The Wilderness as Mythic Overworld
Dec 15, 2015 18:03:18 GMT -6
Mushgnome, sepulchre, and 3 more like this
Post by delverinthedark on Dec 15, 2015 18:03:18 GMT -6
Thanks to good old Philotomy for giving me a title to take off on! 
I can't make any claims as strong as his, but I think the way the wilderness operates can square very nicely with a way of conceiving OF that wilderness. D&D as presented is a game that doesn't seem to make much of a focus on social matters. Gygax wrote in "Role-playing: Realism vs. Game-Logic" that "In the overall scheme of the game, social level is unimportant to a band of adventurers going out to slay monsters and gain treasure" and certainly there are no rules, as such, to address PC social rank; while not having rules for something is no indication that that something is necessarily unimportant, it seems in this case that, lacking a discussion of the implications of social hierarchies in granting advantages or disadvantages to characters in various situations, D&D as written is uninterested in the social level of PCs relative to each other, NOR the social level of PCs relative to the game world. The tables of OD&D, as has been commented on before, paint a picture of a wilderness almost apocalyptic in its human sparseness, where human society may hardly be expected to have developed to any degree. And on a mechanical level (though I have made no very heavy analysis of this), it seems that the power and the leadership that successful player characters gain over time is enough to destabilize any established social hierarchy, particularly if one holds fast to considering almost all humans 0-level. Not to mention that, in most cases, it would require a lot of explanation as to why any civilization in the area has not been overrun by the powerful monsters and evil knights/wizards/priests that seem to lurk all about or, conversely, why an extremely powerful civilization has not exterminated the more paltry agents of evil. Ultimately, what this suggests to me is that D&D is at its most focused, and thus perhaps most fun, if the game is set in a place OUTSIDE of social concerns, something that was clearly understood in making the wilderness a focal point of play.
And yet, power gained and treasure earned (especially the latter) strike me as hollow and even nonsensical without some form of society giving them ground. The existence of armor and weapons and goods for the characters beyond what they could have made themselves seem to indicate SOME form of social organization, and a fairly elaborate one at that!
But what does this have to do with a Mythic Overworld? Simply this: that one of the most elegant reconciliations of the social and anti-social tendencies I can think of is to conceive of the wilderness and its dangers NOT as something concrete and material, existing in the same way as the civilized worlds of men, but as Fairyland or Alfheimr. There's a grand literary tradition of the peregrination of heroes into and within fantastic realms that seem to exist neither inside nor outside but parallel to the familiar. A civilization exists because it does not seek out the dangers of the Fairyland and thus does not encounter them; adventurers encounter it precisely because they seek it deep in their hearts, heedless of the unknown and unpredictable dangers it sends forth in their search for the unrivaled power and treasure it offers. And so, moving across a landscape between pockets of civilization where there is nothing of the Fae, they encounter things that don't necessarily ALWAYS exist for EVERYONE but exist at the inscrutable whim of the strange powers that haunt the lands where men rarely tread.
Not only does such a metaphysical idea of the campaign world appeal to my aesthetic sense, it seems to me to permit the ready existence of both civilization AND fantastic danger, as well as giving an in-game license for the wildly differing power of successful characters (not to mention their monstrous foes) and the majority of the civilized world; Alfheimr is truly beyond the natural, and those who venture forth into it are forever marked as such: by their power, by the treasure they return with, and perhaps by something almost indescribable in their natures...
I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this concept. Am I missing anything in my considerations of the rules? Is this concept good, bad, or indifferent? Do people have any further ways of building on it?
I can't make any claims as strong as his, but I think the way the wilderness operates can square very nicely with a way of conceiving OF that wilderness. D&D as presented is a game that doesn't seem to make much of a focus on social matters. Gygax wrote in "Role-playing: Realism vs. Game-Logic" that "In the overall scheme of the game, social level is unimportant to a band of adventurers going out to slay monsters and gain treasure" and certainly there are no rules, as such, to address PC social rank; while not having rules for something is no indication that that something is necessarily unimportant, it seems in this case that, lacking a discussion of the implications of social hierarchies in granting advantages or disadvantages to characters in various situations, D&D as written is uninterested in the social level of PCs relative to each other, NOR the social level of PCs relative to the game world. The tables of OD&D, as has been commented on before, paint a picture of a wilderness almost apocalyptic in its human sparseness, where human society may hardly be expected to have developed to any degree. And on a mechanical level (though I have made no very heavy analysis of this), it seems that the power and the leadership that successful player characters gain over time is enough to destabilize any established social hierarchy, particularly if one holds fast to considering almost all humans 0-level. Not to mention that, in most cases, it would require a lot of explanation as to why any civilization in the area has not been overrun by the powerful monsters and evil knights/wizards/priests that seem to lurk all about or, conversely, why an extremely powerful civilization has not exterminated the more paltry agents of evil. Ultimately, what this suggests to me is that D&D is at its most focused, and thus perhaps most fun, if the game is set in a place OUTSIDE of social concerns, something that was clearly understood in making the wilderness a focal point of play.
And yet, power gained and treasure earned (especially the latter) strike me as hollow and even nonsensical without some form of society giving them ground. The existence of armor and weapons and goods for the characters beyond what they could have made themselves seem to indicate SOME form of social organization, and a fairly elaborate one at that!
But what does this have to do with a Mythic Overworld? Simply this: that one of the most elegant reconciliations of the social and anti-social tendencies I can think of is to conceive of the wilderness and its dangers NOT as something concrete and material, existing in the same way as the civilized worlds of men, but as Fairyland or Alfheimr. There's a grand literary tradition of the peregrination of heroes into and within fantastic realms that seem to exist neither inside nor outside but parallel to the familiar. A civilization exists because it does not seek out the dangers of the Fairyland and thus does not encounter them; adventurers encounter it precisely because they seek it deep in their hearts, heedless of the unknown and unpredictable dangers it sends forth in their search for the unrivaled power and treasure it offers. And so, moving across a landscape between pockets of civilization where there is nothing of the Fae, they encounter things that don't necessarily ALWAYS exist for EVERYONE but exist at the inscrutable whim of the strange powers that haunt the lands where men rarely tread.
Not only does such a metaphysical idea of the campaign world appeal to my aesthetic sense, it seems to me to permit the ready existence of both civilization AND fantastic danger, as well as giving an in-game license for the wildly differing power of successful characters (not to mention their monstrous foes) and the majority of the civilized world; Alfheimr is truly beyond the natural, and those who venture forth into it are forever marked as such: by their power, by the treasure they return with, and perhaps by something almost indescribable in their natures...
I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this concept. Am I missing anything in my considerations of the rules? Is this concept good, bad, or indifferent? Do people have any further ways of building on it?
