Shootout at the D&D Corral

Dungeons & Dragons has many influences, including European and American authors. Of the American influences, one genre is sometimes overlooked but just as critical: the Western.

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[h=3]D&D and the Wild West[/h]One of TSR's earliest founders was co-creator of D&D Gary Gygax's good friend Don Kaye. In addition to helping fund TSR in its early days, Kaye was one of the first players of D&D, even hosting Gygax's sand table in his garage. In the second round of playtesting, Murlynd would debut, a magic-user who was fond of Westerns.

Kaye's fondness for Westerns seeped into D&D itself; Gygax allowed an exception for Murlynd to use his six-shooters in Greyhawk, a world where gunpowder doesn't work. Kaye had plans to create a Wild West RPG, aspirations that were tragically cut short, as retold by Gygax in an interview with Scott Lynch:

As D&D was "blowing out the door" at the rate of over 100 a month by summer, Don began to look forward eagerly to doing a Wild West RPG. He planned to draft rules as soon as he could quit his job to work for TSR. We projected that would be possible in about a year or so. Don was very happy. Then, in January of 1975, he had a massive and fatal heart attack. He was only 36 years old when that happened. How ironic, I thought, as I became the first paid employee of the company in June of 1976, Don's birthday month, he being exactly one month older than I. Don was then and still is sorely missed by me. Brian Blume and I went on to create the Boot Hill RPG in Don's memory. He would likely have done it better.
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Gygax never forgot Kaye's contributions. There's a section in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide that provided conversion rules:

D&D’s earliest GMs were encouraged to bring guns into their fantasy worlds in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, which included a short section called “Sixguns & Sorcery.” This provided not only rules for converting between AD&D and Boot Hill (TSR’s Wild West roleplaying game, first published in 1975), but it also statted up several different guns. Derringers did 1d4 damage, while other handguns did 1d8 damage. Dynamite did a whopping 4d6 damage—or 6d6 if the DM allowed a saving throw!​

[h=3]The Weird West[/h]We know that Gygax was a fan of Westerns, but what's sometimes overlooked is how the themes of the genre carried over into D&D. Blog of Holding points out how Gygax's sources of inspiration had Wild West elements to them:

Re-reading Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars recently, I was struck with how explicitly it’s a Western. John Carter fights savages on dead sea bottoms, gropes through caverns looking for treasure, and fights weird monsters. And that’s all before he goes to Mars. The first episode of the novel is a shoot-em-up Arizona adventure which encapsulates all the rest of the book. Mars is Arizona writ large, with bigger and drier deserts, more savage natives, more accurate guns, faster horses, and more faithful dogs. In structure, the book is a lot like the Wizard of Oz movie: a reasonably plausible day, followed by a fantasy dream sequence version of the same events. The second of Gygax’s sources, Howard’s Conan, is similar. Howard was a Texan who wrote Westerns along with his fantasy stories, cowboys-in-the-Middle East stories, and boxing stories. It’s frequently argued that Conan is a Western hero. His martial skills allow him to triumph over the lawless savages and over the decadent “civilized” folk of his wild land. That’s what cowboys do.
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For more parallels, a Hungarian author named Melan provides some much needed perspective:

Let us examine the world of the Western. What we see is wilderness. You can find a few settlements (mainly small towns) here and there, but the main stage for the action is the almost entirely uninhabited land. This is a rather important trope, as spotlights one of the main qualities of „adventurers”: the perform their acts not due to the social motivation or compulsion, but because of their own inner conviction. In the West – and in Hyboria or many parts of Greyhawk – the individual is alone. He cannot expect the Law to stand by or against him. The city guard (the sheriffs) are busy with the survival of their own little community and do not represent a serious obstacle for a sufficiently armed and dedicated guy. He has to create justice by himself, and his only reliable tool for that is armed violence.
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This may be why recent Star Wars installments feel like RPG sessions, because they're both drawing on Western tropes:

