The Strange Alchemy of D&D's Genre Emulation

In some ways, "old school D&D" has a laser-like focus on producing a certain type and mood of play. It doesn't feel like this when you read the rulebooks. But it does when you read its main literary inspiration at length. 

In the comments to my last post, Ivan provided a link to an essay Gary Gygax wrote about Jack Vance in the early 2000s. In it, Gary cites some of the ways in which Vance's writing directly influenced the content of D&D. Two of these examples are trite and obvious - the magic and the Thief class. The third is more telling:

Aside from ideas and specific things, the very manner in which Jack Vance portrays a fantasy environment, the interaction of characters with that environment, and with each other, is so captivating that wherever I could manage it, I attempted to include the “feel” he brings to his fantasy tales in the AD&D game. My feeble ability likely managed to convey but little of this, but in all I do believe that a not a little of what fans consider to be the “soul” of the game stems from that attempt.

Gary was "old school" in more ways than one, so he wasn't scared to talk about the "soul" of D&D rather than some bland technical term. I like that sort of language too. He was also obviously attempting to be humble here, so he didn't come out and say that, in play, his attempt to imbue the "soul" of his game with the "feel" of Vance's fiction is often highly successful. 

It is, though. I have recently finished reading The Dirdir, the third in Vance's "Planet of Adventure" series, and I was struck again and again by not only how obvious were the inspirations in it for the "feel" of D&D, but also how this manages to follow-through into what you might call the "lived experience" of D&D players. Not to put too fine a point on it, but basically every D&D campaign I have been involved in has felt like a Jack Vance story without any of us consciously attempting to make it that way. It's as if, by some strange alchemy, Gygax's intentions manage to find effect without ever being stated and without, in many cases, the players even knowing who Jack Vance was.

At times the inspirations are unbelievably direct. In the central portion of the book, the main characters basically act out a D&D campaign, exploring not a megadungeon but an area of wilderness, and searching for "sequins" in the form of "nodes" rather than gold, in a setup which provides the paradigm format for "OSR" games to this day. Here they are arriving in Maust, the settlement on the edge of the "dungeon", which attracts adventurers from all over the world of Tschai:

By noon Maust appeared in the distance: a jumble of tall narrow buildings with high gables and crooked roof-lines, built of dark timber and age-blackened tile...Running boys came out to meet the motor-wagon. They shouted slogans and held up signs and banners: "Sequin-takers attention! Kobo Hux will sell one of his excellent sequin-detectors." "Formulate your plans at the Inn of Purple Lights." "Weapons, puff-pads, maps, digging implements from Sag the Mercantilist are eminently useful." "Do not grope at random; the Seer Garzu divines the location of large purple nodes." "Flee the Dirdir with all possible agility; use supple boots provided by Awalko." "Your last thoughts will be pleasant if, before death, you first consume the euphoric tablets formulated by Laus the Thaumaturge." "Enjoy a jolly respite, before entering the Zone, at the Platform of Merriment."

After arrival, they stop at an inn and haggle with the innkeeper ("For three modest chambers you demand three hundred sequins? Have you no sense of proportion? The charges are outrageous!") and then go to a library to research "the Zone" which they will be exploring for gold:

The side wall displayed a great map of the Zone; shelves held pamphlets, portfolios, compilations. The consultant, a small sad-eyed man, sat to the side and responded to questions in a confidential whisper. The three passed the afternoon studying the physiography of the Zone, the tracks of successful and unsuccessful ventures, the statistical distribution of Dirdir kills. Of those who entered the Zone, something under two-thirds returned, with an average gain of sequins to the value of six-hundred. "The figures here are somewhat misleading," Anacho stated. "They include the fringe-runners who never venture more than half a mile into the Zone. The takers who work the hills and the far slopes account for most of the deaths and most of the wealth."

When the actual exploration gets underway, it even feels a bit like the combat in some D&D campaigns when the PCs have levelled up a bit and are starting to "grind":

There were four slaughters that day, four on the next, five on the third day, by which time the process had become an efficient routine. During mornings and evenings the bodies were buried, and the gear repaired. The business seemed as passionless as fishing...

Mostly the inspirations, though, are subtler and more in the way of mood (or "feel" as Gygax put it). Does this not sound like a prototype for every conversation that has ever taken place between D&D PCs and a prospective "business associate"?

