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

[MGibster]

I can't say I ever saw much similarity between AD&D and westerns when I was a teenager. Other than having frontier at times, AD&D just never really hit on the points that define the western as a genre.

1. Stock characters such as the gambler, the prostitute with a heart of gold, prospector, and perhaps most importantly the gunslinger are missing.
2. Encroaching civilization in the form of technology (rail road, telegraph, cold beer) and the arrival of families, churches, and political institutions.
3. I don't recall a single boom town in any AD&D adventure. Maybe they existed but I just can't recall a single one.
4. The look of AD&D doesn't resemble what you'd expect to find in a western.

But I suppose you don't have to be a western to have been influenced by westerns. But from where I sit, D&D has never really much resembled a western as it doesn't touch on the same themes.

 

[Mordhau]

I can't say I ever saw much similarity between AD&D and westerns when I was a teenager. Other than having frontier at times, AD&D just never really hit on the points that define the western as a genre.

1. Stock characters such as the gambler, the prostitute with a heart of gold, prospector, and perhaps most importantly the gunslinger are missing.
2. Encroaching civilization in the form of technology (rail road, telegraph, cold beer) and the arrival of families, churches, and political institutions.
3. I don't recall a single boom town in any AD&D adventure. Maybe they existed but I just can't recall a single one.
4. The look of AD&D doesn't resemble what you'd expect to find in a western.

But I suppose you don't have to be a western to have been influenced by westerns. But from where I sit, D&D has never really much resembled a western as it doesn't touch on the same themes.

The point, which seems to be continually getting lost, was not that D&D resembles westerns in any of those ways. The point was that it resembles westerns in particular structural ways such as outlined in my post above, or in the article linked by another poster, or in the role that Orcs often play,

People keep wanting to pick out certain specific features of westerns and say 'D&D doesn't have these things' therefore it is nothing like a western. It's a bit like claiming that D&D was not influenced by the Conan stories because it's not really about the themes of cycles of barbarians rising to civilisations falling to decadence and then repeating against the backdrop of an uncaring universe of cyclical catastrophes. It's ultimatly irrelevant.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It took me a while thinking about it, but I think we're missing something in the D&D / Westerns comparison.

We're all thinking about the modern popular Westerns with cowboys and saloon towns that are common for our generation.

However, we're missing the fact that Cowboy movies are the survivors of a larger Western genre that was about the greater founding of the American west rather than the Dying Days of established and eroding boom towns me have today.

If we cast our eyes back, we have Settlers stories like Wagon Train! (exclamation point not negotiable), Little House on the the Prairie, Grizzly Adams, and Have Gun, Will Travel, which are set in an earlier time when homesteads that were far-flung with forts being the only major settlements and bandits and large predators being rampant and unchecked.

This is where I see a lot of connections with the Points of Light concept that was around D&D a long time and was solidified in 4e.

 

[MGibster]

The point, which seems to be continually getting lost, was not that D&D resembles westerns in any of those ways. The point was that it resembles westerns in particular structural ways such as outlined in my post above, or in the article linked by another poster, or in the role that Orcs often play,

I just don't agree that the role orcs often play is derived from the western. If anything, the role of a barbaric outsider coming down to wreck your stuff was thousands of years old by the time the western as a genre was developed. Very few AD&D adventures resemble stories from the western genre.

We're all thinking about the modern popular Westerns with cowboys and saloon towns that are common for our generation.

Let's be careful here, what do you mean by "our" generation? I was born in the 70s, after the domination of the western in popular entertainment had ended, but I always enjoyed watching old television shows and movies westerns. The funny thing is, starting with Ft. Apache in 1949, the American Indians started being portrayed in a sympathetic light as complex people who were getting a raw deal. Certainly not in all movies or television shows, but the era of the Indian as a simple bad guy you could knock off with impunity was coming to an end.

The funny thing is that I rarely saw orcs being treated in such a sympathetic light or as complex people in D&D supplements. There were occasional examples of domestic life, but for the most part they just existed to provide us with experience points.

