A friend recently asked me if I had a list of literary or pop-culture characters that exemplify the various AD&D classes (in the same manner as the alignment examples I posted a few months back). I didn't, but it seemed like a fun idea so I came up with one. And, having done so, it seemed only fitting to post it here. Of course I've included the classes from The Heroic Legendarium alongside the canonical ones. I'm sure people could find things to quibble with in some of these, especially as some of the classes have been subtly or not-so-subtly redefined in later editions, but I feel all of these matches are good for how I envision the classes and how they were portrayed in the 1st edition books.
Fighter - John Carter of Mars, Hercules, Sinbad, Robin Hood, d’Artagnan (The Three Musketeers), Odysseus, Thor (Marvel comics), James T. Kirk (Star Trek), Duncan Idaho (Dune)
Barbarian - Conan, Tarzan, Jeremiah Johnson
Hunter - Orion, Daniel Boone, Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games)
Ranger - Aragorn, Natty Bumppo (James Fenimore Cooper), Davy Crockett
Cavalier - Sir Gawain, Sir Tristram, Boromir
Paladin - Sir Galahad, Sir Perceval, Roland Deschain (Dark Tower series)
Cleric - Van Helsing, Friar Tuck, Father Merrin (The Exorcist), Moses
Druid - Merlin, Radagast the Brown, Grizzly Adams
Mystic - Danny Torrance (Doctor Sleep), the Witches (Discworld series), Yoda (Star Wars series)
Magic-User - Gandalf, Circe, Ged/Sparrowhawk (Earthsea series), Hermione Granger (Harry Potter series), Dr. Strange (Marvel comics)
Illusionist - Saruman, Morgan le Fay
Savant - The Doctor (Doctor Who), Spock (Star Trek), Sherlock Holmes
Thief - Bilbo Baggins, the Gray Mouser (Fritz Leiber), Nifft the Lean (Michael Shea), Nuth (Lord Dunsany), Satampra Zeiros (Clark Ashton Smith), Aladdin
Acrobat - John Robie (Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief), Catwoman (Batman), Lupin III
Assassin - Black Widow (Marvel comics), John Wick
Mountebank - Cugel the Clever (Jack Vance), Harry Mudd (Star Trek), Professor Harold Hill (The Music Man)
Monk - Kwai Chang Caine (Kung Fu), Remo Williams (The Destroyer series)
Bard - Orpheus, Alan-a-Dale, Richard Francis Burton, Gurney Halleck (Dune)
Jester - Loki (Marvel comics), The Joker (Batman), Will Scarlet
Conan's a fighter. He attracts followers easily. He doesn't go berserk. Hell, there's stories where Conan reads dead languages based on his knowledge of more modern ones. His barbarism is largely informed.
ReplyDeleteMerlin depends a LOT on which version of Merlin you go with. I'd say TH White's The Sword in the Stone Merlin is definitely a Magic-User (though, really, D&D mechanics don't capture the magic of that book well).
Gandalf, oddly, isn't really much of a magic-user. He casts like three spells, ever, and none of them are very flashy. There's more of an argument for him being a fighter in D&D rules.
The barbarian is what I specifically had in mind about classes being redefined in later editions: the 1E AD&D barbarian class (as written by Gary Gygax and published in Dragon #63 and later Unearthed Arcana) does not go berserk and has no limit on attracting followers (they even get an effective Charisma bonus based on their level) or learning languages (only starting languages) and was explicitly and directly extrapolated from Gary's AD&D stats for Conan from Dragon #37. The barbarian is just as much The Conan Class as the ranger is The Aragorn Class.
DeleteI stuck Merlin under druid mostly because I was struggling to come up with literary or pop-cultural examples of anything like an AD&D druid.
Gandalf may not act much like an AD&D magic-user but he still goes on the list if for nothing more than he looks the part so well (with his rob and beard and hat and staff), and also for his reputation among the hobbits. Prospero and Roger Bacon from Bellairs' The Face in the Frost and the various wizards in Vance's Dying Earth stories are all closer matches in D&D terms, but also aren't as well known to people who aren't already D&D fans.
I mean, in that case it's a fighter sub-class, not its own class. Though I admit that's pedantic. Having looked it up to be sure, I'd say Conan still isn't a barbarian (though it's closer). He works with magic users regularly. Indeed, the longest Conan story involves him finding a magic item so he can recover his kingdom. And being assisted by several friendly mages. Admittedly, he doesn't seem to use personal magic much, but nobody in the Conan stories does (Gygax could've damn well learned something from that when game balancing. But I digress). Yes, that may be quibbling, but since it's the only real restriction placed on the class it's kind of important.
