Wandering Paupers

Whence the idea of the wandering adventurer pauper as the "default" assumption for roleplaying game PCs? It's not from history (most people we might think of as "traveling heroes" nowadays were historically members of the noble/upper classes, what with needing to be able to afford to take time off their jobs for adventuring, not to mention weapons), it's not from mythology (mythological heroes overwhelmingly tend to be members of the upper classes, if not outright princes and kings), it's not from the literature (from King Arthur and the Three Musketeers to Conan to Elric to most members of the Fellowship of the Ring to Holger from Three Hearts & Three Lions, most of these heroes tended to be upperclassmen too) - the one medium that comes to mind that routinely has peasant heroes is fairytales, but D&D, which obviously originated this idea within the context of RPGs, draws almost nothing from them.

So why paupers?

>Why does a genre primarily framed around the concept of exploration and travel in a hostile untamed wilderness encourage characters focused around the concept of exploration and travel in a hostile untamed wilderness
I can't imagine.

i was going to contradict you by pointing to the farmboy hero archetype like luke skywalker but then again he is arguably royalty.

a hobo has no connections or responsibilities so it's the most convenient background for players who just want to wander around and kill shit. hence "murderhobo". and being an aristocrat isn't cool anymore anyway.

Historically speaking, people who explored and traveled untamed wilderness for its own sake tended to be society's richest. Nobody else could afford this. This is reflected by mythology and literature, which is rife with people exploring and traveling untamed wilderness, who are members of the upper classes.

At least if you're talking standard D&D, player characters are not from the poorest segment of society. Your starting equipment costs imply a net worth well above the usual peasant.

Murrica happened. Gygax was from the midwest. A hero rising from humble origins to do great things is more believable than it used to be. The idea that high birth sets you on the path to greatness is much less believable than it used to be.

Its usually a better story to go from zero to hero than to go from rich fucko to hero.

Usually.

The "Zero to Hero" trope is a very modern thing. Notice how even in folklore, the "random fisherman ends up killing the giant and marrying the princess" very often turns out to have been a prince himself all along. It was simply inconceivable to people throughout most of history for someone who isn't a noble to succeed at things.

You'll notice how a lot of these games are being played in modern times, therefore the 'very modern thing' is more likely to come up as a theme.

you're fucking retarded. what about being poor makes someone a "character focused around the concept of exploration and travel in a hostile and untamed wilderness"?

>historically speaking
Yeah, imma stop you right there. This is the realm of fantasy fiction. The place where giant lizards fly, wizards erect diamond towers in minutes, and gods walk among mortals. The only "History", is the one YOU write. Go ahead and have rich people sitting comfortably in their castle while the poor peasants travel around looking for food and coin. Or maybe the super rich go around hunting giant game like it's 19th century Africa. Write whatever you want to write, but don't cite history when it has literally no meaning on someone's work of FICTION.

Which is why OP also mentioned mythology and the fantasy literature which purportedly inspired D&D.

>Wandering isn't a staple in literature history

You FUCKING USELESS NIGGER.

Tell the one thing that is common to: Odysseus, The Canterbury Tales, Don Quijote, The Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost, or Robinson Crusoe?

HOW CAN PEOPLE THIS FUCKING UNCULTURED EXIST?

Did you actually read the OP? Odysseus was a king, many of the protagonists of the Canterbury Tales were upperclassmen of their era, Don Quijote is a rich old noble (that's what the "Don" stands for), Paradise Lost stars a DIVINE BEING and thus either has no social ranking or is the epitome of upperclass, depending on how you like to interpret it. I don't remember if Robinson Crusoe's social status is given and I haven't read the Pilgrim's Progress so I won't comment on that.

Still, over half of your examples only prove the point OP was trying to make: people who traveled were rich.

>USAstanistans are too stupid to exist.
Get bombed, you utter, utter retards.

