What If D&D Was Rooted In Westerns?

[kent]

Anyone who knows the first thing about film knows the remarkable standard reached time and again by the American Western Movies and almost all of the great westerns were made before D&D was published. And yet the European medieval or dark ages periods are taken as standard as a basis for adding monsters to a game that was devised by Americans.

The aesthetic standard reached by the great Westerns is much higher than that reached by Howard/Smith/Lovecraft in my opinion so it surprises me that Westerns were not used as a foundation for the addition of myth and horror and fantasy rather than say Tolkien. For example when I look at Call of Cthulhu the RPG I see Film Noir plus monsters and yet there is no Westerns plus monsters RPG.

[Deleted]

Dec 15, 2013 15:47:28 GMT -6 kent said:

Anyone who knows the first thing about film knows the remarkable standard reached time and again by the American Western Movies and almost all of the great westerns were made before D&D was published. And yet the European medieval or dark ages periods are taken as standard as a basis for adding monsters to a game that was devised by Americans.

RPGs could never have sprung forth from westerns because westerns lack dungeons.

If you look at all the games before D&D that had role-playing elements, you'll see that they all required the judge/ref to interpret various actions of the PC and reconcile their action. This, however, took time. Midguard was a play by mail game so the ref had plenty of time to generate replies. Games like Braunstien, while face-to-face allowed the players so much freedom that in one day of playing, the game went IIRC through only four turns.

The dungeon environment limits the player's choices to a small number. This allowed the ref to easily keep track of the environment and to instantly provide feedback regarding the outcome of the player's actions. Once this conversational style of game was developed, it was then possible to expand it to other environments. So, without the dungeon environment, there is no catalyst to transform the turn-based proto-RPGs into the RPGs we know of today.

[idrahil]

My dad grew up in the early 50s and has told me how much they loved Westerns and the intricate games of "Cowboys & Indians" he and his friends would have. Sounded like Role Playing to me.

As for the addition of monsters, I could imagine a group of miners, down on their luck herders and farmers going into a mine that has dug up an ancient evil. Pretty interesting stuff comes to mind. Sure, most of what I am thinking of is stolen from other stories but it really does make sense for a culture that grew up on Westerns to use that as a back drop to the treasure collecting that takes place in D&D.

[Red Baron]

Barsoom definitely has western roots besides its eastern, sci fi, and pirate ones. Strong themes of honor, good/evil, and lone hero type themes.

[apeloverage]

For example when I look at Call of Cthulhu the RPG I see Film Noir plus monsters and yet there is no Westerns plus monsters RPG.

What about Deadlands?

[kent]

I think I let my infatuation with classic westerns on blu-ray get the better of me here !!

It might be an interesting project to create a simple OD&D style game based on the films rather than the history so for instance actors such as Lee Marvin would be included as a type. And perhaps on reflection the genre is so rich there is no need for fantasy elements.

[Finarvyn]

I think that TSR's own Boot Hill satisfied my need for a Western RPG back in the day, and it remains one of my favorites today. I suppose a lot more effort could be put into background charts or skill systems, but in general Boot Hill has a great feel for those old Westerns.

* One of the significant parts of the game was the "first shot" chart, aimed at the gunfight. You stand in the street face-to-face with some guy and try to goad him into drawing first. The system reflects that style of play and gives a built-in initiative system at the same time.

* The rules cover a number of different types of firearms from the day.

* The rules already have a number of NPCs statted out for the GM to use, including lawmen, shopfolk, bandits, and so on.

* Characters become more brave with experience.

The framework for play is simple and already built in Boot Hill. All you need to do is act stuff out (much like playing "Cowboys & Indians") and then defer to the rules for combat results.

Fantasy has the advantage of having a lot of diversity in creatures, spells, and magic. Western simply don't have enough diversity to fill up three little brown books.

[scottenkainen]

The Wild, Wild West show had dungeons...

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[stevemitchell]

"The aesthetic standard reached by the great Westerns is much higher than that reached by Howard/Smith/Lovecraft in my opinion. . . ."

