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I have encountered several times the claim that cats are rather deadly encounters for any commoner and the difference between a commoner and an adventurer is, that the adventurer actually would have a fighting chance to survive a one on one encounter with a cat. That does not seem to hold true for a lvl 1 wizard, so wizards elongate their lives by petting cats instead of trying to kill them. Evil Hat claims that bags full of cats were Mage-killer weapons due to statistics for a long time - but apparently 5E seems to fix that - but yet again, that thread mentions, that cats are or used to be utter commoner-killers since at least AD&D 2nd Edition (or older). The Commoner-killing properties of cats even found their way into Order of the Stick and got it mentioned on TVtropes Cats are Mean under Tabletop, pointing to 3.5 as the source.

Is there an official source, like a Dragon magazine article or a blog post on the publisher's site, that references this joke/story/meme? In case of multiple finds, the oldest official source wins.

Trish
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  • @samuei I look for exactly what is written in the question: an official source, like a Dragon magazine article or a blog post, that references this joke/story/meme. Unearthed Arcana are likewise an official source of this kind. – Trish May 19 '21 at 14:02
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    Although I've heard this joke before (along with "the Wizard died by slamming his toe on some furniture"), I can't seem to find a definite source for it. Looking at the 3.5 stat blocks, it seems that a Cat, with +2 Initiative and a full attack (two claw swipes and a bite), if they all hit, deals 3 damage, with a 75% possibility of killing a Level 1 Commoner (1d4 HP) in one turn, and with 14 AC and Stealthy, the cat would usually have the upper hand in combat. – Tsugihagi May 21 '21 at 16:18
  • I've found references to a Murphy's Rules cartoon of it, still looking for that cartoon. – JohnP Aug 13 '22 at 15:59
  • How is a blog post official? – KorvinStarmast Aug 10 '23 at 17:33
  • @KorvinStarmast I meant that as an officia post on Wizards.com or similar. Such a post would be official as it was made by a member of the editorial team or representative of it. A fan-blog would bot be official. Wizards used to run a blog about their development and design in the 1990s and early 2000s. – Trish Aug 11 '23 at 09:29
  • @JohnP I remember seeing this as a Murphy's Rules cartoon, cannot remember the publication (Dork Tower, Knights of the Dinner Table?) – Neil Slater Aug 11 '23 at 10:48
  • @NeilSlater - I went so far as to buy the book and I still can't find the actual reference. Their X account wasn't helpful either. – JohnP Aug 11 '23 at 13:21
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    According to this archive (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/philathansrule.html), Phil Athans, former WotC book editor, said "Cat's aren't domesticated, they're just not big enough to kill you." which isn't what is asked by this question but hints toward the question having no answer. – Anne Aunyme Aug 11 '23 at 14:51
  • @JohnP Well I don't think my memory is fault on this one. I think Bardo's asnwer is correct though, it was a "meme" in the 1980s. The version me and my firends laughed about was Rolemaster and the official stats for a shrew (not a monstrous shrew, or a giant shrew, just a regular shrew) which could defeat humans. – Neil Slater Aug 11 '23 at 15:11
  • @Trish did you try to use the way back machine? – KorvinStarmast Aug 11 '23 at 19:45
  • @KorvinStarmast Yes, for example https://web.archive.org/web/20100301091141/http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Archive.aspx is a capture of the archive of articles, some of them functioning as the official "blog" or stories of the game design, others link to Dungeon and Dragon magazine in D&D insider... There are about 1200 articles on that capture from 2010, 600-ish of them being blog-y or PR material. The oldest material in that snippet is on page 30 and goes back to 2002 - https://web.archive.org/web/20100307160349/http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/faq – Trish Aug 11 '23 at 20:27
  • @KorvinStarmast among the archived blog posts: David Noonan, one of the designers in 2007, talking about The Gamers - Dorkness Rising.... – Trish Aug 11 '23 at 20:59

1 Answers1

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Probably there isn't any, not at least one you can consider it's original source

And I'll try to elaborate a bit with some personal experience on the subject:

Well... being a roleplayer from at least 34 years, my first encounter with this joke was speaking with friends about AD&D (2nd edition).

When we started playing AD&D we spoke a lot about classes, and we concluded that a lvl1 mage could fight a cat (assuming he knows magic missile) but will be in serious trouble fighting two cats. And we assumed that home cats would be lethal to their owners, as a commoner had 1d4 hp AC10 while cats made 1d4 damage and could hit them fair easily.

This was before any homebrew rules (or further companion books) added more resilience to starting characters, giving max hit points at lvl1, adding the possibility to don't die at -1 hit points, etc...

The fact is that this joke was something widely shared with lots of people at conventions and events during the time. I don't recall reading it anywhere, but everyone just had seem to reach the same conclusion as we did: cats are mean and dangerous (at least it were with the standard stats of the game).

I don't think this "joke" started in any particular article or publication, I think this is one of those things that was quite obvious to anyone who started playing the game, and naturally became a trope that moved mouth to mouth until reaching legendary proportions.

I will add a bit further on my answer based on comments.

First of all, I cannot prove that something that doesn't exist, in fact, doesn't exist. But I think that my answer goes further than the experience of a single person. During the years, and mainly during the first years after the game was just published, I shared this joke with a lot of different people in a lot of different places. Never hear anybody speaking about having readed it on any written source nor had readed myself anywhere.