Woudiver seemed in no hurry to have them go. He settled into a chair with an unctuous grunt. "Another dear friend deals in gems. He will efficiently convert your treasure into sequins, if the treasure is gems, as I presume? No? Rare metal, then? No? Aha! Precious essences? 

"It might be any or none," said Reith. "I think it best, at this stage, to remain indefinite." 

Woudiver twisted his face into a mask of whimsical vexation. "It is precisely this indefiniteness which gives me pause! If I knew better what I might expect - " 

"Whoever helps me," said Reith, "or whoever accompanies me, can expect wealth." 

Woudiver pursed his lips. "So now I must join this piratical expedition in order to share the booty?" 

"I'll pay a reasonable percentage before we leave. If you come with us - " Reith rolled his eyes toward the ceiling at the thought - "or when we return, you'll get more." 

"How much more, precisely?" 

"I don't like to say. You'd suspect me of irresponsibility. But you wouldn't be disappointed." 

From the corner Artilo gave a skeptical croak, which Woudiver ignored. He spoke in a voice of great dignity. "As a practical man I can't operate on speculation. I would require a retaining fee of ten thousand sequins."

Does this not sound like a description of every "city of thieves" in every D&D campaign in which one appears?

"A warning: the city seethes with intrigue. Folk come to Sivishe for a single purpose: to win advantage. The city is a turmoil of illicit activity, robbery, extortion, vice, gambling, gluttony, extravagant display, swindling. These are endemic, and the victim has small hope of recourse. The Dirdir are unconcerned; the antics and maneuvers of the sub-men are nothing to them. The Administrator is interested only in maintaining order. So: caution! Trust no-one, answer no questions! Identify yourselves as steppe-men seeking employment; profess stupidity. By such means we minimize risk."

And at times even the conversations between the main characters sound like the sarcastic bickerings of players sat round a table (if a little effusive in their vocabulary):

"He is a notable gourmand and voluptuary, with tastes at once so refined, so gross and so inordinate as to cost him vast sums. This information was given freely, in a tone of envious admiration. Woudiver's illicit capabilities were merely implied." 

"Woudiver would appear to be an unsavory colleague," said Reith. 

Anacho snorted in derision. "You demand that I find someone proficient at conniving, chicanery, theft; when I produce this man, you look down your nose at him!"

And this is even more true when they are squabbling about treasure, as here:

"Look there." [Anacho] pointed. Not twenty feet distant the ground had broken, revealing the wrinkled dome of a large mature node. "Scarlets at least. Maybe purples."

Reith made a gesture of sad resignation. "We can hardly carry the fortune we already have. It is sufficient."

"You underestimate the rapacity and greed of Savishe," grumbled Anacho. "To do what you propose will require two fortunes, or more." He dug up the node. "A purple. We can't leave it behind."

"Very well," said Reith. "I'll carry it."

Or here, where they even start fighting about encumbrance:

"One more kill," said Traz. "Here now comes a group, rich from their hunting." 

"But why? We have all the sequins we can carry!" 

"We can discard our sards and some emeralds, and carry only reds and purples."

But the Vancian "feel" also finds its way in to the structure of the game's ephemera. Nobody involved in writing Monster Manual entries has ever said anywhere (to my knowledge) that they were riffing on Vance. But take a look at this passage from The Dirdir and tell me it doesn't sound like it could have come from the pages of a bestiary, or Dragon magazine (were it not for the sprinkle of sardonic humour, of course, and the fact that D&D bestiary entries are never this imaginative):

"Remember," Anacho warned, "the Khors are a sensitive people. Do not speak to them; pay them no heed except from necessity, in which case you must use the fewest possible words. They consider garrulity a crime against nature. Do not stand upwind of a Khor, nor if possible downwind; such acts are symbolic of antagonism. Never acknowledge the presence of a woman; do not look toward their children - they will suspect you of laying a curse; and above all ignore their sacred grove. Their weapon is the iron dart which they throw with astonishing accuracy; they are a dangerous people." 

"I hope I remember everything," said Reith. 

Playing D&D, in other words, mirrors the experience of reading Vance's fiction very closely indeed, and it happens without this ever being the stated "point" of the designers or generally the intention of the players. It happens through "feel". That is Gary Gygax's possibly unique achievement. Lots of designers explicitly attempt to emulate a genre or piece of fiction through an RPG system and fail. Gygax did it implicitly and suceeded. Perhaps there is a lesson in that.