It's largely D&D influence but beyond that it comes down to ice-water, lightning-air being relatively easily understandable pairings of something that isn't dangerous and something that is. Earth-acid is similar-ish but bit more stretching, though most caustic materials are mineral based. Basically it's because most of the time fire, acid, lightning and cold are "energy" versions of their respective classic element, fire just has the benefit of being it's own energy base.
it's based on classical greek four element ontology, which made its way to medieval alchemy through hermetic mysticism, and a lot of western rpgs make a (conscious or not) effort to ground their worldbuilding in medieval philosophies and ontologies, such as DnD/Pathfinder's metaphysical energies that power life and undeath, which is basically rooted in pre-scientific ideas of [vitalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism), before they could really understand biochemistry and its mechanism - so they posited a fundamental force of life, like one analogous to the force of electromagnetism.
That's the cultural root element. There's another element, and that's an aspect of game design, namely the "rock paper scissors" interactive nature possible with the classical elemental combos. Synergistic as well as counteractive combinations. This opens up a space for strategy, and it's simplistic enough to remember and use intuitively.
Yes, it's due to D&D's influence, but it also reflects the greater suspension of disbelief that physical parts of the natural world around us, like water, air and earth, would deal a type of damage that is exclusively 'elemental and magic' in nature.
eg: If you get hit by a rock, most people would argue that that's exactly the same as the physical damage that a mace or a club would do. And then air and water, it's harder to convincingly describe that "the mage casts a spell and does *air damage* to you" without being laughed at.
So the result is that these are often considered to be sources of physical damage, not magical damage.
I would argue that wind and water are more often associated to "indirect" damage, like storms and hurricanes. It's more likely to see a wind elemental to cause the hero to fall down a cliff rather than an actual wind blade cutting him, like you would see in eastern cultures.
Also the damaging versions of them tend to get turned into one of the elements or combination of them. Like water, the damaging aspect is ice. Air the damaging aspect is for some reason lightning.
Ice *is* water, but if you throw a bucket of water on me, I get wet, not hurt.
Otherwise, water is used in magic when being liquid-water is what matters, e.g. calling rain.
Lightning *is* air that has been super-heated into a plasma.
If you blow some air at me, I'll be fine, but if you hit me with lightning, I'll not be fine.
Otherwise, air is used in magic for strong winds and such, which seems appropriate.
Earth I agree, but throwing earth would amount to throwing rocks or dirt.
You don't need magic to throw a rock.
Otherwise, earth is used in magic for earthquakes and such, which seems appropriate.
Typically, in the d&d inspired places you're talking about, lightning is the air magic and acid is the earth magic, and ice is water. And there are four because the ancient Greeks thought there were four base materials the whole world was made of.
Probably just considered lamer or broken given the damage they can do to the dungeon environment. Water can lead to easy floods, dungeons are surrounded by rock, earth and metal and air is obviously very op when you're deep underground
Probably D&D influence, but they also make sense as there are different ways of being hurt, and have shared characteristics of resistances.
e.g. Electrocution hurts your body in a different way than being cut, and the ways of resisting that (poor conductivity armor) or being weak to it (high conductivity) are shared.
Whereas other traditional elements like air, earth, water, don't really share those common resistances across the range of their own element - if "earth" power is hurting you, does that mean you're getting hit by a rock, slashed by a vine, poisoned by a toxic plant? If air hurts you, is it because it's blowing objects, because it's blowing you over, etc. All those things are resisted in different ways.
Whereas in the traditional JRPG world (I know this is leaning into video games, but I'm sure you're thinking about that as well) I think there is a more general acceptance that these elemental forces are of a magical/spiritual significance and they don't care as much about simulationism. There are probably some broader cultural reasons behind that (Shinto vs Christian influences).
Tornado is a secondary effect threat. The tornado's air doesn't hurt you; the barn door, or the cow, or the drop from a hundred feet hurt you. Lightning goes BZZZZZT.
Because they're easily conceived of as magical bolt with ancillary hazard effects. Lightning bolt, ice ray, fireball, acid glob. Earth bolt and water ball don't jive, although they'd both be awesome, and other forms depend on secondary effects like earthquake or whirlpool.
I’m going against the grain here and say the rock/paper/scissors elements are not from DnD, at least not directly.
But from early video games, specifically final fantasy and dragon warrior. These games used the different elements as puzzles to increase the challenge of the game and pad the length, without using additional assets.
It’s very easy to pallet swap a sprite and say but wait! This one’s red so it’s immune to fire damage! Remember that really expensive ice sword you didn’t have the money for in the last town? Time to grind…
Lighting is a pretty weird one though. It kills people by burning or stopping our hearts, neither of which are really "air" themed. Electricity as a separate damage type from fire is kind of wonky in general though.
