{"id":7554,"date":"2009-11-21T22:55:40","date_gmt":"2009-11-22T05:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/?p=7554"},"modified":"2010-03-19T14:28:29","modified_gmt":"2010-03-19T21:28:29","slug":"maliszewski-and-the-books-that-founded-dd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/maliszewski-and-the-books-that-founded-dd\/","title":{"rendered":"Maliszewski and “The Books That Founded D&D”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DMGAlphaFixed0001\"<\/p>\n

James Maliszewski, the proprietor of Grognardia<\/a><\/em> and a Friend of The Cimmerian<\/em>, has posted an\u00a0article on The Escapist<\/a><\/em> website. It is called “The Books That Founded D&D” and\u00a0I found it\u00a0quite interesting. I thought it worth some commentary.<\/p>\n

Mr. Maliszewski starts his essay noting the various reasons why J.R.R. Tolkien should be dismissed as\u00a0major influence upon the role-playing game that Gygax and Arneson developed. Most of the\u00a0evidence used to back this up\u00a0is cited from Gygax’s own writings. The fact that these writings date from before and<\/em> after the threatened lawsuit by Tolkien Enterprises means very\u00a0little, in my view.<\/p>\n

Tolkien deeply influenced Dungeons and Dragons<\/em>. That is my humble opinion and I stand by it. The Elves as portrayed in D&D would be far\u00a0different if JRRT<\/a> had never written his novel, The Lord of the Rings<\/em>. The same for D&D dwarves. Double ditto for “orcs,” which species (with that particular appellation)\u00a0would never exist, but for Tollers. Triple ditto for the “halflings” in the game (whom I always considered ridiculous, in game terms).\u00a0All of that, however, is fodder for another blog entry. Now,\u00a0let’s get\u00a0to all\u00a0the stuff that James\u00a0Maliszkewski and I do<\/em> agree on (more or less)…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"fraz-jc&apes\"<\/p>\n

Edgar Rice Burroughs<\/a> gets name-checked. Right on. The man was foundational to American “speculative fiction” in all its forms. Howard had more ERB volumes in his library than those of any other author. H.P. Lovecraft devoured Burroughs’ fiction as a youth.\u00a0Ray Bradbury has never been shy about the influence of the Man\u00a0From Tarzana upon his writings, nor was Leigh Brackett reticent about same. While Michael Moorcock has sometimes tried to distance himself from ERB fan beginnings, the evidence is there for all to see.\u00a0Gygax would’ve had to work very hard to exclude the\u00a0presence of\u00a0ERB from his game. About all he would have been left with was Poe, Baum\u00a0and Cabell for the Americans, and Haggard, Morris,\u00a0Hodgson,\u00a0Eddison and JRRT for the Brits\u00a0.<\/p>\n

Maliszewski then cites Robert E. Howard. Now, to me,\u00a0it’s hard to find\u00a0much concrete evidence of REH in the game as it\u00a0was\u00a0presented ’round about 1980, despite what Gygax had to say about\u00a0Howard’s influence. There were no true\u00a0serpent-men in the first Monster Manual<\/em>. Nor do I recall any sort of close\u00a0analogues to Worms of the Earth\/Children of the Night\/People of the Dark. Magic runs absolutely rampant within D&D, in direct opposition to Howard’s fantasy yarns.\u00a0Most\u00a0game modules seemed based on\u00a0the premise that civilization was the optimum\u00a0condition and that barbarians needed to be pacified. Perhaps I am not recalling the right scenarios.<\/p>\n

Pratt and De Camp’s\u00a0‘Harold Shea’ tales are then discussed. I think we are on a little firmer ground\u00a0at this point. The two authors usually attempted to put a “modern” spin on whatever milieu Mr. Shea and his friends dumped themselves into.\u00a0Such a tone often\u00a0seemed to be taken with the many modules I’m familiar\u00a0with. I always felt myself wishing that Gygax had borrowed more from\u00a0Sprague’s tales of Pus\u00e2d<\/a> (if he was going to borrow from LSdC at all).<\/p>\n

Fritz Leiber is next on the agenda. I have little to add regarding Mr. Maliszewski’s assessments. Personally, I believe that Leiber’s tales matched the \"brom-tcde\"feel of early D&D as well\u00a0or better\u00a0than\u00a0those of any other author discussed in the article.<\/p>\n

