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Post by Starbeard on Mar 12, 2015 8:50:27 GMT -6
To tie things back onto the topic, there must have been some influence from popular media in the Fantasy Supplement—mostly films & television, I'd imagine. Wikipedia has an incomplete but still fairly thorough list of fantasy films organized by release year. We can safely assume that Gygax would have only familiar with American productions, unless it was a foreign production that had a wide American release. Before the early 1970s that doesn't leave a lot of options of possible influence from cinema. Here's a selection of the Wikipedia fantasy films list. I've tried only to leave in movies that had a decent US release, and which also explicitly contain some kinds of swords & sorcery, high fantasy or otherwise 'genre fantasy' aspects to them (so no Alice in Wonderland or Tales of Hoffmann). This also doesn't include any films from before 1930, any theatrical serials or television shows, and it doesn't include any films which for whatever reason are on another Wikipedia list ( here are all the genre lists, including horror, adventure, sci-fi, etc). As you can see, there really aren't a whole lot of tried and true sword and sorcery films from before the mid-to-late 1970s, and only a slightly larger number of films which feature a scene or two with genre fantasy elements. None feature wizards shooting off fireballs or lightning bolts. As an aside: Monty Python and the Holy Grail came out in 1975, and it features a crazy horn-helmed black wizard who randomly nukes things with fireballs. Obviously it was a both a visual and an intellectual genre convention by then— but where the blazes did it come from?1932 - The Mummy
- Tarzan the Ape Man
1933 1935 - A Midsummer Night's Dream
- She
1937 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
1939 1940 - The Blue Bird
- Fantasia
- The Thief of Bagdad
1941 - The Reluctant Dragon
- The Iron Crown (La corona di ferro)
1945 - A Thousand and One Nights
1952 1953 1954 1957 - The Pied Piper of Hamelin
1958 - The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
- Tom Thumb
1959 - 1001 Arabian Nights
- Journey to the Center of the Earth
- The Birth of Japan (Nippon Tanjō)
- Sleeping Beauty
1962 - Jack the Giant Killer
- The Magic Sword
- The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm
1963 - Jason & the Argonauts
- Sword in the Stone
- Captain Sinbad
1965 1966 1968 - The Lost Continent
- The Vengeance of She
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 12, 2015 8:57:42 GMT -6
As there aren't any descriptions or examples of hobbits who aren't good shots, it seems like it would be easy to assume that it's a racial feature. Yes, it is easy to assume this, as I said. D&D commonly generalizes from individuals. This stems from a desire to evoke what is known about a thing, rather than from logic. 1) Bilbo has excellent aim. 2) Sam hit Bill Ferny in the face with an apple. 3) Hobbits sent bowmen to Fornost. 4) Hobbits used bows against the ruffians in the Shire. Conclusion: hobbits are naturally better at shooting bows than men. That's not a logical conclusion; that's projecting specific facts into general facts. There's no problem with that in a game. Personally I think Tolkien DID imagine hobbits to have naturally good aim. Just don't try to use logic to reach this conclusion.
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Post by Starbeard on Mar 12, 2015 11:25:31 GMT -6
As there aren't any descriptions or examples of hobbits who aren't good shots, it seems like it would be easy to assume that it's a racial feature. Yes, it is easy to assume this, as I said. D&D commonly generalizes from individuals. This stems from a desire to evoke what is known about a thing, rather than from logic. 1) Bilbo has excellent aim. 2) Sam hit Bill Ferny in the face with an apple. 3) Hobbits sent bowmen to Fornost. 4) Hobbits used bows against the ruffians in the Shire. Conclusion: hobbits are naturally better at shooting bows than men. That's not a logical conclusion; that's projecting specific facts into general facts. There's no problem with that in a game. Personally I think Tolkien DID imagine hobbits to have naturally good aim. Just don't try to use logic to reach this conclusion. I completely agree. I didn't mean to argue that we should assume, just because it's possible to do so. But it is interesting to see how people have interpreted it, and that the precedent for it can be traced.