>OP: in literature, wanderers used to be rich nobles
>user: WHAT AN IDIOT ARE YOU, HERE'S A LIST OF LITERARY WANDERERS WHO WERE RICH NOBLES, GOD, IT'S LIKE I'M SURROUNDED BY RETARDS

Odysseus was tied naked to a mast, Don Quijote was penniless with a bowl for a helmet, you can't be more poor than Robinson Crusoe who has literally nothing.


Try again, uncultured swine.

What is this outline called? The actual fashion term.

fringe

Odysseus was king of Ithaca, Don Quijote was penniless by the standards of Spanish hidalgos, which still made him part of the local 1% (due to his house and books alone, if nothing else). That they didn't carry riches with them WHILE TRAVELING doesn't mean they weren't still rich upperclass people.

It's okay to be unread, but you'll embarrass yourself a lot less if you stop accusing other people of that while proudly showcasing your ignorance.

Fringe or trim?

thanks!

Don Quijote is actually representative of a social issue then rampant among Spanish hidalgos which made their financial situation a lot more complex than that. TL;DR: while technically noble, he's lost his estates, most of his property and likely most of his inheritance, effectively leaving him living in some poverty. He could work for his living, but then he'll forfeit the noble privilege of not having to pay most taxes, so in practice that wasn't an option.

Some theorize that the book was written in the first place to mock Spain's plague of bored, poor nobles with nothing to do but reminisce about what they imagine to be "old glories" and prance around reminding everyone how noble they are even though most merchants and many craftspeople were probably richer than them.

>king of Ithaca
Who the fuck care what you are when all you have with you are your murder hobo friends and not even some clothes.

Don Quijote was part of the local 1%

Ooh la la! Look at this rich motherfucker, he has even a barbers basin for armor. What a fucking richie rich he is!

Keep digging yourself deeper, imbecile.

>Who the fuck care what you are when all you have with you are your murder hobo friends and not even some clothes.
In the ancient world, everyone.
>Confusing Don Quijote and Sancho Pancha
>Calling other people uncultured
Reread the book (I'm going to graciously assume here that you have read it and merely forgotten, rather than trying to talk about thing you didn't). Don Quijote's armor is an old, dirty family heirloom. It's Sancho Pancha's armor which was made out of literal garbage.

it's amazing when someone so badly misunderstands what someone else said AND dives in with capslock and expletives

>Who the fuck care what you are when all you have with you are your murder hobo friends and not even some clothes.
>I'll take "moving the goalposts" for 500, thanks

Rich person to hero is much less appealing than zero to hero. Also it's a fucking game, it doesn't have to be "historically accurate".

How about accurate to the literature which nominally inspired it?

while you may not be outright wrong like the shouty retard half a dozen posts up, I don't think you understood OP either. it's not an attack on the notion, rather a question about its cultural origins

It doesn't have to be accurate to the literature either. It's not a pure story, it's a game that's telling a story but primarily a game from which to derive enjoyment. Sometimes inspiration is just inspiration and not the rules you are meant to play by. Inspiration is not something you have to follow 100%.

You might as well lambaste fantasy settings for not being accurate to the folklore that inspired it. The original dwarves Tolkein took inspiration from didn't have the complex society he gave his dwarves in the stories, they were spirits who were mere plot devices at best. They had children sometimes but that was it. Are you going to say that Lord Of The Rings is somehow "lesser" for giving dwarves a complex society?

I think he answered that though.
>Why are games not like the stories that theoretically inspired them?
>People these days find this kind of storytelling more appealing

OP doesn't know examples of possessionless adveturers

OP is provided with examples of possessionless adventurers from basic literature history
...

Damage control and back pedalling ensues...

Whether he's uncultured or not, at least he has the privilege to call himself literate.

>OP is provided with examples of possessionless adventurers from basic literature history
Who were all nobles and most of them were still rich even if at some point in their travels they didn't have much in the way of money and possessions on their persons at the time.

Which was specifically part of his question - traditionally, the folks wandering around getting into adventures were all nobles.

D&D almost always has a bunch of poor commoners.

Have you not read those books or did you just not read the OP?

So whenever I leave my home I'm suddenly homeless?

