D&D 5E Modern influences on 5e!

[neobolts]

When you talk about what came after D&D but influenced D&D's later additions...you are talking about a circular ecosystem. Much of what influenced later D&D was itself influenced by Tolkien and early D&D.

I would point to serialized fantasy novels of the 1980s and 1990s, for example the Pern and Wheel of Time series, as ones where the influence looped back onto D&D.

Video games were another major influence. JRPGs such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest not only "borrowed" D&D monsters outright, they in turn influenced how those monsters were perceived. The biggest American video game influence was by far the MMORPGs (far more than the single player RPG video games). I'm talking about Everquest and World of Warcraft. They changed the way players and designers thought about monster races, questing, and loot. They, for better or worse, led pretty directly to the MMO-esque experimentation that was D&D 4e.

I'm not so sure western TV/movies has a big impact on design. While the Lord of the Rings movies, Game of Thrones, and Harry Potter have drawn in new players, it is hard to point to design choices that are directly from film.

Anime does seen to have had an impact. Shows like Slayers and Record of Lodoss War were staples of 90s viewing. Less D&D-derived settings like El-Hazard and Dragonball were also shaping fantasy tables.

Also, its worth noting that a lot of these influences were adapted themselves for the gaming table in the last 2 decades... Wheel of Time, Everquest, World of Warcraft, the Lord of the Rings, Slayers, El-Hazard, and Dragonball all got turned into tabletop RPGs.

 

[Tony Vargas]

When you talk about what came after D&D but influenced D&D's later additions...you are talking about a circular ecosystem. Much of what influenced later D&D was itself influenced by Tolkien and early D&D.... for better or worse, led pretty directly to the MMO-esque experimentation that was D&D 4e.

That's the kind of circle, yeah. Early computer games & D&D influenced eachother, a bit. MMOs were directly ripping D&D as much as ever they could, the similarity between D&D and MMOs is thus inevitable. MMOs had to confront problems with D&D because they didn't have DMs to smooth them over. D&D, similarly, finally got around to fixing some of those same problems in 4e.
Those similarities were weaponized by h4ters for use in the edition war.

I'm not so sure western TV/movies has a big impact on design.

It's hard to over-estimate how huge westerns were in the 50s, 60s & even into the 70s. Back then, you could get anything made if you managed to label it a 'western.' Wild Wild West was an over-the-top James-Bond-esque-spy, just done in the western setting. Kung Fu was a martial-arts show, just done in a western setting (and it sure seemed like it influenced the D&D Monk). Star Trek, notoriously, was pitched as 'Wagon Train in space.'

The D&D paradigm of adventurers meeting in a drinking establishment, and banding together to help the townspeople being menaced by bad guys, wouldn't exactly be out of place in a western. It'd be a saloon and bandits or an evil rail baron, rather than an inn/tavern and orcs or an evil wizard. D&D's notorious 'gold rush' economy is a western reference, right there.

And, well, they're was Myrlund - remembered for a magic spoon - but he was a wizard who spent time in western-ish world.

Oh, and TSR did publish Boot Hill.

 

[neobolts]

It's hard to over-estimate how huge westerns were in the 50s, 60s & even into the 70s. Back then, you could get anything made if you managed to label it a 'western.' Wild Wild West was an over-the-top James-Bond-esque-spy, just done in the western setting. Kung Fu was a martial-arts show, just done in a western setting (and it sure seemed like it influenced the D&D Monk). Star Trek, notoriously, was pitched as 'Wagon Train in space.'

The D&D paradigm of adventurers meeting in a drinking establishment, and banding together to help the townspeople being menaced by bad guys, wouldn't exactly be out of place in a western. It'd be a saloon and bandits or an evil rail baron, rather than an inn/tavern and orcs or an evil wizard. D&D's notorious 'gold rush' economy is a western reference, right there.

And, well, they're was Myrlund - remembered for a magic spoon - but he was a wizard who spent time in western-ish world.

Oh, and TSR did publish Boot Hill.

I actually meant western as in the western hemisphere (as anything non Eastern/Asian), but I did enjoy your thoughts on the setting of the American Ol' West.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Tony Vargas]

I actually meant western as in the western hemisphere (as anything non Eastern/Asian), but I did enjoy your thoughts on the setting of the American Ol' West.

Heck, some of it even holds for that, as well. In addition, though, there were some movies, in particular, I feel like influenced D&D, maybe just because I was a particular fan, but still: Harryhausen's Sinbad movies (the first two, that actually came out before D&D) and Jason & the Argonauts. There's a couple of things that particularly look like they were yoinked directly, though they're not huge. For instance, in 7th Voyage of Sinbad there's a wingless dragon with curling horns and reddish scales, it looks a tad like a D&D dragon and breaths a small cone of fire quite a lot, unlike a D&D dragon... not much similarity... but, the MM description of the Giant 'Fire Lizard' sounds a lot like it. The MM Homunculus is a winged, bestial humanoid, rather than a fetus-like one. And, of course, there's the animated skeletons from 7th Voyage and Argonauts, not that animated skeletons hadn't been a thing before, but sword-fighting ones - and Harryhausen's skeletons were pretty well-known in geek circles.

Then there's some of the other monsters... the Black Pudding, Ochre Jelly, Otyugh, and quite a few others could have come out of cheesy 50s-70s monster movies.