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Post by geoffrey on Mar 12, 2015 12:01:00 GMT -6
[H]ow has Chainmail/D&D shaped the way we understand Tolkien and other authors? For me, D&D (specifically OD&D + Supplement I: GREYHAWK) is a description of The Hobbit's Wilderland, which sits directly to the west of the northern portion of the Wilderlands by Judges Guild. LotR need not apply.
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Post by geoffrey on Mar 12, 2015 12:08:14 GMT -6
[T]here is no evidence that any player in Gary's home campaign ever having played a Hobbit character, but rather lots of Vancian wizards like Bigby, Rary, Mordenkanien etc. I recently asked Mike Mornard the following two questions, with his answers in bold: 1. Roughly speaking, what percentage of PCs in your old games were humans (as opposed to dwarves, elves, etc.)? Almost entirely human. Mary Dale played an elf but I think she was the only one for quite a while.2. Were there very many PC hobbits? Zero.(link: odd74.proboards.com/thread/9527/klytus-bored?page=8 ) If one studies the encounter tables in the OD&D books, he will notice that hobbits are never mentioned. They do not exist as NPCs in standard OD&D Land! Gary only reluctantly ("Should any player wish to be one...") included hobbits as a PC race. I think he recognized at some level that Bilbo (and hobbits in general) aren't really part of Fantasy Land, in contrast to dwarves and elves who populate Wilderland as well as Fairy Tale Land, Norse Mythology Land, etc.
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Post by Zenopus on Mar 12, 2015 13:47:49 GMT -6
As there aren't any descriptions or examples of hobbits who aren't good shots, it seems like it would be easy to assume that it's a racial feature. Yes, it is easy to assume this, as I said. D&D commonly generalizes from individuals. This stems from a desire to evoke what is known about a thing, rather than from logic. 1) Bilbo has excellent aim. 2) Sam hit Bill Ferny in the face with an apple. 3) Hobbits sent bowmen to Fornost. 4) Hobbits used bows against the ruffians in the Shire. Conclusion: hobbits are naturally better at shooting bows than men. That's not a logical conclusion; that's projecting specific facts into general facts. There's no problem with that in a game. Personally I think Tolkien DID imagine hobbits to have naturally good aim. Just don't try to use logic to reach this conclusion. I forgot one important quote - the most important on this topic - from the Prologue of the Lord of the Rings: "They shot well with the bow, for they were keen-eyed and sure at the mark. Not only with bows and arrows. If any Hobbit stooped for a stone, it was well to get quickly under cover, as all trespassing beasts knew very well" (pg 15 of Fellowship, my dad's 1960s hardcover version). Q.E.D.
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Post by derv on Mar 12, 2015 15:18:08 GMT -6
To tie things back onto the topic, there must have been some influence from popular media in the Fantasy Supplement—mostly films & television, I'd imagine. Wikipedia has an incomplete but still fairly thorough list of fantasy films organized by release year. We can safely assume that Gygax would have only familiar with American productions, unless it was a foreign production that had a wide American release. Before the early 1970s that doesn't leave a lot of options of possible influence from cinema. Great list Starbeard! I was surprised that it did not include Godzilla, King of the Monsters -1956 (introduced in Japan in 1954). If there was one thing that I thought may have influenced Gary's write-up of different types of dragons with various breath weapons, it would be Godzilla and his assorted foes- Rodan, Mothra, Anguirus, Barragon, Gigan, King Ghiddorah- all hitting the big screen through the 60's.
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Post by derv on Mar 12, 2015 15:23:06 GMT -6
I forgot one important quote - the most important on this topic - from the Prologue of the Lord of the Rings: "They shot well with the bow, for they were keen-eyed and sure at the mark. Not only with bows and arrows. If any Hobbit stooped for a stone, it was well to get quickly under cover, as all trespassing beasts knew very well" (pg 15 of Fellowship, my dad's 1960s hardcover version). To me, that's a solid reference Zen.
