What is the World of TSRan?
As the name suggests, the World of TSRan is a campaign setting which takes the predicates of TSR-era D&D and follows through on them seriously. It is a world in which:
- There are such things in the world as alignments; they are real things that (some) people are aware exist; and there is a cosmic conflict between law, neutrality and chaos taking place in the background at all times
- The geographic regions are like mirrored refractions of the real world, and contain human cultures which are likewise mirrored refractions of those found in our own world's history, anachronistically jumbled up (pseudo-medieval Europe; pseudo-classical antiquity Mediterranean; pseudo-ancient Babylon; pseudo-medieval Arabia; pseudo-Incas, etc.).
- There is a very large variety of monsters in the world, drawing on all the material in the many Monster/Monstrous Manuals produced during the TSR era.
- There are outer and inner planes which are discoverable and accessible through special means.
- There are devils and demons who take an active role in events.
- Elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, goblins and the like roughly conform to their classical stereotypes.
- There are psionics as well as magic.
What does the World of TSRan look like?
The visual cues for the World of TSRan are found in the art of Larry Elmore and Keith Parkinson. These are typical scenes from around the World of TSRan:
What happens in the World of TSRan?
The World of TSRan is one of high adventure. "Adventurers" are a known class of person and the world abounds with them; youngsters grow up with the phrase on their lips - "When I grow up, I want to be an adventurer." It is a world in which battle, theft, assassination, sorcery, summoning, burglary, kidnap and exploration are happening constantly and everywhere; in every forest and on every hill lurk giants, dragons, ogres and worse; every fold in the landscape conceals ruins, towers, tombs and ancient monuments; around every street corner in every town members of the guild of thieves plot against the guard; under the earth lies an Underdark thronged with life. The World of TSRan teems, even in its most desolate wildernesses.
Where is the World of TSRan?
The World of TSRan lies deep in the memory of every person middle-aged or older who played D&D and read Fighting Fantasy or Dragonlance books in their youth in the 70s, 80s, or 90s, and lies deep in the cultural memory of anybody younger who has ever stood on the merest fringe of that world. It lies on the covers of splatbooks and old issues of Dragon magazine; it can be found wherever the names 'McCaffrey', 'Eddings', 'Goodkind', 'Brooks', 'Weis and Hickman', and 'Dever' are still whispered and understood; it lives on in D&D settings the length and breadth of the world, wherever the word 'Dragonborn' is not mentioned.
How can I get to the World of TSRan?
Reach into your memories if you have them; if not, reach instead into the original iteration of the 2nd edition AD&D rulebooks - those of the dodgy blue and white interior art - which are the purest distillation of TSRanian culture known to the sages.
A fun experiment! You remind me here of the Original D&D Setting booklet by Semper Initiativus Unum: https://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2013/05/od-setting-posts-in-pdf.html
ReplyDeleteThis also reminds me of Gary Gygax's 1985 novel about Gord the Rogue, _Saga of Old City_, which (sigh) I actually read back then.
Fortunately, I had escaped TSRan and fled into Wider FRPGland before the 2nd edition came out. This world you describe was never mine. Give me Erol Otus (or line drawings by John Blanche or Gary Chalk) any day!
One escapes from TSRan but then finds oneself nostalgic for it decades later - at least in my experience.
Delete> there is a cosmic conflict between law, neutrality and chaos taking place in the background at all times
ReplyDeleteIt wouldn't be in the background though, I think.
As written, the rules (certainly BX, BECMI and RC) state that everybody capable of speech know the language of their alignment, and they can't learn the other ones in any way. So much so that if they change alignment, they instantly "learn" the new one and forget the old one.
This - in my opinion - inevitably leads to a world where everybody can trivially test everybody else's alignment, and things like lawful-only places would be common, where guards ask you to "speak lawful now, or leave this town immediately".
Then there's the issue of powerful, easily accessible, reliable magic. I think it would make the world very different from the usual vanilla medieval-ish fantasy. But that's a different rant.
What I meant by that comment was that it wouldn't be in the foreground everywhere in the world at all times. There would be other stuff going on against which the wider conflict between law/chaos would be a backdrop.
DeleteFor me the world you’re describing doesn’t come across as particularly TSR-like or tied to a particular real world period.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me still the default for generic gaming fantasy, ever since that period; I don’t think it would be particularly foreign to anyone whose expectations were formed by D&D 4E, or 5E, or Pathfinder, or World of Warcraft, even though these might not tick off each and every bullet point exactly.
I haven’t kept up with fantasy literature for a long while now but my sense is that it has moved on, and that G. R. R. Martin’s gritty subversion bacame the new generic default, so a revisit of these more lighthearted, or unrealistic, or epic conceits might be refreshing there.
There was in my opinion a fairly radical break between 2nd edition TSR era stuff and 4th edition WOTC era stuff in terms of tone and feel.
