Friday, January 29, 2021

Random Roll: DMG, p. 40

This is the first post in what I intend to be an ongoing series. I've said on several occasions that the brilliance of Gary Gygax's Dungeon Masters Guide stems, at least in part, to its strange and often inexplicable mix of contents. Flip the book open to almost any page and odds are good your eyes will soon alight upon a sentence, paragraph, or whole section devoted to an intriguing topic or two. Furthermore, they often treat topics in a way that's found nowhere in the entirety of AD&D. For that reason, "Random Roll," as I'm calling this series, will consist of my simply opening my copy of the DMG to a random page and commenting on what I see there.

Today's post focuses on a section entitled "Spell Casting" found on page 40. In it, Gygax explains how spells work in AD&D and it's good reading, if only for the insight it gives into how one of D&D's creators saw the "mechanics" of spell casting. Gygax begins by noting that

All magic and cleric spells are similar in that the word sounds, when combined into whatever patterns are applicable, are charged with energy from the Positive or Negative Material Plane. When uttered, these sounds cause the release of this energy, which in turns triggers a set reaction. The release of the energy contained in these words is what causes the spell to be forgotten or the writing to disappear from the surface upon which it is written.
There's a lot packed into those three sentences, but the most important one, I think, is the last one, as it provides an explanation for why a memorized spell is forgotten upon casting. Almost as interesting is that Gygax suggests a connection between uttering "word sounds" with infusing a spell with positive or negative energy. In the Players Handbook, the components of spells are divided into verbal, somatic, and material components. If I'm understanding Gygax in this section, the verbal component is essential, something a quick scan of the spells in the PHB more or less confirms this. With the exception of only the 1st-level druid spell, invisibility to animals, all spells have a verbal component (which suggests to me that the druid spell listing may well be in error). 

Gygax elaborates on this in the next paragraph:

The triggering action draws power from some plane of existence of the multiverse. Whether the spell is an abjuration, conjuration, alteration, enchantment, or whatever, there is a flow of energy – first from the spell caster, then from some plane to the area magicked or enspelled by the caster. The energy flow is not from the caster per se, it is from the utterance of the sounds, each of which is charged with energy which is loosed when proper formula and/or ritual is completed with their utterance.

The emphasis on the importance of speaking words is fascinating and comports with the fact that the spell silence 15' radius and similar effects are effective attacks against spell casters. Gygax makes an analogy to explain the way spells function.

It is much like plugging in a heater; the electrical outlet does not hold all of the electrical energy to cause the heater to function, but the wires leading from it, ultimately to the power station, bring the electricity to the desired location.

From there, Gygax explains the purpose of somatic and material components.

the hand movements are required in order to control and specify the direction, target, area, etc. of the spell effects. When spell energy is released, it usually flows to the Prime Material from the Positive or Negative Material Plane. To replace it, something must flow back in reverse. The dissolution and destruction of material components provides the energy that balances the flow, through the principle of similarity.

Agree of disagree with the specific details of Gygax's explanation, I nevertheless find it admirable that he made clear the logic behind the AD&D spell system. He adds that

(For background reading you can direct your campaign participants to Vance's THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD and THE DYING EARTH as well as to Bellair's [sic] THE FACE IN THE FROST.)

If ever proof were needed of the importance of the books listed in Appendix N, here's a good example. Once again, we see that Gygax drew heavily from the books in that list, using them not just as airy inspiration for his own conceptions but, in many cases, as in this one, as the very foundations on which he built the edifice of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It's good to be reminded of this from time to time, since it's fashionable in some quarters to downplay the significance of Gygax's appendix of inspirational and educational reading. Doing so would, I continue to contend, make it harder to understand how some aspects of the game setting function, as this section of the Dungeon Masters Guide illustrates.

18 comments:

  1. Good post, but I have a nitpick: the illusionist spell hypnotic pattern also lacks a verbal component.

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    1. That's no nitpick but useful information. Thank you!

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  2. That illustration in your post is, I think, the only Erol Otus illustration in the entirety of the original three AD&D hardbacks.

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    1. I believe you're correct. I was going to comment upon that in the post, but my mind wanders too easily these days.

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    2. It is, and it was added in the "revised" version published in December 1979. Earlier printings had a different illustration by a different artist (Greg Fleming) - a weird sort of sketch-rendering of the idol from the cover of the PH. The reason for the change was that the text about "Acquisition of Illusionist Spells" on p. 39 was added, moving some text around and requiring a smaller illustration. The same thing happened on p. 118 - the revised edition added the section about "Fabrication of Magic Items By Illusionists," causing an illustration (by Sutherland, of some potion bottles) to be deleted.

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    3. And it was not in the first printing of the DMG. There was a picture by Sutherland of someone summoning a demon instead. I used to have one...alas, no more.

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    4. I own the December '79 version of the DMG (though I bought it sometimes in 1980), so I had no idea it had different art. Thanks for the heads up.

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    5. Turns out the picture is not by Sutherland or Greg Fleming, but Todd Oleck; you can see it at https://oldschoolfrp.tumblr.com/post/47381304838/summoning-a-demon-illustration-by-todd-oleck

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    6. Good find! I no longer own a copy of that version either so obviously my memory was failing me as to both the artist's name and the subject of the picture (it does look kind of like the PH idol-creature but not enough that the resemblance was likely anything other than coincidence).

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  3. makes me feel like casters ought to be able to sacrifice hit points to make up for missing material components... that'd be a decent houserule I guess if what I played was anywhere close to od&d lol

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    1. Interestingly, there's a paragraph on p. 40 that alludes to this idea and dismisses it, noting that "the power to activate even a first level spell would leave the caster weak and shaking if it were drawn from his or her personal energy, and a third level spell would most certainly drain the caster's body of life!"

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    2. You could make it more concrete, and sort of a desperation move, by requiring the sacrifice of a body part. Maybe the pinky toe for a 1st level spell, or an arm for something high level.

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  4. There are multiple illusionist spells lacking verbal components: shadow door is another one (and the example combat in the PHB specifically has the opponent illusionist "casting a spell that does not require verbal components" in response to a silence spell).

    I agree that this is a good read for understanding what Gygax wants the system to model. Reading these passages leads me to the question of A) why any spell NOT targeting "caster only" should be lacking a somatic component, and B) in cases where a spell is missing a material component, what is being sacrificed to close the energy "circuit?"

    Interesting that in B/X ALL spells require both verbal AND somatic gestures (and magic-users that are bound and gagged are unable to cast spells). One might consider adjusting all AD&D spells to be VSM, based on these explanations!

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    1. I'll need to do a closer examination of all the spells in the PHB (and maybe even UA) to see if there's a pattern regarding the components. It's interesting that the only spells that don't have verbal components belong to sub-classes (druid and illusionist) and I wonder if that's intentional.

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    2. Illusions are powered by the demiplane of shadow, though this isn't explicit until later books, and whether that is 100% or some mix of shadow and positive/negative isn't made clear.

      Druidical magic is powered by the prime material plane instead of an outer plane. Like illusions, whether there is a mix isn't made clear.

      But this may be an unspoken element to why the standard V/S/M and its explanation tied to the positive/negative is not consistently applied to those two subclasses, or is deviated from at lower spell levels, as compared to clerics and MUs.

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  5. Since the words summon the energy and somatic/material components direct it properly, it seems like a desperate mage tied up with a spell memorized could still invoke the magic. Such undirected magic would be dangerous but might save the situation as well. For simplicity, you could roll for a random spell of the same level and then roll randomly for a target. You'd need to be crazy or desperate to do it, but I've had those players before...

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    1. similar to wild magic from 2e, the wizards handbook. the issue was that the players liked that TOOOOO much

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