D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[Faolyn]

Sure, but the Kung Fu series' influence seems to be limited to giving the monk creator the idea for a monk class and not really anything about the class itself. Kwai Chang Caine has almost no monk abilities. Arrow deflection is about it.

And again: there's more to taking inspiration than copying it word-for-word. I've never watched Kung Fu, but it is entirely possible that other aspects of the monk were taken from it. For example, from the wikipedia page, it says "Although it is his intention to avoid notice, Caine's training and sense of social responsibility repeatedly force him out into the open, to fight for justice or protect the underdog." The 1e monk is required to be Lawful. From the page on Caine himself, it says that "He was also tutored in [...] herbal medicine" and TVTropes talks about how Caine was kind to all living things, including a scorpion that stung him. The 1e monk gains a few druid abilities--not medicine per se, but a few.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Since I've never seen the show, a question: I've seen a few images of the Mandalorian pushing Baby Yoda around in a pram and I was wondering if there was supposed to a homage to Lone Wolf and Cub?

Yeah the Lone Wolf and Cub vibes are pretty strong, as are echoes of samurai/ronin stuff, and Westerns, etc.

Also, maybe just watch it. It's good!

 

[Voadam]

And knights were made in recognition of their deeds, not for the fun of it (well, at first, in late periods it became not big of a deed to be one. Just having the right connections or enough money...). Arthur still had to fight to get his kingdom. That is why he created the round table.

My understanding is that generally knights were a hereditary warrior class of lower nobility that trained from boyhood as pages then squires then knights to be heavy armor cavalry which requires expensive horses and armor and a bit of a support network.

Men at arms were generally not knighted in recognition of their deeds. Squires on the path to knighthood were.

Story Arthur was on the social class based knight path even as a boy before he drew the sword from the stone.

Knighting as a title reward for non social class based knighthood path people was generally a later transformation.

 

[Voranzovin]

For the last sentence...
So was the Roman Empire, so was the Egyptian, Babylonian , Aztec, Inca and Chineese Empire. So were the British with their Empire upon which the sun would never set. This is true of all countries at one point or another in their history. The need for more territory to expand was a common thing and, still is.

That many cultures are expansionistic--maybe most of them--does not mean that they all approach expansion identically. I have never claimed that expansionism was unique to American culture, but that Dnd's conception of leveling by going out and conquering stuff most evokes American ideas about expansion (and self-determination, and respect for authority or lack thereof, and a lot of other things).

And knights were made in recognition of their deeds, not for the fun of it (well, at first, in late periods it became not big of a deed to be one. Just having the right connections or enough money...). Arthur still had to fight to get his kingdom. That is why he created the round table.

They were made in recognition of their deeds. Meaning someone else has the power to make or not make them.

The self-made men/women, even today, still need recognition by their peers to be recognized as such. No one is given recognition for nothing. But inheritors can lose everything if they do not act in accordance within the expectations their peers want. So the tropes of D&D transcend much more than the simple west America...

Sometimes. It's just as commonly true that the self-made person gets to make the new rules by which recognition is given, in perception if not in reality. We can see this today in the desire for "disruptive" technologies. Steve Jobs didn't care about the business culture of his day--he deliberately floated it, and was rewarded with immense riches for his daring. Or that's what his myth says, anyway. And myth is what we're talking about.

Especially when American expansionism is really European expansionism. England, France and Spain expanded to the Americas and we just continued with what they brought here(and other places around the world).

Yes, American ideas certainly evolved from European ideas. That doesn't make them the same thing.

 

[Mordhau]

You can tell how important Nobility is in Arthurian tales by the tale of Gareth the 'knight of the kitchen', and of Perceval. The former disguises himself as a kitchen boy, but stands out by his basic nobility, the latter is raised wild in the forest but also turns out to be noble. Basically, apprently ordinary people in the the Arthurian tales can be recognised and raised up so long as it turns out they weren't ordinary at all!


(In the Knight's Tale, the noble lineage is a clear fiction, but it's still a necessary one.)

You're actually better looking at actual history then the Arthurian myths. The myths present chivalric ideals of nobility while reality is messier. It wasn't actively impossible to climb social ranks in medieval history, although usually that tooks several generations, the amassing of a lot of wealth and the right marriages.

The best way to get yourself knighted or secure a noble marriage was probably to be a rich merchant at a time when the king or major nobles needed loans to fight wars, especially if you also had political influence over other nobles.

Richard II knighted a bunch of rich and influential London merchants after the Peasants' Revolt in gratitude for their role in helping to put it down, but while technically they were commoners, they were important, wealthy and influential people - not vagabonds with swords.

 

[Hussar]

Given D&D's obvious lineage with pulps, are we seriously claiming that the Western isn't a major source of inspiration for D&D?

Really?

Not the only source, of course, but, thematically? It's a pretty darn big one. Where do you think the pulps got it from?

 

[Mordhau]

Given D&D's obvious lineage with pulps, are we seriously claiming that the Western isn't a major source of inspiration for D&D?

Really?

Not the only source, of course, but, thematically? It's a pretty darn big one. Where do you think the pulps got it from?

Who knows? People now seem to be arguing against Americans being influenced more by American history than by the history of other times and places.

 

[heks]

Also Gygax never read any westerns, he never read Howard - who never wrote any westerns - and he wasn't a libertarian steeped in 1940s and 1950s nostalgia.

Also Gygax never read any westerns, he never read Howard - who never wrote any westerns - and he wasn't a libertarian steeped in 1940s and 1950s nostalgia.

howard most certainly did write westerns.

Western Tales

The REH Foundation Press is proud to present Western Tales, a collection of Robert E. Howard’s traditional and weird western stories. The book checks in at 550 pages, and will be printed in hardback with dust jacket, in a limited first-print quantity of 200 copies, each individually numbered...

rehfpress.com

 

[Mordhau]

howard most certainly did write westerns.

Western Tales

The REH Foundation Press is proud to present Western Tales, a collection of Robert E. Howard’s traditional and weird western stories. The book checks in at 550 pages, and will be printed in hardback with dust jacket, in a limited first-print quantity of 200 copies, each individually numbered...

rehfpress.com

I think Sepulgrave II was being sarcastic.

 

[heks]

ah, understood.