DeleteI think you're right about the break. Rules aside, AD&D has the specific TSRan tone you describe, but 3rd ed through to 5th ed (and Pathfinder) feels like a different, contiguous vibe. One could probably write a book on why, but it feels like a full-on generational shift in fantasy occurred between 2nd and 3rd DnD. Aesthetically, you can see it in the transition from Frazetta and Elmore, to Brom et al, and particularly Reynolds. Wayne Reynolds was ahead of his time when it comes to broader, non-token representation, and in terms of eschewing the obvious "mirrored refractions of the real world" you describe.
DeleteMy instinct is that the break is in 4e. I grew up with 3.5 and the above sounds right to me, while 4e messed around very drastically with everything and 5e, while it's put a lot back, retains some of the changes and pushes things in a more storygame-ish, flexible direction.
DeleteObviously very anecdotally, but the fact that right here, there are people saying there's a break between 2E on one side and 3E, 4E, 5E on the other, and other people saying there's a break between 2E, 3E on one side, and 4E, 5E on the other suggests to me that there isn't much of a fundamental break at all, just little shifts (and not always in the same direction).
Deletenoisms, out of your key features about the World of TSRan, are there any that you feel especially don't apply to 4E, or 4E onwards?
The major one for me is the business of the world; 4E on the other hand makes much of "points of light", trying to paint a world more Dying Earth, with isolated settlements, dotting desolate stretches of wilderness... but in practice, outside of strictly descriptive and not gameplay influencing text, my experience is that it ends up feeling the same as it ever did. Just as you describe, bandits ambushing caravans on every bend, monsters lurking in every forest, thieves guilds in every town.
The great realm of "Fantasyland"!
DeleteMaybe you're right, 'Anonymous', but it probably needs a blog post...
DeleteI thoroughly enjoyed reading and re-reading every word in this post. As a veteran of every edition, and an explorer in many other FRP games not published by TSR, I can totally see the point you are making today. Having returned to AD&D 2e a year or so ago, it is now my system of choice. I have also noted the increase in interest in 2e as evidenced by blog posts, videos and the rising prices of original copies on the second hand markets. For me, AD&D 2e is the sweet spot in FRP design.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'd love to run a 2nd edition campaign actually, complete with all the additional compllcations like weapon speed factors and whatnot.
DeleteUnfortunately, several of the bullet points you list under "What is the World of TSRan" are inaccessible under the "original editions of the 2nd edition AD&D rulebooks." Devils and demons, psionics, and many of the creatures from the 1E monstrous manuals were cut from 2E.
ReplyDelete[also: not sure 'McCaffrey' really belong in the same sentence as 'Weis and Hickman.' AM's brand of science-fantasy doesn't really belong to the same world as tinker gnomes on the moon]
Sorry, yes...I realize I'm being a killjoy.
Well yeah, you say demons, I say Tanar'ri... But psionics weren't cut from 2nd edition for long - I have the 2nd edition psionics handbook on my shelf, and there are pleny of psionic monsters in the 2nd edition MM.
DeleteFair enough on Ann McCaffrey - I have to confess I've never actually made it through any of her books.
Mm. Too bad. The original Pern book (Dragonflight? I think) is quite good, though I started with her short story collections (“Get off the Unicorn,” etc.) waaay back in middle school. Her stuff would curl Weis’s hair…if not burn it off.
Delete; )
I know all about the tenarii and Complete Psionics book, etc. YOU were the one who said the original 2E books.
Don’t get me wrong: I love me some Keith Parkinson (to this day even. Larry Elmore faded for me back in my early-20s). I just prefer his stuff for Rifts more than D&D.
How important do you feel dungeons are to TSRan? This is one of the first shifts that really took place between early and late 1E, and the change from map-based adventures (dungeon-crawls & hex-crawls of Greyhawk) to event-based adventures (with varying levels of rigidity, most notably Dragonlance).
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I love the artwork. Elmore, Parkinson, Fields and Easley really captured that era. Although not as old-school as Otus, Willingham and Sutherland they really helped me to visualise the settings and adventures.
Good question - for me the most important element of TSRan is the hexmap/gazetteer format, but you're right that the 2nd edition era was much more freeform in that regard. I would add that the adventures were event-based and also location-based (you did get maps of adventure locales, etc.).
DeleteThat is what Greyhawk has always been to me.
ReplyDeletehttps://mythlands-erce.blogspot.com/2019/07/greyhawk-i-my-journey-into-d-land.html
I like that post, although I wonder if Mystara is even more Greyhawk than Greyhawk, if you follow me?
DeleteI love Mystara, but for me it is a bit too gonzo for that.
DeleteThe narrow band of the early known world fit's the bill well though. Karameikos just about beats out Verbobonc+wild coast (https://mythlands-erce.blogspot.com/2019/12/alternate-oerths-mythic-greyhawk.html) for the quientessential fantasy realm for me. Not just in terms of its own flavor, but also how sits close to elfland, dwarfland, hobbitland and wizardland, with the Empire to the south.
Been meaning to blog about Mystara for a while. This might spur me to actually do it!
As Professor Eco explained at about the same era, this would be impossible. You can't un-grow, after all. %)
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the settings you mention were actually different, and world of Dragonlance, e.g., was a one where "adventurers" were far from a common profession.
Mike