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Post by geoffrey on Mar 12, 2015 16:54:56 GMT -6
To tie things back onto the topic, there must have been some influence from popular media in the Fantasy Supplement—mostly films & television, I'd imagine. Wikipedia has an incomplete but still fairly thorough list of fantasy films organized by release year. We can safely assume that Gygax would have only familiar with American productions, unless it was a foreign production that had a wide American release. Before the early 1970s that doesn't leave a lot of options of possible influence from cinema. Great list Starbeard! I was surprised that it did not include Godzilla, King of the Monsters -1956 (introduced in Japan in 1954). If there was one thing that I thought may have influenced Gary's write-up of different types of dragons with various breath weapons, it would be Godzilla and his assorted foes- Rodan, Mothra, Anguirus, Barragon, Gigan, King Ghiddorah- all hitting the big screen through the 60's. I was surprised when I asked Gary if he liked the old Godzilla monsters, and he said no and poked fun at "Gorgonzola, the Cheese Monster" (or something like that). I think it was on one of his Q&A threads on ENWorld.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 12, 2015 17:36:32 GMT -6
I forgot one important quote Much better. If you'd started with that one, we could have avoided all this.
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Post by derv on Mar 12, 2015 18:25:57 GMT -6
I was surprised when I asked Gary if he liked the old Godzilla monsters, and he said no and poked fun at "Gorgonzola, the Cheese Monster" (or something like that). I think it was on one of his Q&A threads on ENWorld. I guess I was just one of those unusual low brow kids who would sit in front of my parents Zenith console television on Saturdays, turn on channel 48, and watch hours of Ultraman, Godzilla, Kung-fu theatre, and Dr. Shock's horror theatre
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Post by geoffrey on Mar 12, 2015 21:06:03 GMT -6
Yeah, I also couldn't get enough Godzilla. Heck, one of the best times I ever had in a movie theatre was last year with my then-9-year-old daughter watching the new Godzilla film.
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Post by cooper on Mar 12, 2015 23:04:57 GMT -6
Fireballs could be a modern bastardization of the dark ages Europe tending to elide magicians with the knowledge of alchemy/chemistry. Foreigner/magician was often synonymous with Muslim. In almost all German Mythology, the magicians (Aschmedai, clinchor, gasgoute, malduc, anchor, thetas, roaz, parklise, cundery, amurfina et al) were basically muslim scientists. there is intact a superb doctoral dissertation on that very issue.
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Post by Starbeard on Mar 13, 2015 6:45:28 GMT -6
To tie things back onto the topic, there must have been some influence from popular media in the Fantasy Supplement—mostly films & television, I'd imagine. Wikipedia has an incomplete but still fairly thorough list of fantasy films organized by release year. We can safely assume that Gygax would have only familiar with American productions, unless it was a foreign production that had a wide American release. Before the early 1970s that doesn't leave a lot of options of possible influence from cinema. Great list Starbeard! I was surprised that it did not include Godzilla, King of the Monsters -1956 (introduced in Japan in 1954). If there was one thing that I thought may have influenced Gary's write-up of different types of dragons with various breath weapons, it would be Godzilla and his assorted foes- Rodan, Mothra, Anguirus, Barragon, Gigan, King Ghiddorah- all hitting the big screen through the 60's. Yes, I was also surprised at how the Wikipedia contributors decide whether something is considered fantasy, science fiction or adventure (for example, why is Tarzan the Ape Man the only Tarzan movie that's a fantasy?). I'm also hoping to go through film and television serials as well, but my guess is that Chainmail gained little or no direct influence from fantasy elements in films. Zenopus posted earlier that Gary mentioned sci-fi, fantasy & horror movies as a primary influence, but there were actually very few ancient/medieval fantasy movies made prior to the 1970s, none of which I seem to have made any direct influence on Chainmail or D&D. I suspect that if he was influenced by movies, they were sci-fi/horror films and medieval costume adventures, with perhaps Ray Harryhausen's mythological monsters and Disney fairy tales. Even then, my guess is that any influence they did have must have been simply in terms of the visual and aural presentation of Chainmail/D&D: what magic looked like if he was trying to describe it, what colours he'd use to paint up models, what sort of voice or speaking mannerism he might use if he were talking through an NPC, that sort of thing.
