surges: This idea was taken directly from the Earthdawn RPG (a fantasy RPG made by FASA in the 90s), though they called them "recovery tests" in that game.

Come to think of it, a couple other things in 4th edition remind me of that game, such as Fort, Ref and Will being defenses that are rolled against like AC instead of being saving throws that the PCs roll. Earthdawn did effectively the same thing with physical defense, magic defense and social defense.