Keep in mind that around early 90s there weren't so many publications and sources, and the few that existed took quite a while to reach remote places, there weren't anything remotely near than you can have today and knowledge in this hobby (which by the way, by that time were also far more underground that nowadays) moved much much slowlier than today. However, a lot of people from different places and backgrounds shared this joke from different angles and perspectives almost from the very beginning of the game.

It's far more probable that this joke were something that emerged spontaneously from the community (in an age were internet didn't existed) and later, when it was already a common trope, someone referenced it on some media. Even if that is, and that media reference exist (wich I don't know, but I cannot prove it doesn't), it would just have repeated something that the community was saying for years.

Bardo
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    I remember one character we only called "the 1 bit necromancer", on 1st level he had 1 hp so he only had two states: conscious and unconscious. (We did not do the "you die if you go into negative hp" rule, as it would've ruined the game.) – biziclop Aug 10 '23 at 10:56
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    The question asks for official sources. If this is based on official statements from Wizards of the Coast or TSR, then that needs to be explained. Otherwise this is not fitting the spirit of the question. – Trish Aug 10 '23 at 13:17
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    @Trish Asking for official sources for a community generated meme, adage, or trope (for example, there isn't an official source for why munchkins are called munchkins, that grew out of the gaming community in the mid to late 1970's) - is internally contradictory. This answer is experience based by someone in that community. – KorvinStarmast Aug 10 '23 at 15:36
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    Calling Trish's question itself unreasonable presumes that there is no official reference to the meme, the unknown existence of which is the point of the question. A single official reference would be a better answer than someone's experience to the contrary. If that reference does not exist, though, then the quality of an answer depends on the length and breadth of the experience it relates as well as the volume of official material searched, and some answers will be better than others. You can't prove a negative, but a more exhaustive search has done a better job of failing to disprove it. – Kirt Aug 10 '23 at 15:59
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    @KorvinStarmast No, there is nothing unreasonable about the question. It is a question as to whether any official materials/comments whatever that referenced the community meme. This answer just does not answer the question at all, since it neither gives references nor argues an absence of them. – Gloweye Aug 10 '23 at 16:54
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    @KorvinStarmast Trish is absolutely allowed to ask for an official reference. Ascended fanon is a thing. If no official reference exists then the question will remain unanswered (note that it was asked over 2 years ago). – Oblivious Sage Aug 10 '23 at 16:59
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    @ObliviousSage The OP Objecting to the answer was what got me to comment, based on the matter at hand. Your insinuation that "ascended fanon" is "official" strikes me as not quite right. – KorvinStarmast Aug 10 '23 at 17:35
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    @KorvinStarmast The concept of ascended fanon isn't an exact match to what the OP is looking for, but it's roughly similar. The OP is absolutely allowed to point out that an "answer" does not, in fact, answer the question. – Oblivious Sage Aug 10 '23 at 17:56
  • @ObliviousSage would have you preferred that I stated to have invented the trope and that it was "ascended fanon"? Would be anybody able to prove it false? – Bardo Aug 11 '23 at 09:49
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    @Bardo The question is not asking what the origin of the meme is, it is asking if the meme has ever been referenced in any official publication. You are answering a different question than has been asked. It doesn't matter what the origin of the meme is, only whether or not TSR/WotC ever published material which acknowledged the meme. – Carcer Aug 11 '23 at 10:15
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    @Carcer let me change the focus... how can this question be answered if there isn't any official TSR/WoTC publication where the meme is referenced? – Bardo Aug 11 '23 at 10:29
  • @Bardo I would suggest putting dates into it, saying "We used this joke in our group in the year X" and "I heard it from multiple sources in the year Y". That would put a lower bound on the date of original publication (if there was one). That being said, there probably is a good reason why this question hasn't attracted any answers for two years: it's right in the intersection of "very difficult to research" and "unlikely to be someone's pet subject". – biziclop Aug 11 '23 at 10:33
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    @biziclop but even if I prove by stating dates that there were occurrences of the trope previous to hipothetical official appaerances, the spirit of the question is if those official appaerances does exist or not, so for those all downvoting the answer it still won't be a right answer. Keep in mind that I'm not arguing about getting my answer as the answer but trying to reason why an answer that tries to reason that probably there isn't an official occurrence, ate least not one that could in any way be considered as the original source of the meme, deserves being downvoted – Bardo Aug 11 '23 at 10:39
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    @Bardo I appreciated reading your answer and it took me back to my AD&D days, too. :) Maybe, you can just say "No" or "Probably not" and just add but here is a bit of history/context to this trope. :) – Senmurv Aug 11 '23 at 10:46
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    @Senmurb that seems a good approach, thanks, I'd do it. – Bardo Aug 11 '23 at 10:47
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    @Bardo I know, as fun as this site often is, it can also be very frustrating sometimes. I've ended up deleting some of my answers because I couldn't be bothered justifying why it was a valid answer. Don't worry about it too much, at the end of the day you were genuinely trying to help, if it is refused, that's not your problem. – biziclop Aug 11 '23 at 11:44
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    If no such official publication exists then the question cannot be answered. That does not make it an invalid question, nor does it change the rules such that an answer post that does not actually answer the question becomes acceptable. – Oblivious Sage Aug 11 '23 at 13:00