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Post by Starbeard on Mar 13, 2015 6:51:24 GMT -6
Fireballs could be a modern bastardization of the dark ages Europe tending to elide magicians with the knowledge of alchemy/chemistry. Foreigner/magician was often synonymous with Muslim. In almost all German Mythology, the magicians (Aschmedai, clinchor, gasgoute, malduc, anchor, thetas, roaz, parklise, cundery, amurfina et al) were basically muslim scientists. there is intact a superb doctoral dissertation on that very issue. Do you have a reference to that dissertation? I'm trying to look it up on Theses & Dissertations Online but for some reason my university's login isn't working today. I wonder if there's also a case to be made for 20th-century warfare technology helping to shape that impression about alchemists and massively destructive power.
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Post by derv on Mar 13, 2015 19:35:58 GMT -6
A few more meandering thoughts about the Fantasy Supplement. An author I’ve always found oddly missing from Appendix N is C.S. Lewis. I invariably think of Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia whenever I think of Tolkien’s LotR. Maybe because of their close associations at Oxford. Perhaps the Chronicles are not considered because they’re viewed as children’s literature? Both authors originally published their works about the same time; The Chronicles of Narnia 1950-1956 and LotR 1954-55, though The Hobbit was published earlier then either 1937. There are no Satyrs, Minotaurs, or Centaurs, who play a major role in The Chronicles, to be found in the Fantasy Supplement. It seems the Narnia books contain a number of great battles that would have lent themselves to miniature war gaming scenarios. The absence of these creatures is striking because they are also commonly found in Greek mythology. But it could be said there is not much from Greek myth included either- Chimera, Griffons, Hippogriffs. There are also Giants in Greek myth, but I tend to associate the Fantasy Supplements inclusion to Scandi/Norse myth. While looking at other mythology, I also found it interesting that the Wyvern is uniquely Medieval in origin (Anglo Saxon: Wivere). They were often found on heraldry and considered allegorical for Satan or associated with war, sin, and pestilence. Now, the Fantasy Supplement did include other figures that I would associate with Sinbad or Arabian Nights- Djinn, Efreet, and Rocs. Some would claim Rocs are from LotR, but the name “Roc” is not used there and Gary directly mentions mythology in M&T's description. He does include a note in Chainmail that they are equal to LotR “Eagles” though. What we do not find, that I feel are iconic of the Harryhausen films ( Starbeard mentioned above), are Cyclops, Gargoyles, Automatons, Sirens (Harpies), or Skeletons. One possible reason for the limited inclusions in the Fantasy Supplement is that fantasy miniature figures were not widely available at the time Chainmail was published. So, unless it was man-like, or looked like similar creatures easily found, or easily modded from cheap plastic toys, it’s adoption into the game may have been challenging. This is all suggested in the quote of Gary on the previous page. Minifigs first started producing Middle Earth figures in 1974-76? minifigs-ukEarliest Heritage made were 1976. Heritage picsJack Scruby produced a line for Gary in 1975. These can still be purchased through Historifigs.com. Here's some pics of the figures.
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Post by derv on Mar 14, 2015 8:23:47 GMT -6
Trolls (and Ogres)- Ogres are distinguished as an intermediate between men and Giants. True Trolls are said to be taken from Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions and have a closer resemblance to their D&D counter part.
I'd be inclined to believe Ogres also take their influence from Poul Anderson's writing. I would attribute them to The Broken Sword due to the implied animosity between Elves that allows them to kill Ogres with only 3 cumulative hits instead of 6. Comparatively, True Trolls can only be engaged by specific figures found on the Fantasy Combat Table or magic weapons as stipulated under their description on p.34. Of special note is that True Trolls do not attack as Trolls on the Fantasy Combat Table, instead they attack as Giants or 3AF.
Worth noting, neither type is affected by day light nor do they regenerate.
While we are talking about Poul Anderson's work, I'll also point out that the term "Worg" is found in Three Hearts and Three Lions. It refers to the giant wolf form of a werewolf.