DeleteAlso, Gygax's class design would have improved from him realizing that having your classes more restricted than the archetypical characters that inspired them isn't a great idea.
Oddly, I think Conan and Aragorn could be very well represented by the exact same class (perhaps with slightly different specializations within it).
An AD&D druid with the animal friendliness and such MIGHT be Radagast the Brown. Big might. Discworld witches a little bit. I think they went with "well, druids used to be nature connected with mistletoe and sickles" and then extrapolated from there.
It's a good list. The faults I see lie with the classes more than your sources of inspiration, to be clear.
I think the alignment list was a bit more solid, though. Only thing I disagreed with on that was Peter Pan being good.
It's always important to remember that the needs of a literary character and of a game-piece are different - the former needs to be multifaceted and unique and, especially as more stories are written about them, to change and develop, while the latter needs a set of quantified abilities that are calibrated to the challenges of the game and also balanced against other game-pieces, especially in a game like D&D that is based around cooperative group play: when you've got 4-6 (or more) players working together as a team it makes sense for them to have complementary strengths and weaknesses so that they'll achieve best results as a team and no single individual will be able to do everything (at least not well) and dominate the game. So when adapting literary characters into archetypal game-piece types Gygax (et al) put limits on them - exaggerated from their shortcomings in the books - to make them into balanced game-pieces. That's why when D&D stats were assigned to literary characters (in Deities & Demigods and the Dragon magazine "Giants in the Earth" column) they almost always broke the game rules by giving them multiple classes and ad-hoc extra abilities (so the Gray Mouser gets a bunch of fighter levels because even though he's one of the archetypal models for the thief class he's also an expert swordsman in the books, but for balance purposes the thief class was made weak in combat, etc.).
DeleteExcept Gygax (and others) were always pounding the "oh, play the character you're dealt, it can be interesting, stats aren't everything" drum.
DeleteIn such a view, I think having characters lack basic competence in core areas of the game is...not ideal. Wizards and Thieves shouldn't be as good in combat as fighters. They also shouldn't be physically pushed around by every random bandit who comes along. Nor should fighters and thieves be incapable of dealing with magic without a magic-user. Or magic-users and fighters be unable to climb a normal wall with appropriate equipment (I know that's not what the rules say, but it's definitely how some interpreted them).
OD&D's inability to easily reproduce its source material is, IMO, one of its biggest flaws. Doesn't make it a bad game, mind you.
I see Ffahrd the Fighter is missing from the list, but otherwise, a solid one. Pretty sure you could find find Druids in post-Tolkien high fantasy, even if that is not really where D&D was drawing most of its influences from. They do crop up as antagonists here and there (e.g. Lyonesse, where they are background figures, and rather sinister).
ReplyDeleteI would also put REH's Conan as a Fighter; the UA Barbarian is perhaps Conan as written by lesser authors - the quintessential bad barbarian pulp of the 1970s and 1980s. Conan makes particular sense as a Fighter when using the "everyone can be stealthy" interpretation of the rules - even though I have a hunch this is sort of a modern construct.
And something else, on topic of the recent interview: you can still access the WotC dice roller at https://web.archive.org/web/20220218173625/https://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm I also use it a lot during prep, especially when writing something on the train where you don't have room for the dice.
Which interview are you referring to? Is this an interview of you or of Trent? Either way, I would love to check it out.
DeleteHe's talking about my podcast interview with Settembrini, subject of the post following this one.
DeleteI would add Kull to the barbarian list. He often overcame opponents with his savage fury which could be considered a rage. Slain the Berserker from 2000AD comics would also be a barbarian with his warp spasms.
ReplyDeleteInteresting list. Some quick thoughts:
ReplyDeleteGandalf in The Hobbit is actually not a bad fit for a magic-user, as he casts spells that resemble lightning bolt (against the Goblins when rescuing Bilbo and the dwarves), something like Melf's Minute Meteors (the flaming pine combs he throws at the wargs), etc. By the time Tolkien wrote LotR magic in Middle-earth was portrayed in a somewhat different ("less flashy") way. Aside from spells like "light" he focuses more on inspiring courage, countering enchantments, divination, and the like.
But the best literary representatives for AD&D magic-users are Vance's Dying Earth wizards (which you mention in a comment but not in the main post), Turjan, Rhialto, and the like. The wizards of the Lyonesse novels also fit well (Murgen, Shimrod, etc.).
Finally, given his early career as a thief (e.g., Tower of the Elephant) I wonder if Conan couldn't also be described as a dual-class thief-fighter? (But then how would he get that 18(100) strength ;) .)