The influence of Dungeons & Dragons on modern fantasy literature

One more abstract concept is the "leveling-up" feeling that some fantasy novels have. Oh, and finding and using several "artifacts". The one I think Erikson was being most accused of is the "campaign" structure of his novels.

Because they're more general than just D&D (they extend to many rpg games), they can be harder to spot.

For instance, if a novel involves a character learning more and more "spells" as the book goes on, that's pretty RPG. (And since the most famous rpg is D&D, people misuse it as a general term for all rpgs.) Also, magic systems with very systemized applications.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

One more abstract concept is the "leveling-up" feeling that some fantasy novels have. Oh, and finding and using several "artifacts".

. . .

For instance, if a novel involves a character learning more and more "spells" as the book goes on, that's pretty RPG. (And since the most famous rpg is D&D, people misuse it as a general term for all rpgs.) Also, magic systems with very systemized applications.

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Weeeelll, it IS perfectly natural to get better at something the more you do it, and a character using the same two or three spells to solve every problem would get pretty old after a while. Especially given that the rules of drama require the main characters to face continually stronger enemies. And a non-systemized magic system can easily become a problem, and source of deus-ex-machina. So I don't think it's fair to automatically associate these features with D&D.

You know, I was starting to think maybe D&D doesn't have much influence on fantasy after all. Then I read efreysson's post--no offense intended, but disagreement ahoy!

efreysson said:

Weeeelll, it IS perfectly natural to get better at something the more you do it,

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In some cases, yeah. But a lot of people plateau pretty early on in whatever they do.

and a character using the same two or three spells

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Why does the magic a character uses even have to be conceived of as discrete spells? Can't there be things that aren't spells?

to solve every problem would get pretty old after a while.

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Fantasy uses the exact same weapons to effect violent solutions over and over again, and that doesn't get boring.

Especially given that the rules of drama require the main characters to face continually stronger enemies.

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The words stronger and enemy evoke, at least for me, mental images of martial contests. As far as I know, the "rule" only claims that there should be "rising action", or a series of increasingly tense climaxes.

And a non-systemized magic system can easily become a problem, and source of deus-ex-machina. So I don't think it's fair to automatically associate these features with D&D.

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Now this I can partially agree with. Systems are indeed useful, but why? Only because they prevent the writer from cheating the reader with the DEM. Although I use rulebased magic in my work, I'd like to think it's still possible to get away with freeform magic.

Many will disagree, but I'll throw it out there, freeform magic is the best. All this logical crap is fun only once. 200 years of fantasy later, I have one word for you: "mana".

E.g.: The "naming" done in Earthsea felt like an original idea
When Rothfuss comes up with "naming" and everyone screams about how awesome he is, I just want to puke.

Freeform magic without any control whatsoever (e.g. waves of magic by Erikson and Bakker, hundred thousand dead they leave once they pass, etc), is boring too.

Happy medium, somewhere, please.

Capital said:

Many will disagree, but I'll throw it out there, freeform magic is the best. All this logical crap is fun only once. 200 years of fantasy later, I have one word for you: "mana".

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Lol. But I want to stress that just because there's a rulebased system backing the magic, doesn't mean the reader ever gets a glimpse of the system.

E.g.: The "naming" done in Earthsea felt like an original idea
When Rothfuss comes up with "naming" and everyone screams about how awesome he is, I just want to puke.

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He borrowed a lot more than naming from Le Guin.

When I say "systematized", I mean in the way that a game magic system is set up. Several discrete spells learned based on level. D&D, Golden Sun, Final Fantasy. I don't mean a "scientific" form of magic. I have nothing against rules. In fact they're one of the three major structures I endorse. (I also like freeform and well-done scientific systems.)

But something like Lackey's strict rule for what class of mage can use ley-lines vs. nodes, for example, is a but too gamy for my taste. Just like howin Morrowind you get more ingredient effects by moving along the scale from "novice" to "master". Sticking too strictlyto your categorization system borders on rpg.

Yes, people do get better with practice. But I'm talking terraced advancement reminiscent of levels in rpgs.

Continually facing stronger enemies is another thing associated with gaming. It's not a requirement in fantasy, nor must all divides be based on the sheer magical "power" of the two combatants.