One last bit of trivia, p.38 of Chainmail tells us which figures found in the Fantasy Supplement could be subject to catapult fire. The following are not found on that list: Giants, True Trolls (Ogres are on the list), Balrogs, Elementals, Dragons, Wizards, Superheroes (Heroes and Anti-heroes are on the list), Wraiths, Giant Wolves (Lycanthropes are on the list), Chimera, Basilisks.
This is one of those rules that gives a hint of Gary's concepts of these fantasy figures.
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Post by derv on Mar 15, 2015 7:38:02 GMT -6
While doing some poking around I came across the author, Ursula K. Le Guin, who wrote, Wizard of the Earthsea (published 1968). I am not familiar with the author and she is not included in Gary's list of influences, but some of the elements described in her books may have relevance in relation to wizards. Two short stories were published in Fantastic magazine in 1964- The Rule of Names and The Word of Unbinding. It seems her writing may fall under what would be considered "children's literature", much like Lewis. Some interesting content: Ged saves village by summoning a fog that conceals it. Ged summons a strange shadow which is banished by Ogion. Dueling wizards, Ged and Jasper. Topic on wikipediaAnyone familiar with the books or author that could share some insite?
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Post by cooper on Mar 15, 2015 10:30:49 GMT -6
Usula K. Le Guin is widely spoken of as the American Tolkien. She is without a doubt one of the best and most respected fantasy writers. She is responsible for the idea of "wizard schools" and is no doubt a huge influence on the other female writer of wizard schools from England who came to popularity in the late 90's.
I'm sure most people in this board have read her. There was a horrible mini-series on sci-if based on her work and a good, if severely flawed studio Gibli animation film as well.
She's probably my favorite fantasy author.
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Post by derv on Mar 15, 2015 12:36:26 GMT -6
I found that @gronanofsimmerya had already answered the question about wizards that throw fireballs/lightning bolts on another forum. It also explains wizards dueling. The answer is the 1963 Edgar Allen Poe inspired film The Raven with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre. The Raven Trailer
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Post by Starbeard on Mar 16, 2015 7:52:23 GMT -6
I found that @gronanofsimmerya had already answered the question about wizards that throw fireballs/lightning bolts on another forum. It also explains wizards dueling. The answer is the 1963 Edgar Allen Poe inspired film The Raven with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre. The Raven TrailerI love that movie! I had forgotten there was a wizard duel in it. The fireballs are racquetballs that explode upon contact when thrown, and at the end of the fight they also use the Emperor Palpatine Lightning-Force hands on each other, but rather of throwing lightning bolts they wash each other in rays of coloured light: There's also lots of creature summoning, a few different kinds of magic shielding, levitation and a sink-through-the-floor spell. I think this puts even more weight on the suggestion that despite that Gygax said he was influenced by fantasy movies, the influence probably came more strictly from science fiction and horror. This isn't necessarily that Gygax remembered things incorrectly, but probably just that there's something unexpectedly lost in translation: the term 'fantasy movie' was used quite differently prior to the 1970s, both from later movies and from 'fantasy books'. Fantasy movies as we recognize them were not only very few and far between, but they almost exclusively focused on either Arabian or Greek mythology—and derv has already pointed out that Greek mythological beasts are curiously lacking in Chainmail (although they were added in by the time of D&D).
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Post by Starbeard on Mar 16, 2015 8:37:10 GMT -6
Usula K. Le Guin is widely spoken of as the American Tolkien. She is without a doubt one of the best and most respected fantasy writers. She is responsible for the idea of "wizard schools" and is no doubt a huge influence on the other female writer of wizard schools from England who came to popularity in the late 90's. I'm sure most people in this board have read her. There was a horrible mini-series on sci-if based on her work and a good, if severely flawed studio Gibli animation film as well. She's probably my favorite fantasy author. Of marginal interest to this thread is a book of Le Guin's collected essays up to 1979, The Language of the Night. There's one in particular I find really fascinating, from 1974, titled 'Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons?'. In it she wrote about having gone to a public library in the mid-1960s with a friend to find a copy of The Hobbit, only to find that it wasn't there: 'Oh, we shelve that only in the adult collection; we don't feel that escapism is good for children.' It brings together some cultural threads regarding fantasy and escapism in post-war America, and we can read it now as a foreshadowing of the uneasy place RPGs have had up through the 80s (and even now at times). It's not really directly related to the thread topic, but she's a good essayist, and it helps elucidate the general cultural environment at the time Gygax was cultivating his primary influences.
