Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8494296"><p>I am sure there is American frontier in there but I think other frontiers play just as big a role (as well as all kinds of other stories involving venturing into places that aren't familiar). But one thing to keep in mind: not every American watches westerns. It is a genre, and a very old one that hasn't been in its heyday for some time. I imagine someone of Gygax's generation had a high likelihood of being influenced by westerns (though I can't speak to that). But someone my age, who grew up in the 80s, could have easily gone without watching any westerns. As a kid I wasn't that it into them, and only saw a handful (I remember liking Pale Rider for example) but mostly I watched other types of shows). And when Americans think of medieval and medieval fantasy, that is informed more by other media I think (growing up my introduction to that stuff was movies like Excalibur, books like Ivanhoe, etc). I another point to consider: America is big and varies a lot by region. You do have large wide open spaces in places like where Gygax is from. But if your from the North East things are much closer in distance. So I think this idea that D&D represents how Americans view fantasy is only true for certain Americans (Gygax possibly but again I can't really speak to his personal life and what informed his thinking). And there isn't exactly a frontier anymore so it isn't like it is part of the geography here where you would be so aware of it. All we really have are large state forests (even where I live, which is just a few miles north of Boston, we have bit areas of state forest----there is one right in my city in fact). And I think those are probably a much bigger influence on how we think about wilderness and going into the unknown than the frontier at this point.</p></blockquote><p></p>

Verification