I'd argue with Capital that the physical effects of the magic in Prince of Nothing and Malazan aren't the primary goal. It's more about the thematic, metaphorical, and emotional impact. And there's more than just the big stuff, anyway.


[quote = "Chrsi P"]How many ways can you talk about elves, dragons, human fighter-thieves, etc. before they resemble each other?[/quote]

If you had listed something that didn't spring directly from D&D influences and tropes, you argument mght have held more weight. Plenty of authors manage to create interesting and occasionall unique worlds without resorting to Standard Fantasy Race/Class Divides[SUP]TM[/SUP].

I think the adventuring group is a tough thing to write well and still avoid D&D comparisons. Everyone with a defined role and a specialty is a little too convenient for fiction.

But, since so much of D&D's long standing tropes were really distilled elements of Tolkien, Howard, Leiber, Vance, and Moorcock, it is hard to say something is D&D based and not really influenced by the source material.

MattW said:

I think the adventuring group is a tough thing to write well and still avoid D&D comparisons. Everyone with a defined role and a specialty is a little too convenient for fiction.

But, since so much of D&D's long standing tropes were really distilled elements of Tolkien, Howard, Leiber, Vance, and Moorcock, it is hard to say something is D&D based and not really influenced by the source material.

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Well, true, but when the author mentions they play D&D, it becomes a little more likely.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Well, true, but when the author mentions they play D&D, it becomes a little more likely.

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I would hope that an author is either well read in the genre, or at least recognizes that their personal influences may have also been influenced by something else (and possibly seek it out). I played D&D (years back) and I can't deny it had an influence on my writing, but my stronger influences are from sources like Gemmell and Martin.



As for how D&D influences novels, I can cite 2 examples.

I cannot stand RA Salvatore because everything he writes reads like an interpretation of a game almost down to the turns, actions, and dice rolls. On the other hand, Hickman/Weis Dragonlance novels were clearly inspired by and built from actual gaming modules, but the story was interesting enough to me, and the writing was good enough to make the lingering game elements disappear.

I played D&D pretty heavily from 1976 to 1990. I still have my copies of the three original pamphlets (though the box they came in disintegrated years ago), as well as the precursor, Chainmail. I don't think I've read more than a handful of fantasy novels published since that later date that didn't remind me of a D&D game in some way. I don't mean inspired by the same sources - I mean that regardless of magic system they played out with a structure about like you'd find in a D&D game. There may be some out there that don't, but I haven't stumbled across them.

I've never played D&D and know remarkably little about it for a fantasy writer, so I can't say it influenced me.

In my own field of interest...

* Dragons who have powers strictly defined by their scale colour. (Even more so if scale colour denotes whether the dragon is good, evil or neutral).

* Where multiple species of dragons exist, only those with four legs are considered true dragons. The others are considered to be distant cousins (this comes up especially with wyverns... the Monstrous Manual says they're not dragons. Heraldry and folklore say they are).

Oddly, many people don't realise the DnD influence of those things. Wikipedia often gets people editing those ideas into dragon mythology articles, unaware that they aren't from mythology.

To some extent, D&D inspires every fantasy novelist now who has read any fantasy novel published in the last twenty years, because D&D inspired those novels directly or indirectly.

But on the other hand, none of the "D&D" stuff was original to D&D. Almost everything in D&D was borrowed from fantasy novels, even classes, well-rounded parties, systemized magic, levelling, huge variety of weird monsters, and the slow accumulation of magical items.

At this point, about the only things I can say are blatantly D&D-inspired are:

-Mind flayers, beholders, rust monsters, gelationous cubes, aboleths
-Good metallic dragons, neutral gem dragons, evil chromatic dragons
-Any author who says their novel started out as a D&D campaign (Feist, Robert Jordan to a limited extent, etc)

If you expand the scope to "tabletop RPGs," the influence becomes much wider, though.

Basically, I'd say that there are almost no traits unique to D&D influence, but that D&D influence does make traits much more common than they were before D&D. (Example: You'll probably find more taxonomy of dragons by color after D&D than before. You'll find more classes and significant level-ups after D&D than before. Etc.)

But if you really read Lord of the Rings, most of the "D&D" elements are already there, especially in the siege at Helm's Deep (Gimli and Legolas keeping count of the dozens of orcs they're killing) and when the elf queen gives everyone magical items.