 

[Harzel]

The idea that MMO's 'influence' D&D is backwards, or at least, circular, MMOs are just RPGs in another, less more limited in some ways, more wide-open in others, medium. DPS or aggro or striker or whatnot aren't MMO concepts that crept into RPGs, they're MMO names for RPG phenomena that MMOs dealt with bringing onto their platform. Sometimes they even provide a useful insight, because the concept wasn't much confronted in the RPG group-think of the past. 'Aggro' for instance, back in the day, DMs would often have monsters just take on the 'front line,' or 'attack the obvious threat' or whatever rationale for wasting attacks on the heavily-armored fighter. It was just how things were done. There's no DM in a CRPG or MMO, so the programmers had to take up that slack and create a mechanic to make the monsters behave 'right' - they came up with aggro, and, when that came back around to the RPG side, GMs & Players became aware of it. But it was always there, just an informal convention rather than an actual mechanic.

With respect, this seems a bit revisionist (though I concede that is subject to both judgement and personal experience with preMMO RPGs). Certainly one can identify antecedents of many concepts in preMMO RPGs - issues such as monster target choice, precursor concepts such as the quantification of combat damage and the quantification of combat time, and fuzzy/partial/latent-but-unidentified concepts such as the vague descriptions of combat roles in the 1e class descriptions. But for me (and maybe this comes down to a matter of definitions or terminology) the acid test for whether a concept exists is whether there is a name for it. And the crystallization of a concept involved in putting a name to it is a significant step that I think you are underplaying. I would argue that DPS, aggro, and MMO-style combat roles are very much MMO concepts, and that their incorporation into TTRPGs represents an influence that is notably distinct from their antecedents in preMMO RPGs.

The case of aggro seems to me to be particularly clear in this regard: not only did MMOs identify it as a 'thing', they also added mechanics to make controlling it a sophisticated part of player tactics.

That pet peeve aside, 'modern' influences on 5e aren't exactly non-existent, but they're probably incidental, the thrust of the edition is backwards, it's re-captured the core of the classic D&D experience. Modern influences are, like, get'n on facebook & twitter instead of hosting their own buggy forum, stuff like that. ;P

I didn't play anything between 1e and 5e, but from my sketchy knowledge it does seem that 5e has pulled back from a lot of the MMO influence in 4e. (In fact when I first saw 5e, I naively thought, "Gee, look at that. Not all that much has changed.") Whether what remains should be termed incidental is probably somewhat subjective, but to return to your example, I don't think we'd have Goading Attack or Compelled Duel without MMO taunts.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Ooh, it's an interesting question, though I don't know the answer. Because RPGs are, in some ways, a kind of fan fiction, we are all taking ideas from various works of fiction around us and looking to recreate those stories at our gaming table. The game designers respond to that demand by making sure there is mechanical support for those stories in the rulebook.

Because 5e has so fewer classes/archetypes than some other popular RPGs out there, it could be that it's hard to see the impact of any one fictional archetype on the game, at least with regards to player mechanics. Players of 5e are encouraged to sculpt and mold the existing mechanics to fit their "Hound" character concept, instead of pulling a "Fallen Fighter" class from the latest character options book.

Maybe it's not wrong to say that the stories 5e was worked hard to let us tell were were stories about older D&D campaigns.

In that case, all fiction is fan fiction. But, then again, we all are fans of fiction, so it does make sense.

 

[Tony Vargas]

. But for me (and maybe this comes down to a matter of definitions or terminology) the acid test for whether a concept exists is whether there is a name for it. And the crystallization of a concept involved in putting a name to it

The TTRPG community was regional, varied from, group to group, and, after the fad, tiny. The names for the roles were just the classes that filled them - Fighter, Cleric, MU, Thief - or varied slang for the same - tank, meat-shield, wall, front-line; healer, band-aids; mage, csster...
...hadn't ever thought about it, but I've heard more variations on fighter..

We didn't say 'DPS,' just 'average damage,' melee monsters crashing against the fighter wall (two fighters spanning the ubiquitous 10x10 corridor), was just a convention, often extended to fighters 'protecting' other characters.

The emergence of consistent terminology had more to do with internet, and the vastly greater popularity of MMOs, building much larger communities.

That said, 'aggro' is probably the one clear case of something from TT being clearly improved by it's time on-line.

also added mechanics to make controlling it a sophisticated part of player tactics.

Because there was no DM, sure. The fighter role included being preferentially attacked in spite of such being less than tactically sound - imementing that without a DM required mechanics. As D&D became more player focused, starting late in 2e, such mechanics became more reasonable to finally add...

I didn't play anything between 1e and 5e, but from my sketchy knowledge it does seem that 5e has pulled back .

I did, from 80 through 95 & 99 to present. And, yes, it has pulled back a lot from some two decades of increasing player focus, and a brief flirtation with mechanical balance... Arguably well past the point of over-reaction.

In that case, all fiction is fan fiction.

Jason & the Argonauts, for instance. Wouldn't be cool if Heracles, Orpheus, Theseus, Castor & Pollux, etc, all went on an adventure together...

 

[Tormyr]

Not sure about 5e, but looking ahead to 6e, I think one of the heavy influencers will probably be https://www.amazon.com/Crown-Renewal-Paladins-Legacy-Elizabeth/dp/1469263157. It has both gnomes and paladins (although maybe not gnomish paladins).