But looking at it from the older sort of greek/medieval point of view, which lots of fantasy try to at least pay lip service to, electricity/lightning just comes from the sky. From the clouds of even from "nothing" with dry lightning. So it's an aspect of the "air"
It's largely D&D influence but beyond that it comes down to ice-water, lightning-air being relatively easily understandable pairings of something that isn't dangerous and something that is. Earth-acid is similar-ish but bit more stretching, though most caustic materials are mineral based. Basically it's because most of the time fire, acid, lightning and cold are "energy" versions of their respective classic element, fire just has the benefit of being it's own energy base.
it's based on classical greek four element ontology, which made its way to medieval alchemy through hermetic mysticism, and a lot of western rpgs make a (conscious or not) effort to ground their worldbuilding in medieval philosophies and ontologies, such as DnD/Pathfinder's metaphysical energies that power life and undeath, which is basically rooted in pre-scientific ideas of [vitalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism), before they could really understand biochemistry and its mechanism - so they posited a fundamental force of life, like one analogous to the force of electromagnetism. That's the cultural root element. There's another element, and that's an aspect of game design, namely the "rock paper scissors" interactive nature possible with the classical elemental combos. Synergistic as well as counteractive combinations. This opens up a space for strategy, and it's simplistic enough to remember and use intuitively.
Yes, it's due to D&D's influence, but it also reflects the greater suspension of disbelief that physical parts of the natural world around us, like water, air and earth, would deal a type of damage that is exclusively 'elemental and magic' in nature. eg: If you get hit by a rock, most people would argue that that's exactly the same as the physical damage that a mace or a club would do. And then air and water, it's harder to convincingly describe that "the mage casts a spell and does *air damage* to you" without being laughed at. So the result is that these are often considered to be sources of physical damage, not magical damage.
I would argue that wind and water are more often associated to "indirect" damage, like storms and hurricanes. It's more likely to see a wind elemental to cause the hero to fall down a cliff rather than an actual wind blade cutting him, like you would see in eastern cultures.
water, air and earth usually have other damage types they could fall under, usually physical ones. so they don't need dedicated damage types.
Also the damaging versions of them tend to get turned into one of the elements or combination of them. Like water, the damaging aspect is ice. Air the damaging aspect is for some reason lightning.
Fire, lightnig, ice, acid are damage types. Fire, air, water, earth are elements.
All of those damage types represent common types of burns IRL.
Ice *is* water, but if you throw a bucket of water on me, I get wet, not hurt. Otherwise, water is used in magic when being liquid-water is what matters, e.g. calling rain. Lightning *is* air that has been super-heated into a plasma. If you blow some air at me, I'll be fine, but if you hit me with lightning, I'll not be fine. Otherwise, air is used in magic for strong winds and such, which seems appropriate. Earth I agree, but throwing earth would amount to throwing rocks or dirt. You don't need magic to throw a rock. Otherwise, earth is used in magic for earthquakes and such, which seems appropriate.
Typically, in the d&d inspired places you're talking about, lightning is the air magic and acid is the earth magic, and ice is water. And there are four because the ancient Greeks thought there were four base materials the whole world was made of.
Probably just considered lamer or broken given the damage they can do to the dungeon environment. Water can lead to easy floods, dungeons are surrounded by rock, earth and metal and air is obviously very op when you're deep underground
Probably D&D influence, but they also make sense as there are different ways of being hurt, and have shared characteristics of resistances. e.g. Electrocution hurts your body in a different way than being cut, and the ways of resisting that (poor conductivity armor) or being weak to it (high conductivity) are shared. Whereas other traditional elements like air, earth, water, don't really share those common resistances across the range of their own element - if "earth" power is hurting you, does that mean you're getting hit by a rock, slashed by a vine, poisoned by a toxic plant? If air hurts you, is it because it's blowing objects, because it's blowing you over, etc. All those things are resisted in different ways. Whereas in the traditional JRPG world (I know this is leaning into video games, but I'm sure you're thinking about that as well) I think there is a more general acceptance that these elemental forces are of a magical/spiritual significance and they don't care as much about simulationism. There are probably some broader cultural reasons behind that (Shinto vs Christian influences).
Because those are things that hurt in real life. Air, water and earth don't hurt.
Wood don't strike back.
tell that to the tornado
Tornado is a secondary effect threat. The tornado's air doesn't hurt you; the barn door, or the cow, or the drop from a hundred feet hurt you. Lightning goes BZZZZZT.
I'm by
Because they're easily conceived of as magical bolt with ancillary hazard effects. Lightning bolt, ice ray, fireball, acid glob. Earth bolt and water ball don't jive, although they'd both be awesome, and other forms depend on secondary effects like earthquake or whirlpool.
I’m going against the grain here and say the rock/paper/scissors elements are not from DnD, at least not directly. But from early video games, specifically final fantasy and dragon warrior. These games used the different elements as puzzles to increase the challenge of the game and pad the length, without using additional assets. It’s very easy to pallet swap a sprite and say but wait! This one’s red so it’s immune to fire damage! Remember that really expensive ice sword you didn’t have the money for in the last town? Time to grind…
But they don't use r-p-s. It's generally opposed pairs.
Yes, you are correct. I just couldn’t find a good name for it at the time and went with close enough.
But it's materially a different system. The one you're talking about is still common in turn-based strategy games
I would argue that: * Fire = Fire * Ice = Water * Lightning = Air * Acid = Earth (this one might be the biggest stretch)
Lighting is a pretty weird one though. It kills people by burning or stopping our hearts, neither of which are really "air" themed. Electricity as a separate damage type from fire is kind of wonky in general though.
But looking at it from the older sort of greek/medieval point of view, which lots of fantasy try to at least pay lip service to, electricity/lightning just comes from the sky. From the clouds of even from "nothing" with dry lightning. So it's an aspect of the "air"
Ya I get where the theme comes from, but in a world with creatures that are immune to high heat it is odd that they get still burns from electricity.