Mr. Malizsewski then takes a look at the ‘Dying Earth’ stories by Jack Vance. He’ll find no argument from me regarding their influence upon old-school D&D. The magic system thereof (which I never thought worked that well, in game terms) is indisputably based\u00a0upon that created by Vance. “Ioun stones<\/a>,” anyone?<\/p>\n

H.P. Lovecraft is given his due. Besides the ilithids and kuo-toa that Maliszewski cites, I would also posit that all the various puddings, slimes and oozes (not to mention the gibbering mouthers) found in the game\u00a0are\u00a0variations on a shoggothian theme.<\/p>\n

\"otus-mouther\"<\/p>\n

Abraham (“A.”) Merritt\u00a0gets looked at rather quickly by Mr. Maliszewski, in my opinion.\u00a0What he does say focuses primarily on Merritt novels such as The Moon Pool<\/em> and The Face in the Abyss<\/em>. From where I stand, it\u00a0appears \"paizo-ishtar\"that books like The Ship\u00a0of Ishtar<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and The Dwellers\u00a0in the Mirage<\/em> were far more likely influences on Gygax. The latter two novels\u00a0 by Merritt\u00a0are both just a hair’s breadth away from outright Sword-and-Sorcery. Perhaps Maliszewski concentrated on Merritt’s other works because he recently blogged about The Ship of Ishtar<\/em><\/a>. It’s just good to see someone giving a shout-out to ol’ Abe.\u00a0Merritt’s influence on fantasy (and thus D&D)\u00a0is wide-spread, though little aknowledged today, so kudos to JM for the mention.<\/p>\n

Malizsewski notes the influence of Poul Anderson’s <\/a>fantasies upon\u00a0Dungeons and Dragons<\/em>, most especially, Three Hearts and Three Lions<\/em>. This cannot be denied. The hero of Three Hearts and Three Lions<\/em>, Holger Carlsen, is indubitably the model for D&D’s paladin class.\u00a0The regenerating, carrot-nosed\u00a0trolls seen in D&D\u00a0were definitely\u00a0five-finger-discounted\u00a0by TSR\u00a0from Anderson. Personally, I always wished that Gygax had used Poul’s classic novel, The Broken Sword<\/a><\/em>, as a primary inspiration. The trolls in that book are infinitely more interesting than the\u00a0riddling, squirmy-haired\u00a0buffoon one encounters in Three Hearts and Three Lions<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"andersonbooks\"<\/p>\n

Michael Moorcock is discussed briefly. Maliszewski\u00a0points out\u00a0that Moorcock’s\u00a0Law\/Order Mythos\u00a0(ultimately derived from Anderson) was\u00a0 appropriated\u00a0(with a few tweaks)\u00a0for the D&D alignment system.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Maliszewski closes by writing this:<\/p>\n

It’s unfortunate that so many of these books and authors today are largely unknown except to aficionados of early fantasy and science fiction. It’s my hope that, by bringing these authors to wider public knowledge, more people might not only recognize the debt that the hobby of roleplaying owes to their remarkable imaginations but also enjoy their writings in their own right. Like D&D itself, whose influence extends far beyond tabletop roleplaying games, these writers and their ideas contributed much to contemporary popular culture and they deserve their due.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While I may not agree with every one of Mr. Maliszewski’s conclusions, I can wholeheartedly get behind that sentiment. Right on, sword-brother.<\/p>\n

\"otus-troll\"<\/p>\n

*Art by Frazetta and Otus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Maliszewski, the proprietor of Grognardia and a Friend of The Cimmerian, has posted an\u00a0article on The Escapist website. It is called “The Books That Founded D&D” and\u00a0I found it\u00a0quite interesting. I thought it worth some commentary. Mr. Maliszewski starts his essay noting the various reasons why J.R.R. Tolkien should be dismissed as\u00a0major influence upon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,272,59,86,85,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anderson","category-edgar-rice-burroughs-other-authors","category-gaming-and-reh","category-fritz-leiber","category-merritt-abraham-fantasy-author","category-tolkien"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7554"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12239,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7554\/revisions\/12239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}