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Post by Starbeard on Mar 16, 2015 12:46:48 GMT -6
Some more interesting points about Wizards, fireballs and lightning bolts, both in Chainmail and as a convention in general. These are courtesy of a 2012 thread in another forum, and listed in chronological order. - Some Conan stories feature instances of fireball-like antics, including 'The Scarlet Citadel', where Tsotha creates and hurls magical spheres at Conan, which explode in incendiary heat when they land.
- In The Hobbit, Gandalf magically sets fire to some pinecones and hurls them at the attacking goblines; without going back to look at the text, I remember it being unclear as to whether they actually explode.
- In The Wizard of Oz movie, the Wicked Witch of the West conjures up a bit of fire and hurls it at the Scarecrow. Embarrassingly, in the umpteen times I've seen that film, I didn't recognize that scene at all when I looked it up.
- Then, of course, there's movie The Raven, which @gronanofsimmerya has already said Gygax loved, and has also stated that it was a direct influence in the inclusion of the Wizard into Chainmail. In that the duelling wizards conjure up black racquetballs which explode on contact.
Really, the fireball we're familiar with now is a combination of all of these (conjured up fire as in The Wizard of Oz, but causing destructive explosions like in Conan or The Raven), and even in The Holy Grail (1975), Tim's fireballs are of a slightly different variety, where he simply points and causes explosions. I imagine the fully developed 'Hurl a great flaming ball of explosive destruction' variety of fireball actually is a purely TSR invention. Lightning bolts are, of course, a different story, since they can be (sort of) traced back to Greek mythology and Zeus tossing bolts of thunder about. I don't recall any lightning bolts in anything we've mentioned, so it might be safe to say that their inclusion comes from a less direct source. This doesn't really say all that much, but for what it's worth, Rob Kuntz's book collection that he shared with Gygax before and during the Chainmail days looks like it included Homer, Virgil and Ovid, and while I can't remember any specifics, I presume at least one of them features some hurling of lightning.
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Post by cooper on Mar 16, 2015 13:56:34 GMT -6
I don't think the actual use of Greek fire, both from a hose and via hurled clay pots should be discounted as being the progenitor of both dragonfire and wizardly fire. Even if one were to establish a literary antecedent one still then has to ask, where did the literary ideas come from?
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Post by derv on Mar 17, 2015 17:03:32 GMT -6
Lightning bolts are, of course, a different story, since they can be (sort of) traced back to Greek mythology and Zeus tossing bolts of thunder about. I don't recall any lightning bolts in anything we've mentioned, so it might be safe to say that their inclusion comes from a less direct source. This doesn't really say all that much, but for what it's worth, Rob Kuntz's book collection that he shared with Gygax before and during the Chainmail days looks like it included Homer, Virgil and Ovid, and while I can't remember any specifics, I presume at least one of them features some hurling of lightning. When I came across Michael's suggestion that the wizard could be attributed to The Raven, it made perfect sense. Even the lightning bolt mechanic is present in that film. At one point, Price materializes a cannon that he fires at his opponent. Conveniently, lightning bolts are treated as heavy field guns in Chainmail. Of course there is the possibility that he simply used that illustration to adopt the mechanic which he meshed with the idea (maybe influenced by Greek/Roman myth) of throwing lightning bolts. It seems Gary was trying to offer an alternative to the fire ball.
