What forces drive D&D history?

What forces drive the history of a D&D world?

For me, it seems like a clash of ideas. An idea emerges, and we see its antithesis emerge. The time of giants ends as dragons rise up and conquer the land. The dragons' time ends as the elves rise up and destroy dragons. The elves fall into chaos as human lands rise. Good human lands are threatened and then defeated by evil lands, but then good rebels rise up and gain independence from evil lands. The good republic becomes an empire, corruption sets in, and evil rises again within the empire - calling out even more good, the subversives...

The whole process is extremely cyclical and not that complex.

What do you think? Is there more to D&D worlds' histories than the rise and fall of 2 conflicting sides?

There are some who argue that the Hegelian cycle you describe:thesis vs. antithesis begotting a new synthesis is the driving force of our own human history, so using it for a campaign world can e a fairly sound foundation.

You could also make the driving force the instinct for survival leading to competition for resources leading to desire for power to protect and acquire resources and ensure the survival of ones clan/kin/city-state/nation/people etc. This can also be the driving force for development of magic and technology, people want better tools to manage and exploit resources making survival easier.

-M

D&D is a very dualistic universe. Generally heroic in nature: good wins, but never fully vanquishes evil.

Evil always rises up again, and a new generation of heroes rise up to face it.

Cyclical.

In my games the same things that move history in the real world, conflicting ideology, economics, limited resources, economics, emerging "humanistic" ideals, economics, and sapient short-sightedness.

The further back folks look at history the more legendary and epic it becomes with more purely religious struggles against good and evil - but I think if I were to run a game in a by-gone era in my homebrew I think all that epic stuff when looked at closely as people living in those times would find the same forces I described above affecting stuff.

Real history is the rise and fall of cultures - Sumeria, the Hittites, the Greeks, the Romans, the British Empire, Nazi Germany - so I wouldn't expect fantasy history to be very different. The story of the Roman Empire in particular has a powerful grip on the Western mind. Fantasy civilisations tend to end in more dramatic, cataclysmic fashion than those in the real world. Always with a bang, never a whimper.

The manner of their passing reflects present day concerns. For example the Suel Empire in Gygax's Greyhawk ended by the Invoked Devastation and Rain of Colorless Fire seems to be a metaphor for nuclear war, written as it was during the Cold War. These days you'd expect to see empires destroyed by climate change or hubris.

rycanada said:

What forces drive the history of a D&D world?

Click to expand...

Sex and violence.

Well, mostly the violence.

Yeah, violence - mostly the the clash of cultures, which in D&D may be nonhuman races; as well as Norseman vs Celt you have Orc vs Elf. There may also be a clash of ideas within a culture, such as religion A vs religion B. My game tends to use a strong Law vs Chaos theme, in the original Moorcockian sense - eg British Empire Lawful (Oswald Bastable), Nazis Chaotic (Erekose)*. Likewise Elves Lawful, Devils Chaotic.

*Moorcock now seems to have shifted his ideas so you have lawful Nazis, like Gygax's Lawful Evil planes of Hell, but I find his original approach more consistent, as well as being the basis of B/X-BECMI-RC D&D Alignment system.

Depends on how directly involved are the gods in your D&D campaigns. Highly-involved gods means that divine beings have a major parts in shaping the world's history; less involved gods leave the mortals to forge their destiny, and then things would be driven by economics, environmental factors, changing technology, magic, and social confict.

rycanada said:

What forces drive the history of a D&D world?

Click to expand...

The invisible hand of the gygax.

rycanada said:

What forces drive the history of a D&D world?

Click to expand...

Whatever forces you want them to be. Honestly it's that simple. There isn't any - cannot be any - common set of forces or dynamics that can be applied.

Oh, you can apply them if you want to, but the history of any given D&D world is subject only to the cycles, tendencies, and rules that an individual DM does apply. The rules are written to model only small-scale combat dynamics. They are not written in any way to model SOCIAL dynamics, and in fact studiously ignore them. The social impact of racial abilities & life spans, spells, monster ecologies, magic items, and much more is IGNORED. And they are so many and varied that I DEFY anyone to authoritatively and comprehensively reduce them to simple, cyclical, historical dynamics.

Even if you succeed in doing so your theories fall to pieces with EVERY change that is made to the variables. Every spell that is house ruled, every prestige class that is added above the Core Rules, every deity that takes direct involvement and every one that avoids involvement, every facet that YOU took into account but that _I_ choose to alter, add to, or ignore, renders your theories at best inaccurate and more likely entirely moot.

YMMV