Where's the American Fantasy RPG?

L. Frank Baum's Oz series established American Fantasy as a genre, and yet it hasn't had much influence on popular tabletop role-playing games despite several American fantasy authors providing the inspiration for co-creator Gary Gygax's Dungeons & Dragons. Why not?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

American Fantasy Defined

As described in The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature, the tenets of American Fantasy include a contrast between real world struggles and a fantasy land (Kansas vs. Oz), the Garden of the World set in the midst of the Great American Desert (Oz), and pastoral qualities that encompass the heartland like corn fields, crows, wildcats, and field mice. Baum's Oz is different in character but similar in texture to American agrarianism.

There is technology too, always at the cusp of becoming ubiquitous, with objects taking on a life of their own. Baum was uneasy about the impact of technology on society: concerned about the impact of "flying machines", worried about what would happen to premature children in "incubators", and wary of slick-talking characters using gimmicks and puppetry (the titular Wizard of Oz). Judging by the abuse Baum heaps on an animated phonograph, he wasn't a fan of recorded music either.

As Brian Attebery puts it in The Fantasy Tradition:

"Oz is America made more fertile, more equitable, more companionable, and, because it is magic, more wonderful. What Dorothy finds beyond the Deadly Desert is another America with its potential fulfilled: its beasts speaking, its deserts blooming, and its people living in harmony."

Gygax and Dave Arneson were following a European tradition, itself descended from historical battles of interest in Chainmail, infused with their own American influences, such that little of Oz appears in D&D. At least not overtly.

Ozian Elements in Plain Sight

Jack Vance's influence on D&D is significant. From the "Vancian" spellcasting system to the Eye and Hand of Vecna, Vance's work permeates the game. Vance was a big fan of Baum's work and cited him as a major influence. One character recreates the Land of Oz in The Madman Theory (written by Vance under the pen name Ellery Queen), but Baum's influence goes beyond that work and appears in the Dying Earth series, as explained in Extant #13:

"...I speculated that the Phanfasms inspired the village of Somlod, as seen through the lost lenses of the demon Underheard (Cugel the Clever), and that Sirenese society, in The Moon Moth, was inspired by the Whimsies. Among the scarce commentators on Vance there seems little interest in the Baum influence, while influences which are minor or even nonexistent are often emphasized, such as Clark Ashton Smith."

Cugel, whose adventures take place in The Dying Earth setting, has more in common with the Wizard of Oz than Dorothy of course, and his adventures would go on to form the thief archetype in D&D, as per Gygax:

Of the other portions of the A/D&D game stemming from the writing of Jack Vance, the next most important one is the thief-class character. Using a blend of “Cugel the Clever” and Roger Zelazny’s “Shadowjack” for a benchmark, this archetype character class became what it was in original AD&D.

The Dying Earth wasn't a fantasy world, but a post-apocalyptic one set long after technology had fallen into decay. And that's a hint of where we can find Oz's influence.

Talking Animals, Weird Technology, and Untold Wonders

D&D has strayed from its cross-dimensional sci-fi roots, but one game has never wavered from its focus on a post-apocalyptic world filled with strange beasts, ancient technology, and hidden secrets: Gamma World.

The parallels between Gamma World and Oz (where animals can talk, characters can play robots, and humans are relics of another world), as filtered through Vance, finally gives Baum his due. If Baum was so influential on Vance, why hasn't there been more discussion of the parallels? The editor of Extant #13 explains:

"Given Vance’s own repeated and enthusiastic declarations regarding Baum, as well as the obvious parallels between Vance’s favorite Oz book (The Emerald City of Oz) and several of his own stories, I cannot rid myself of the suspicion that this lack of interest suggests an enthusiasm about certain subject matters and styles rather than an interest in Vance as such. I also suspect the Baum influence lacks appeal because he seems old fashioned, quaint and childish. The fashionable taint of the weird is absent."

This may be why Gamma World has struggled to find its audience like D&D has. Where D&D's tropes are so embedded in pop culture to be ubiquitous these days, Gamma World—like Oz—has alternately been treated as ludicrous, deadly serious, or just plain wacky ... the same criticisms leveled at Baum.

It seems we already have our American Fantasy RPG, it’s just a little “weirder” than we expected.

 

[ProfessorDetective]

Just to add: I was Class of 2015 at Oak Ridge High in Tennessee and I distinctly remember them covering Beowulf at some point. The Oddysee, Gatzby, Things Fall Apart, and Alas, Babylon were also on the list over the years.

 

[Haldrik]

As others have been saying, US schools want students to have a sense of where the English language came from and how it develops. This likewise connects us to British history and culture and origins as a British colony.

Also US schools want students to have a second language but what that language is tends to depend on what each school offers and individual choice. For my contrarian self, I picked Latin.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

As others have been saying, US schools want students to have a sense of where the English language came from and how it develops. This likewise connects us to British history and culture and origins as a British colony.

Also US schools want students to have a second language but what that language is tends to depend on what each school offers and individual choice. For my contrarian self, I picked Latin.

The best way to learn a second language is by joining Peace Corps or the military. My second languages studies in school were a bit of a joke.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Does Conan count as American fantasy ?

 

[pemerton]

Does Conan count as American fantasy ?

Yes. It's modernist verging on nihilistic.

Since the US never had a Crown or Church to stamp down on factions, American factions tend to have more independence.

