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Ed Simbalist (co-creator of Chivalry & Sorcery) recommends heavy use of GM Force to "tell the story" in the second part of his two part essay "Kismet" in the rpg fanzine Alarums & Excursions #44 (April 1979). Jon Peterson discusses this essay extensively in The Elusive Shift (2020), placing it...

Jon Peterson, The Elusive Shift (2020) has shown, I think, that this has to be put back no later than 1976. I started to read it thanks to @Snarf Zagyg's recommendation in this thread. In Bunnies & Burrows (1976), the authors B Dennis Sustare and Scott Robinson advise referees to fudge (they...

Another possible source for the silver cord are popular books about the occult such as Dennis Wheatley, The Devil and All His Works (1971): Finally he [the magician] conjures up an apparition of himself standing in front of himself. Actually this is what the Egyptians would have called his ka...

This post considers possible sources for some other aspects of the planes and planar travel in early D&D – the multiverse, the Prime Material Plane, and the silver cord. The Multiverse The term "multiverse", used for the first time in D&D in the AD&D 1e PHB (1978), has an obvious source –...

This post considers the possible sources for astral projection, and the Astral and Ethereal Planes in early D&D. Astral projection first appears in D&D Book IV Greyhawk (1975): "Astral Spell: A spell which allows the user to send his astral form, undetectable to all but others on the astral...

In my opinion, its origins are to be found in the work of a large number of different authors from the mid-30s to the mid-70s writing in the alternate history science fiction genre, or influenced by it. Several of them are mentioned in Appendix N – Stanley Weinbaum, L Sprague De Camp, Fletcher...