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Post by Starbeard on Mar 17, 2015 18:32:09 GMT -6
Lightning bolts are, of course, a different story, since they can be (sort of) traced back to Greek mythology and Zeus tossing bolts of thunder about. I don't recall any lightning bolts in anything we've mentioned, so it might be safe to say that their inclusion comes from a less direct source. This doesn't really say all that much, but for what it's worth, Rob Kuntz's book collection that he shared with Gygax before and during the Chainmail days looks like it included Homer, Virgil and Ovid, and while I can't remember any specifics, I presume at least one of them features some hurling of lightning. When I came across Michael's suggestion that the wizard could be attributed to The Raven, it made perfect sense. Even the lightning bolt mechanic is present in that film. At one point, Price materializes a cannon that he fires at his opponent. Conveniently, lightning bolts are treated as heavy field guns in Chainmail. Of course there is the possibility that he simply used that illustration to adopt the mechanic which he meshed with the idea (maybe influenced by Greek/Roman myth) of throwing lightning bolts. It seems Gary was trying to offer an alternative to the fire ball. Definitely. And once the catapult rules were grafted onto the fireball spell, it would have made sense to continue in that vein and write up another spell that used the cannon, the other half of artillery. The way Gary phrased his anecdotes about it gives the impression that he was figuring out ways to freshen up the presentation of the game to keep players interested, but without trying to actually change all that much to the game. Removing the artillery models and replacing them with wizard characters is a perfect example of that. As a side note, I've looked up a bit of etymology on 'fireball', and it seems that up through 19th century it was used synonymously to refer to lightning bolts, celestial bodies like comets and stars, and explosive military arsenal (distinguished from normal cannon balls, fireballs were explosive or incendiary, or might be an alternate to 'firebrand' when translating the Latin malleolus). By the 1950s it gained a new use, referring to the ball of flame from a nuclear explosion. This use is also the first time in a couple of centuries that the word took the spelling 'fireball', rather than 'fire ball' or 'fire-ball'.
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Post by Fearghus on Mar 17, 2015 20:01:14 GMT -6
Usula K. Le Guin is widely spoken of as the American Tolkien. She is without a doubt one of the best and most respected fantasy writers. She is responsible for the idea of "wizard schools" and is no doubt a huge influence on the other female writer of wizard schools from England who came to popularity in the late 90's. I'm sure most people in this board have read her. There was a horrible mini-series on sci-if based on her work and a good, if severely flawed studio Gibli animation film as well. She's probably my favorite fantasy author. I have only read the Left Hand of Darkness. What else from her would you recommend?My bad, I missed Derv's post right above yours.
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Post by derv on Mar 19, 2015 15:59:04 GMT -6
Aside from the fantasy inspiration, what were the military historical inspirations for Chainmail? Were there any books on medieval tactics, battles, arms and armor that were consulted? I just re-noticed that Gary mentions "Charles' ffoulkes ARMOUR AND WEAPONS (Oxford, 1909)" on page 165 of the 1E DMG. It's in reference to the descriptions of the various types of armor (padded, ring, studded, banded, splint, etc)(the same topic also covered on page 27). Many think of these armor types as AD&D-isms because they are not in OD&D, but padded, studded, banded & splint the actually first appeared back in Chainmail in the Man-To-Man Melee table on pg 41. So that might be a reference to look at. For anyone interested, I discovered that Ffoulkes, Armour & Weapons, can be found on Gutenburg.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Mar 26, 2015 15:46:08 GMT -6
I just re-noticed that Gary mentions "Charles' ffoulkes ARMOUR AND WEAPONS (Oxford, 1909)" on page 165 of the 1E DMG. It's in reference to the descriptions of the various types of armor (padded, ring, studded, banded, splint, etc)(the same topic also covered on page 27). Many think of these armor types as AD&D-isms because they are not in OD&D, but padded, studded, banded & splint the actually first appeared back in Chainmail in the Man-To-Man Melee table on pg 41. So that might be a reference to look at. For anyone interested, I discovered that Ffoulkes, Armour & Weapons, can be found on Gutenburg. I was just going to mention that it can be found on the Internet Archive as well Armour & weapons (1909)The epub on Gutenberg seems much better, now that I just downloaded it and had a look
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 26, 2015 16:20:59 GMT -6
There are two books by Ffoulkes in the Kindle Store: Armour & Weapons and The Armourer and His Craft from the XIth to the XVIth Century. Both are $0.99.
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