This is not plausible in my view. The US has had a strong state for a long time. Parts of Europe have done so (eg England, France) but parts have not.

I think A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court was an influence on L Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall and the Harold Shea series he wrote with Fletcher Pratt.

Whether or not it's an influence I would say it's also a model for a lot of FRPGing. Essentially modern sensibilities in mediaeval garb.

 

[Ravenbrook]

Religion is another area where D&D, at least, is very American. In the U.S., every protestant denomination (or, if you perfer, "sect") has its own church or churches in a city. It's the same with the temples in D&D, where polytheistic religions have little in common with the paganism of the ancient world. Not even the mystery religions were anything like most fantasy cults. Contrast this with Europe, where religion in most countries has been dominated by just one or two denominations until quite recently.

 

[Warren Ellis]

Would an RPG attempting to base itself on "American Fantasy" perhaps be best served by looking at stuff like the Wizard of Oz, various regional tall tales and legends (Paul Bunyan, Picos Bill, Appalachian tales, etc) along with possibly looking at Pre-Columbian legends and tales and folklore as well?

Maybe focusing on also how vast and strange the world may be, civilization having a definite frontier and Points of Light style feeling as well?

To be honest, I don't think superheroes really are any an answer to the question, so it genuinely surprised me people were saying "superheroes" before looking at regional and local legends in the US as inspiration for fantasy.

I mean something like this could fit well in an RPG, for example.

Americana as well could be used to mine for an American flavored RPG.

And before someone says something about D&D, no for all that it has American aspects, no one would, with a straight face, ever consider knights and castles to be that "American."

 

[MGibster]

This is not plausible in my view. The US has had a strong state for a long time. Parts of Europe have done so (eg England, France) but parts have not.

And for those who don't think we had a lot of factions in America let's just take a look at the prohibition movement. The Anti-Saloon League was formed in the 1850s, but by the early 20th century it had become one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States and took the lead in the prohibition movement. The League formed alliances and allies with Democrats, Republicans, the KKK, the NAACP, International Workers of the World, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, Henry Ford, John Rockefeller, Baptist, Methodist, as well as other religious organizations.

And of course you're right that the United States does have a history of going after factions. The government sent the US army after the KKK in the 1870s and actually broke them, we've had union busting activities by private and public entities, and look up COINTELPRO sometime to learn about the FBI's activities against political groups including those involved in the Civil Rights Movement.

Whether or not it's an influence I would say it's also a model for a lot of FRPGing. Essentially modern sensibilities in mediaeval garb.

It is. For a game where the gods are real and people perform miracles, D&D is oddly very secular.

 

[GreenTengu]

I think D&D has some very American aspects to it that are being quite overlooked here.

Many D&D worlds are about reclaiming a world that has some history to it, where treasure from previous inhabitants is hidden everywhere, and you are going from the ever-expanding bastions of civilization into the wild. Those who live out in the wild, for the most part, are "evil savages" and your enemies and if you go wandering out there in search of treasures then you are likely to be ambushed and perhaps killed.

You don't have people living in distinct regions with fairly well understood borders nor a powerful government that assigns individuals their roles in society from near birth like you would in a fantasy setting in proper medieval/fuedal Europe or Asia. You start off fully formed with often no ties to wherever you came from with very few rights and substantial freedom to go wherever you want and do whatever you want until you butt heads with any other individual-- just a few coins in your pockets and it is entirely up to you to make your fortune and place in the world.

All these assumptions of a character starting off in D&D are quite quintessentially American regardless of whether many aspects of the world were swiped from an English book series. The way it works is very much frontiersman, treasure hunter, Cowboy & Indians, American Dream....

An RPG that draws more from L. Frank Baum's works is fine-- but it is no more particularly American, it just reflects a different region and era of America once the world began to be neatly divided up and governance and civilization had pushed fantasy and adventure to the margins so you had to either delve into the few remaining regions of "wilderness" or get swept off to another land to find your adventure-- although that is, if anything, far more relatable to the way European and Asian tales work.

Honestly-- if I were to think of another book that is like the Wizard of Oz books where a character gets swept off to an imaginary fantasy land that contrasts his struggles in the real world, the next thing I would think of would not be other great American authors of the late 19th/early 20th century like Mark Twain or Ernest Hemmingway or John Steinbeck or Jack London... no, the next thing I would think of is Alice in Wonderland by U.K author Lewis Carol or the Chronicles of Narnia by U.K. author C.S. Lewis or The Neverending Story by German author Michael Ende.

So... calling this type of "real life person gets swept off into a fantasy world" more fundamentally "American" or contributing it primarily to American authors and contrasting that with the expectations and assumptions a game like D&D makes about characters just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

All these assumptions of a character starting off in D&D are quite quintessentially American regardless of whether many aspects of the world were swiped from an English book series. The way it works is very much frontiersman, treasure hunter, Cowboy & Indians, American Dream....

That's a good catch, IMO.

By comparison, the "Spaghetti Fantasy" D&D setting, Brancalonia, assumes you're bouncing around through warring city states, which makes sense, since it's coming at the game from a distinctly Italian point of view. I have to imagine their world assumptions are very different than the default ones laid out in the first few pages of the 5E DMG, which explicitly talks about the characters being in a successor civilization exploring the ruins of past empires -- a post-revolutionary worldview if ever there was one.