Even disregarding the fact that half the guy's examples of "possessionless" characters were anything but, the fact remains that being possessionless has nothing to do with being a noble, much less of noble birth. Throughout most of history, nobles were recognized as being inherently different from commoners. You could strip a commoner and leave him in the woods with nothing at all and in the minds of people before the late 19th century he'd still have some kind of inherent superiority that permits him to be a hero.

According to this dickhead:

rich brood, protect what they have and do intrigue

Robinson Crusoe's story LITERALLY STARTS by establishing him as a rich kid.

>I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho’ not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first to Hull: He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we call our selves, and write our Name Crusoe, and so my Companions always call´d me.

dude, you have thoroughly embarassed yourself
just leave, there's no coming back from how pathetic your display was

INB4 "I was only pretending to be retarded".

user, what are you doing? You could've mentioned Robin Hood (some versions thereof, anyway). You could've mentioned Aladdin, Sinbad and Ali Baba. You could've mentioned the biblical Samson. You could've mentioned Jim Hawkins of Treasure Island (true, not a poor vagabond, but not rich or a noble either). You could've mentioned Luke Skywalker.

You could've mentioned any number of characters that would've at least accounted for some kind of argument. Why go with the ones that mean the exact opposite?

You know what else he could've done? Read the OP.

Also, John Carter (at the beginning of the series he's just a veteran who found gold but he's attacked before he can become rich from it). the planetary romance genre, of which the Barsoom series is quite possibly the most iconic, is an oft forgotten source of inspiration for D&D.

D&D derived fantasy (and its pulp fantasy antecedents) are strongly influenced by westerns. This here is your precedent for the wandering adventurer pauper.

Warhammer Fantasy Role Play. "Yay! I rolled up a rat catcher! Fame, here I come!"

Sinbad is (At least in the earliest 17th century mansucripts) a rich kid who blew his inheritance. Biblical Samson is quite rich, consider how in his betrothal to Timmah he's willing to give out a hell of a lot of expensive garments to the bride's relatives and friends, and is, after all, the "judge" (which in context is something akin to a king) of Israel. Luke Skywalker might be gorwing up poor, but he's very much related to the rich and powerful and was one of those "hidden at birth grew up in obscurity", something like the legend that grew up around Cyrus.

Can't really speak to the Hawkins example, but really, the only two that seem to work are the Ali Baba and Aladdin ones.

Fucking this. A whole genre of it.
Also: Bilbo, though he had a nice house, was at least a middle class hobbit. Not too mention Sam. There's also more modern literature - witcher Geralt, Rincewind (and others from Pratchett) and so on. Maybe it isn't a standard but it happens often enough.

Technically, the earliest Sinbad to appear in the manuscript IS poor. It's just that he's only there for a couple of paragraphs to introduce a framing device by which the rich Sinbad tells him how he got so.

Which is ALSO confusing since the second Sinbad's story starts with him having already gone through his entire inheritance and EFFECTIVELY poor (requiring him to set out to sea to find riches) despite starting off rich.

A ton of Greek heroes were actually rather poor. Hercules was a farm hand, Perseus (or Theseus I always forget which is which) was a fisherman

Jesus was a carpenter.

>
Yep, both were poor.

They were also both demi-gods which goes back to the only-special-people get to roam about adventuring and shit.

>Technically, the earliest Sinbad to appear in the manuscript IS poor.
At least in my translation, the first voyage (after the brief note about Hindbad the porter complaining about how other people have all the luck) starts off with

>I had inherited considerable wealth from my parents, and being young and foolish I at first squandered it recklessly upon every kind of pleasure, but presently, finding that riches speedily take to themselves wings if managed as badly as I was managing mine, and remembering also that to be old and poor is misery indeed, I began to bethink me of how I could make best of what still remained to me. I sold all my household goods by public auction, and joined a company of merchants who traded by sea, embarking with them at Balsora in a ship which we had outfitted between us.