It also follows from this logic that society cannot keep sufficiently high-level adventurers in check. In a world like this, social position is much less important than a strong arm or a sharp blade. This world is completely at oppositon to the High Middle Ages, and is much more similar to the world of tales where the youngest son of the poor farmer can become a king, he just has to defeat the giants first. This doesn’t mean that this sort of fantasy world cannot have oppressed masses, but it’s certain that it won’t be emphatic in the sphere where player characters move. A game can have adventurers be individuals located outside the normal world of bulls and feudal lords, or it can have the idealised American world hide behind the chainmail, the peasantry and the longsword. Here, the individual can pick up a sword or a gun as he wishes, and set off into the big nothing to make his desires come true. And when he retires and buys the inn in Dodge City, nobody will ask him if he got his first five levels from looting tombs and massacring orcs (bandits? indians? peaceful villagers?). What is certain is that whatever he achieved, he achieved it with his own strength.​

D&D is a mix of many influences, but its tone and style of play -- adventurers on their own making a name for themselves -- seems like it was influenced as much by high fantasy epics as it was by gritty showdowns in the Wild West.

Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, communicator, and a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to http://amazon.com. You can follow him at Patreon.

 

[Derren]

I think crossbow, longbow, or shortbow duels out on the street are unlikely.

And what has that got to do with anything? Do you really believe only something with ranged weapons can follow the spirit of westerns?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

How many cost a fireball wand? With the same money you could buy lots of guns and ammunition, or ot hire a squad of gunslingers.

Maybe the giants and dragons would investigate to find a way to stop ballistic damage, because then the little humanoids, even kobolds and goblins, may become too dangerous or powerful, for example a massive invisibility spell where only can be seen in short distances, to avoid ranged attacks.

 

[Aldarc]

The basic ideas of this article had already come up previously in the discussion of the article on the American influence on D&D, so there are not really any big surprises here.

I think the more important point is this:
This is actually something I've often experienced in MMOs that have a mix of melee and ranged classes: Unless you either grossly exaggerate the effectiveness of melee weapons (e.g. light sabres in Star Wars) or play down the effectiveness of ranged weapons (e.g. in D&D), ranged weapons are always preferable because they allow you to potentially kill your opponents before they even get into melee range, i.e. without any danger to yourself.

Most weapons in D&D (e.g., daggers, slings, shields, spears, bows, etc.) fail to represent their actual effectiveness in historical use. Longbows were not exactly something you used when fighting an ogre in a dungeon.

There's a reason knights fell out of fashion in Earth's history!

That probably has more to do with the rise of professional armies and artillery. Knights were expensive to equip and train. But nations could eventually churn out a larger, if not more effective, army with less time, money, and effort. Mobile Swiss pike formations were able to neutralize a lot of knights and heavy cavalry, and likewise Swiss pikemen became increasingly vulnerable to the ascendancy of firearms. Cannons were able to neutralize a lot of knights and fortifications.

How many cost a fireball wand? With the same money you could buy lots of guns and ammunition, or ot hire a squad of gunslingers.

Maybe the giants and dragons would investigate to find a way to stop ballistic damage, because then the little humanoids, even kobolds and goblins, may become too dangerous or powerful, for example a massive invisibility spell where only can be seen in short distances, to avoid ranged attacks.

Eberron presents a world where gunpowder and firearms never developed because it was largely redundant with the setting's wide magic and the subsequent industrialization of magic. The industrialization of magic, dedicated arcane crafters, and the Dragonmarked houses made a lot of magic items relatively cheaper and more readily available.

The Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron suggests that Cantrips and 1st level spells are common, and that items based around these spells are roughly 50-100 gp. 3rd level spell items, such as wands of fireball, are more uncommon, but would still only be ~200 gp. But keep in mind, that you are not buying a "gun" with a wand of fireball, you are essentially buying "grenades" or "light cannon." Though here staves would likely be more common as artillery than wands. And not only are you buying a cannon, you are buying pocket-sized ones that do not require the same amount of resources (e.g., cannoneer teams, wagons, gunpowder kegs, supply lines, horses/mules, etc.) to utilize in battle or mobilize to new battlefields. This cannot be understated how revolutionary this would be.