A (bad) D&D-influenced fantasy just "feels" too much like a transcribed game. I've read -- or partially read and thrown far -- stories that were based on actual games. Players who become writers don't always have sufficient background beyond gaming. What was exciting and cool to the players whose personae have become the characters of a novel is not so great to a reader who started out as a reader. It's a second-hand inspiration, a cheap knock-off epic with too much special effects and too little solid ground under it.

D&D influence is easy to see in formulaic plots and settings with assumptions based on a two-dimensional view of medieval life and a neatly polarized universe. I had a lot of fun playing D&D, on both sides of the DM screen, but I would never spin off a story from a campaign, or even let it creep into my writing.

Mara said:

To some extent, D&D inspires every fantasy novelist now who has read any fantasy novel published in the last twenty years, because D&D inspired those novels directly or indirectly.

But on the other hand, none of the "D&D" stuff was original to D&D. Almost everything in D&D was borrowed from fantasy novels, even classes, well-rounded parties, systemized magic, levelling, huge variety of weird monsters, and the slow accumulation of magical items.

At this point, about the only things I can say are blatantly D&D-inspired are:

-Mind flayers, beholders, rust monsters, gelationous cubes, aboleths
-Good metallic dragons, neutral gem dragons, evil chromatic dragons
-Any author who says their novel started out as a D&D campaign (Feist, Robert Jordan to a limited extent, etc)

If you expand the scope to "tabletop RPGs," the influence becomes much wider, though.

Basically, I'd say that there are almost no traits unique to D&D influence, but that D&D influence does make traits much more common than they were before D&D. (Example: You'll probably find more taxonomy of dragons by color after D&D than before. You'll find more classes and significant level-ups after D&D than before. Etc.)

But if you really read Lord of the Rings, most of the "D&D" elements are already there, especially in the siege at Helm's Deep (Gimli and Legolas keeping count of the dozens of orcs they're killing) and when the elf queen gives everyone magical items.

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Tell it to the UF, honey.

While a lot of fantasy probably is influenced by D&D, i'd suspect that the majority of similarities are more due to the fact that LotR has influenced both PnP Fantasy games and Fantasy novels like nothing since.

Lhun said:

While a lot of fantasy probably is influenced by D&D, i'd suspect that the majority of similarities are more due to the fact that LotR has influenced both PnP Fantasy games and Fantasy novels like nothing since.

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Ghosts should stay quietly in their graves.

MattW said:

I think the adventuring group is a tough thing to write well and still avoid D&D comparisons. Everyone with a defined role and a specialty is a little too convenient for fiction.

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Well, unless one of the characters deliberately assembles a group of specialists to achieve a task.

D and D was directly inspired by LOTR.

Moreover, the characteristics of D and D (and LOTR) are all in medieval epic and romance.

In other words, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

D&D certainly influenced my first book, but not in the bad ways I see people listing. My influences are more directly attributable to Tolkien and Martin, with of course a smattering of Leiber, LeGuin, Moorcock, etc. I played D&D quite a lot as a teen, and I used some character names and personalities in my novel, however, I never thought about the game of D&D while writing the novel. I never thought in terms of dice, turns, levels, wandering monsters, etc.

Where magic was concerned, I made it almost impossible to use in my world. The natives cannot manipulate it at all, except for elves and dwarves who are able to instill a minimal amount of 'energy' into their manufacturing. Only the group of earthlings who arrive on the planet are eventually able to manipulate the energy directly, and they are so exhausted by doing so that this dramatically limits what they can do. They arrive on the planet as scientists from earth, and end up as the only people called 'wizards' in my world.

Medievalist said:

D and D was directly inspired by LOTR.

Moreover, the characteristics of D and D (and LOTR) are all in medieval epic and romance.

In other words, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

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While I think that as writers we are more truly influenced by Tolkien and friends, I do think D&D provided a larger audience for such fantasy. I worry that agents and publishers may not recognize this fact. I think they are likely to call any work that is influenced by D&D cliché or derivative and reject it. While I do think cliché is bad, I don't think that being derivative is bad in this particular case, because I believe there is a large fan base for such fantasy.

efreysson said:

Well, unless one of the characters deliberately assembles a group of specialists to achieve a task.

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Then it's Ocean's 11

Caper fantasy. It exists.