IIRC Bilbo belonged to a rather prestigious family. He wasn't a king but I'd say he was Shire upperclass, definitely. And by Lord of the Rings, merely being related to him makes Frodo one of the richest and most important hobbits in town. Merry and Pippin also hail from the hobbit equivalents of noble families.

Only Sam is a poorfag.

I'm going to assume here that you're referring to the myth, and not the Disney film. Heracles' mythological parentage is quite dodgy: firstly, we know that he's the son of Zeus, so whatever his mortal stepparents might've done for a living he had that going for him. Second, we know he was the half brother of Iphicles, son of Amphitryon, who was himself the prince of Tiryns. Heracles is only sent out to be a cowherd after killing his music teacher during a tantrum, which by itself is a hint that he grew up quite wealthy. Regular farmers didn't get to have music teachers in ancient Greece, it was part of a noble upbringing.

Perseus was the son of Zeus (king of the gods) and the princess of Argos, so he was royalty however you look at it, too.

Theseus was the son of King Aegeus.

Nevermind, I can't read. But still, even if you want to say that the two (My version gives it as Hindbad, not Sinbad, for the porter), you're left with the same conclusion; the guy who traveled around and adventured did in fact start rich, just blew it because he was a dumbass.

What class were Medieval Pilgrims drawn from? What about Japanese pilgrims during the Edo period? I'm honestly not particularly familiar with either.

Depends which pilgrimage you're talking about.

Travelling from England to Jerusalem was a long and expensive journey. You were either wealthy or you were middle class and sold everything you had to pay for it. (there were a few poor people that had their expenses paid for them but these were not the norm)

I'm thinking more of the people that travelled within Europe to visit holy sites, view beatific artifacts and such.

Travelling in general was for soldiers or the rich.

>
Well obviously it varies. If you're talking about a pilgrimage that's a weeks walk then lots of people could manage to scrape together enough to travel for a fortnight.

Generally speaking, if something was more than a couple week's travel away, it was for the rich. Poorer people couldn't afford to stay away from home for so long, or in more extreme cases (e.g. places outside the country) the journey in the first place.

While this is true, it’s also true that in reality they were often second sons and such. Basically, born wealthy but they weren’t inheriting shit, so they definitely had a reason to go out and seek their fortunes.

Since D&D has enough bookkeeping as is/was, additional bookkeeping of an estate is cumbersome and easily dismissed by players.
DM's often have parties travel the land and thus away from any powerbase they might have established, not motivating players to build one.
Also it needs a specific kind of campaign to make having real estate worth the investment.

I'm naked and shipwrecked in unknown lands. But I'm actually a king. So it's completely different to those other other naked penniless fellows.

>American logic, ladies and gentlemen.

No, American logic would be that they are all the same.

Mythological/historical logic would be that he is still special because he is of the blood and/or a crowned king.

To be quite fair travel within a more reasonable distance was a thing even commoners did more frequently than some imagine. The Canterbury Tales includes plenty of commoners for this reason. Long distance travel very much was for the soldiers and rich. It also depends a lot on the situation of the period: the call of the first crusade led to what was basically a migration where plenty of folk were answering the call despite being neither a soldier nor rich.

Still, in terms of history and storytelling, OP has a point about classical heroic characters consisting of nobles and rich men in the vast majority. Only in very particular more modern examples like , under the influence of westerms like said, do fictions do otherwise. I'd say it has to do with society as a whole turning away from having an upper class of people who fill the role of bureaucracy and fighting. I'm not sure that's good, since now our bureaucrats are often cowards and our soldiers are often stupid, but that's how things are.

You got little things, like how the brits took Agincourt and made it a story attesting to the martial skill of peasants triumphing over the big french nobility. We've got a lot of charged and weighted historical ideas floating about that make being a commoner soldier seem more normal, when the entire point of nobility was to be the fighting class. Enlightenment era residue in our character archetypes and that kind of thing. In Christianity, there's a general loss of the sense of the whole, the king will return to retake his place, and some loyal locals will side with him against wicked would be usurpers, aspect. Little things.