Since Howard, Smith, and Lovecraft were pulp magazine writers, the only fair comparison would be against writers from the pulp western magazines. I'm curious to know which pulp western writers you think reached a standard "much higher" than these gentlemen?

(For what it's worth, I do like western movies and western fiction, including stories from the old pulps.)

[premmy]

Actually, D&D WAS very much rooted in Westerns, only not exclusively. I mean, sure, it had swords and castles instead six-shooters and saloons, but the game's implied assumptions about society thoroughly reflect Wild West culture (and the libertarian ideals which grew out of it and which have absolutely nothing to do with the European Dark and Middle Ages D&D ostensibly represents).

Instead of trying to explain it in my own words while reeling from flu, I’ll just translate (and slightly abridge) a few paragraphs originally written by Melan in a Hungarian essay back in the first half of the noughts, because they pretty much mirror my point:

The more I think about this, the better I notice the similarity between D&D-style stories, heroes and worlds with „the” Wild West. In fact, the farther we go back in the history of RPGs, the more identical motifs we find. The simultaneously heroic and materialistic world and the (in many respects) amoral heroes of Wild West books and films had a great effect on the authors who laid the foundations of sword & sorcery. Robert E. Howard was also a writer of westerns, but several of fantasy’s other fundaments also stem from this source – the Myth of America.

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.

If anyone canoppose an adventurer, it’s another adventurer. The town is saved never by the guards but by the poncho-wearing, cigar-smoking stranger who rides into the main square and starts kiling the villains for a handful of dollars. Then he rides off into the sunset. It’s no accident that this scene also looks good in an RPG story. From their middling levels onward, player characters can righfully expect that they’ll be the ones on whom the fate of the world (or a smaller territory) will hinge. They’ll become it’s passive or active shapers, and the game will equip them for that role. This is why they have more HPs, the fate points of various games, or simlpy the adventurer’s superiour ability of gun- or swordplay whe compared to mooks.

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. Behind the medieval man there lie the numerous links and obligations that help and hinder him. The adventurer’s family has been killed by orcs. He is a free man, the personification of the libertarian ideal. (It is perhaps no accident that the political views of a certain Gary Gygax were closest to this philosophy so alien to Europe.)

Or to put it in much shorter terms: D&D IS rooted in Westerns. If you want to see what it would have been like without that Western influence, look at Warhammer Fantasy.

[kent]

Dec 16, 2013 5:42:38 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Fantasy has the advantage of having a lot of diversity in creatures, spells, and magic. Western simply don't have enough diversity to fill up three little brown books.

Fantasy has more diversity, sure, but the Western genre explored its themes with great richness and could fill the three books I would say. There may be more implied setting information though.

Dec 16, 2013 9:07:16 GMT -6 stevemitchell said:

Since Howard, Smith, and Lovecraft were pulp magazine writers, the only fair comparison would be against writers from the pulp western magazines. I'm curious to know which pulp western writers you think reached a standard "much higher" than these gentlemen?

No I am comparing the Howard/Smith/Lovecraft books to the classic western films in what can only be a personal judgement. It would have been fairer to say "higher" standard than "much higher". I think we can compare success across media, witness the LotR book versus film discussions.

Dec 16, 2013 11:08:06 GMT -6 premmy said:

Actually, D&D WAS very much rooted in Westerns, only not exclusively. If you want to see what it would have been like without that Western influence, look at Warhammer Fantasy.

It is true that it is easy to steal ideas from westerns for D&D with very little translation required. I think for Runequest too but probably not so smoothly for Warhammer and Dragon Warriors.

[scottenkainen]

Melan, via Premmy, brings up excellent points about motifs of the Western creeping into D&D, but I suspect that, instead of this being intentional, it is mainly a byproduct of most players being unable to visualize a world older than the Old West. Take, for example, the typical D&D town with its saloon-like taverns and general stores, neither of which you would have found in a medieval setting.

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper