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.

Pulp Fantasy Gallery: The Face in the Frost

While the influence of both The Dying Earth series and the Harold Shea stories is widely acknowledged as important inspirations on the creation of the D&D magic system, much less frequently mentioned is John Bellairs' 1969 historical fantasy The Face in the Frost. This book adds the detail of wizards studying their spells in advance of casting them. I couldn't find a large image of the original 1969 cover, so instead I present the cover from the 1981 reprint.