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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 8312982" data-attributes="member: 21169">This is the first of three connected posts that compare anti-existentialist passages in the 1e AD&D DMG with the existentialism of some of the early Elric stories. The stories considered form part of the collections The Stealer of Souls (1963) and Stormbringer (1965), which are both in Appendix N.In the 1e AD&D DMG Gary Gygax offers a solution to the existentialist problems of lack of meaning and purpose:The game is not merely a meaningless dungeon and an urban base around which is plopped the dreaded wilderness. Each of you must design a world (DMG pg 21) There must be some purpose to it all. There must be some backdrop against which adventures are carried out, and no matter how tenuous the strands, some web which connects the evil and good, the opposing powers, the rival states and various peoples. This need not be evident at first, but as play continues, hints should be given to players, and their characters should become involved in the interaction and struggle between these vaster entities. Thus, characters begin as less than pawns, but as they progress in expertise, each eventually realizes that he or she is a meaningful, if lowly, piece in the cosmic game being conducted. When this occurs, players then have a dual purpose to their play, for not only will their player characters and henchmen gain levels of experience, but their actions have meaning above and beyond that of personal aggrandizement. (DMG pg 112)According to Gygax, the PCs' existence becomes more meaningful when they are part of a wider world, a world greater than the bare minimum required to play D&D. This greater meaning is realised by becoming a soldier of increasing significance in a cosmic struggle between good and evil, and knowing that one is part of that struggle. Existentialism finds meaning exclusively within individuals, whereas Gygax also finds it in the realm of the gods.Sword and sorcery is concerned with the personal, while high fantasy is about the fate of the world. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_and_sorcery" target="_blank">Wikipedia sword and sorcery entry</a>: "Unlike works of high fantasy the [sword and sorcery] tales, though dramatic, focus mainly on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters". John Clute and John Grant's The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) states that high fantasy deals "with matters affecting the destiny of those [imaginary] worlds". Seeking only "personal aggrandizement" should therefore be considered sword and sorcery, while taking part in a "cosmic game" between "evil and good" is high fantasy.Gygax's recommendation is to transition a D&D game from sword and sorcery to high fantasy. An alternative interpretation is that the campaign always was high fantasy but that this truth is only gradually revealed.The next two posts will consider existentialism in the early Elric stories.</blockquote>

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