I know you’re only talking about your own experiences but the first Dragonlance module was published in March 1984 and included Raistlin as a player character. The first DL novel was published in November 1984. The first Final Fantasy game was released in 1987.
That said, I have no idea if they’re related or not. I was more saying that “red” may just (coincidentally) be the go-to chromatic middle ground between black and white, be it alignment determinate or spell groups. In Dragonlance, it’s likely because the schools of magic (as in alignment, not ‘evocation’, ‘conjuration’, etc) are governed by the three moons. One is white, one is black and the third red. Presumably based off the real moon and the full moon, new moon and blood/harvest moon. In Final Fantasy, I’m guessing it just looked good as an 8-bit sprite.
No, that’s not correct - not when Final Fantasy was released. In fact, the Bard at that time was a hybrid triple-class (yes, triple-class) of Fighter, Rogue, and Druid - and Druid’s were split even then between more offensive-type magic and cleric healing-type magic.
Sorry, should have responded: this may have been due to the graphics limitations of the time. You didn’t (couldn’t) get a lot of color details on an 8-bit system.
Well not just them but the pen and paper D&D. Now that I think about it, red is a weird middling color. Grey is the obvious choice between white and black.
…Huh. I just Googled it, and yup, FF1 was released in 1987, with AD&D 2nd not coming out until 1989. I guess that I just assumed that 2nd was older than it was, back when I started playing.
It actually first came out in '81 in an issue of Dragon Magazine, so a great many players were using the 2nd edition-ish version earlier. But I have dollars to bet that certain ideas may not travel as well as others.