 

[Maxperson]

The point, which seems to be continually getting lost, was not that D&D resembles westerns in any of those ways. The point was that it resembles westerns in particular structural ways such as outlined in my post above, or in the article linked by another poster, or in the role that Orcs often play,

People keep wanting to pick out certain specific features of westerns and say 'D&D doesn't have these things' therefore it is nothing like a western. It's a bit like claiming that D&D was not influenced by the Conan stories because it's not really about the themes of cycles of barbarians rising to civilisations falling to decadence and then repeating against the backdrop of an uncaring universe of cyclical catastrophes. It's ultimatly irrelevant.

"Armed groups of common people who are complete strangers can arrive in town and walk around with their weapons and it's apparently ok, and they don't get bailed up for being brigands or vagabonds."

This reason applies to many more places than western frontier towns. Hell, you could walk around armed anywhere in the U.S. during that time period, civilized or western frontier. There were also many other countries where you could do so as well.

"In early D&D it was an assumed aspect of play that your perfectly ordinary common Fighter could find an area of land inhabited by 'monsters', 'clear it out' and establish yourself as a lord. Now calling yourself a lord may be vaguely Medieval/Early Modern, but the rest of it is all manifest destiny and claiming the frontier. (And completely at odds with any medieval conception of nobility)."

As you point out, this is just as easily vaguely medieval, just like....................D&D. It's also not at all the western frontier. You could claim land, but you had to register with the government. You couldn't just grab it on your own and rule it. You were also subject to the laws of the city/town, county, state and/or country. You weren't really a law unto yourself like in early D&D.

Did you have any reasons that are western frontier town specific? Because you need that if you want to tie D&D frontier towns to western U.S. frontier towns.

 

[Hussar]

What land? Bag End. Besides, it’s not like being a gentleman has a lot of significance. Yet, it’s pretty clear Sam is as much a one as Frodo ever was afterward.

So, a commoner then?

 

[Maxperson]

It took me a while thinking about it, but I think we're missing something in the D&D / Westerns comparison.

Like actual specific connections

If we cast our eyes back, we have Settlers stories like Wagon Train! (exclamation point not negotiable), Little House on the the Prairie, Grizzly Adams, and Have Gun, Will Travel, which are set in an earlier time when homesteads that were far-flung with forts being the only major settlements and bandits and large predators being rampant and unchecked.

The problem here is that I've never in my entire time playing D&D took part in a caravan or wagon train going to settle an area(wagon train). Little House on the prairie is a town, not a fort and frontier towns are not explicitly western. Grizzly Adams is a hermit and hermits exist in every nationality. A D&D hermit is not tied to Grizzly Adams in any way. Have gun - will travel is about a mercenary, which were all over Europe and Asia. Frontier forts are not specifically American. The British, French and Spanish created many in the new world.

Nothing you've listed here is explicitly in D&D or tied specifically to western frontier towns. You can draw a connection to western frontier towns, and you can draw connections to other non-western frontier towns.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Like actual specific connections

It's not about looking for unique or specific connections, just inspiration.

And we know that at least Kung Fu, another Western, was on the radar of early designers because that's where the monk comes from.

 

[Mordhau]

Let's be careful here, what do you mean by "our" generation? I was born in the 70s, after the domination of the western in popular entertainment had ended, but I always enjoyed watching old television shows and movies westerns. The funny thing is, starting with Ft. Apache in 1949, the American Indians started being portrayed in a sympathetic light as complex people who were getting a raw deal. Certainly not in all movies or television shows, but the era of the Indian as a simple bad guy you could knock off with impunity was coming to an end.

The funny thing is that I rarely saw orcs being treated in such a sympathetic light or as complex people in D&D supplements. There were occasional examples of domestic life, but for the most part they just existed to provide us with experience points.

If Native Americans need to be treated sympathetically because opinions about them are changing then it's hard to actually continue to use them to fill the same kind of roles they used to fill as faceless attackers.

Now, if for example you had read a book by a British guy who had characters travelling through the wilderness and getting attacked by these evil creatures called Orcs...

 

[MGibster]

This reason applies to many more places than western frontier towns. Hell, you could walk around armed anywhere in the U.S. during that time period, civilized or western frontier. There were also many other countries where you could do so as well.

This is actually a myth. Even in the old west, most municipalities had ordinances prohibiting people from walking around town while armed. Like many common western tropes, reality is often quite different from what we see in the stories and everyone walking around with guns really contributes to the wild and lawless atmosphere for a good story.