Even at 1st level, a typical wandslinger in army just casting their cantrips can potentially provide as much damage, if not moreso, than the equivalent firearms. Low level magewrights, wandslingers, and the like are incredibly common in Eberron. The biggest downside is that you would need someone with magic to use it, but we were told that House Cannith was supposedly developing wands that could be utilized by non-mages!

So what makes gunslingers anywhere near as cost effective?

 

[Thomas Bowman]

I'm currently running a pirate campaign that features flintlock weapons heavily. Some how it hasn't devalued the use of spells or other default D&D weapons. Flintlock weapons deal a lot of damage in my campaign, but they do have their drawbacks. They can misfire, and they can stop working if the weapons are exposed to water. But any spells that focus on projectiles/missiles (which would usually mean sling bullets, arrows and crossbow bolts) now also work on pistol/rifle bullets. This means that a spell like "protection from missiles" now also stops a bullet, and any spells that can enchant ammunition, also can be used to enchant a bullet. This allows my players to combine magic with flintlock weapons.

Some of the action takes place underwater however, and this is where flintlock weapons do not function. Also, because reloading a flintlock weapon costs a fullround action, the players are encouraged to fall back on their normal melee weapons when their guns are empty. This is very much in line with how historical pirates fought. The players can carry a bandolier of preloaded weapons, and fire them all until everything is empty (with the aid of the quickdraw feat, this is 3.5 mind you). Lastly when all guns are empty, they can draw their cutlass.

Flintlocks make a poor substitute for a six shooter!

 

[Dioltach]

Perhaps when discussing how the Western genre influenced the creation of fantasy roleplaying games it would be wise to acknowledge that Westerns themselves are part of a larger genre of adventure stories that includes not only Westerns, sci-fi and fantasy, but also detectives, pulp adventures and war stories, and in fact goes back at least as far as the medieval chivalric romances. A lot of the thought processes and experiences in all these stories are the same, but also the logic and internal cohesion. Only the settings change.

 

[Thomas Bowman]

But you can't draw a crossbow as quickly as you can, draw a revolver! A cowboy is a different sort of thing in a fantasy setting. There is a fantasy setting which takes place in the American West.


These are fantasy novels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emberverse_series

 

[Guest 6801328]

With a good shotgun, an elephant can be killed with only a shot.

"Can" being the operative word.

Replace "shotgun" with "pistol", "bow", or "spear" and the sentence still works.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Anyway...I've been wishing for a really good Western RPG, but one that isn't strictly historical. Something that combines undead/sorcery/dark powers with the Western motif.

Any suggestions?

 

[Hussar]

True, never seen anyone take out an elephant with a shotgun...but I wouldn't say guns were ineffective until the 20th century or that having a bow or crossbow were on par with having a rifle.

Natives of many continents would go through great lengths to get their hands on guns from the colonials that invaded their lands.

Canons could be far more effective than a catapult, and once the rifle was invented guns became far deadlier at longer distances than any bow or crossbow. Even Muskets were pretty dangerous with the right caliber. Go black powder shooting sometime with a musket fashioned after a late 18th century weapon and you'll see large holes blown into various targets (IF you hit, of course).

The Gunpowder age came about because guns WERE more effective than other missile weapons of the times. I'd say Guns became far more powerful and effective than bows and crossbows long before the 20th century.

However, when we talk about when we typically imagine D&D, the guns from those eras probably were not quite as effective as we may imagine them to be.

No, they really, really weren't. They were better because they were SO much cheaper to produce and train. You can make someone pretty effecient with a musket in a couple of weeks. It takes months and years to train pikemen or archers. Never minding that rifling the barrel of a musket or rifle wouldn't occur (in any great amounts anyway) until the 19th century. We're talking SERIOUS anachronisms here.

 

[Hussar]

Anyway...I've been wishing for a really good Western RPG, but one that isn't strictly historical. Something that combines undead/sorcery/dark powers with the Western motif.

Any suggestions?

Wasn't there a game called Aces and Eights? I seem to recall it got pretty rave reviews at the time. Can't recall anything else off hand though.

For a cheapie, there's Weird West - it's only one page long as well. Fun game.