Blame pulp culture for that one, Kriss.
Dual-wielding melee weapons is impractical, requiring a high level of skill to be effective and even then providing no practical advantage over 2H or 1H+shield, which is why it historically with few exceptions wasn't used in combat, but occurred mostly in martial arts and other settings where it worked as a demonstration of skill... but it is sufficiently exotic (due to not being used in practice for fighting) that it made its way into popular literature, and as it can be made to look awesome with good stage choreography, it was a natural fit for movies and television.
AD&D took that and ran with it, going to extremes such as people dual wielding long weapons (with taken to its logical conclusion resulted in the mounted drow cavalier dual-wielding lances back in the day, but I digress), with the interesting result that these days many fantasy gamers expect characters to be able to dual wield weapons and be efficient thereat, or even to be more dangerous than those who use a shield to defend themselves, which is patently ridiculous.
BUT... and there's a big but, and it is this: What is wrong with that?
It is a fantasy game, not a reality simulator. Genre conventions may be silly, but fantasy games are mainly about entertaining players, not educating them.
Having dual-wielding effective on the level of sword&board or 2H in a game is neither more nor less silly or justified than the complete silliness of having unarmed combat be a reasonable choice when fighting armed opposition.
This unarmed silliness often being combined with another awesome fantasy convention, namely that highly skilled people fighting without armour can be effective in small or large scale melee, because they are so great at dodging. (An approach not used in real life, where highly skilled people have at all times preferred armour if they could get it, just like everybody else, because it was their lives on the line).
Last edited by Peter Ebbesen; 10/07/14 11:19 AM. Reason: Clarification
