What, it's Wednesday again??!!! I guess that means it's time for a trip down memory lane... today is a special, extra-long edition of Mastersnarf Theater, because I have edited and combined an old two-part essay that I think has particular relevance today. When it was written, we weren't really talking about the D&D Multiverse in 5e- now, it seems that D&D wants to multiverse harder than Marvel. But I thought it would be a good idea to reflect back on the origins of D&D, and the original Gygaxian Multiverse, and why I still believe that the way it was presented allowed for such a variety of interesting play. Also? D&D was heavy into the multiverse long before it was cool. How you like dem apples, Feige.
Anyway, this is a long one, so ... hope you have an extended bathroom break in you!
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Good artists borrow, great artists steal.
There is always talk about settings, like Planescape, or Spelljammer, to provide some type of interstitial connection between the various settings- the meta setting to connect them all. Now, of course, we have talk of the Multiverse and some type of first world that everything developed from.
But why re-invent the wheel? We have a perfect solution, already, to allow parties to move between settings weird and wonderful. I think that the best solution was the first solution in D&D- the original D&D multiverse. First, a history lesson. Because you can't escape a Snarfticle without history!
A. The Proto-history of the D&D Multiverse
D&D's multiverse first started in the campaigns being run by Gary Gygax, but the first print version that I am aware of is in The Strategic Review, vol. 2, no. 1 (February 1976) which had a planar arrangement along with the depictions of alignments (it included Heaven, Paradise, Elysium, Nirvana, Limbo, Hell, Hades, and the Abyss). The next evolution that I am aware of was in Dragon #8 (July 1977), which gave us the first real exploration of the extra-planar nature of the D&D multiverse. It's the beginning of D&D cosmology that we later see expanded on (aka, the Great Wheel). But the most important thing to note in terms of the multiverse are these six brief sentences in the article:
For game purposes the DM is to assume the existence of an infinite number of co-existing planes. The normal plane for human-type life forms is the Prime Material Plane.
There are seven inner planes. The first (no. 1) is the Prime Material. The planet Earth and everything on it, all of the solar systems and the whole universe are of the Prime Material. The Fantasy worlds you create belong to the Prime Material.
The reason this early sketch of the multiverse is important is that it is, as far as I know, the first written acknowledgement that the Prime Material Plane is legion; it contains not just an infinite set of planes, but a really big infinite set (something something aleph and no, I don't want to talk about it because it makes my head hurt). While most histories of the D&D multiverse then concentrate on the evolution of the various inner and outer planes, it is really this idea of the Prime Material and the infinite number of realities used by Gygax that is so intriguing and that can provide for rich gameplay.
B. The AD&D Rule Books Expand on the Multiverse
The Gygaxian multiverse was then slightly expanded upon and codified in the AD&D Player's Handbook (1978). Of importance we see the following in the PHB:
There exist an infinite number of parallel universes and planes of existence in the fantastic "multiverse" of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. ... The Prime Material Plane (or Physical Plane) houses the universe and all of its parallels. It is the plane of Terra, and your campaign, in all likelihood. ... The Ethereal Plane is that which surrounds and touches all of the other Inner Planes, the endless parallel worlds of the universe, without being a part of any of them. (PHB 120).
The Dungeon Master's Guide (1979) was more explicit. The section "TRAVEL IN THE KNOWN PLANES OF EXISTENCE" states the following:
The Known Planes of Existence, as depicted in APPENDIX IV of the PLAYERS HANDBOOK, offer nearly endless possibilities for AD&D play, although some of these new realms will no longer be fantasy as found in swords & sorcery or myth but verge on that of science fiction, horror, or just about anything else desired. How so? The known planes are a part of the "multiverse". In the Prime Material Plane are countless suns, planets, galaxies, universes. So too there are endless parallel worlds. (DMG 57).
The DMG explicitly states that alternate planes in the Prime Material do exist, and states that other game systems that aren't fantasy (such as Boot Hill & Gamma World) can be used. There is even the concept that some planes would allow for breathable atmospheres between the "main planet" and the other planets and moons - someone was thinking of Spelljammer!
Later on, the DMG makes it explicit, with conversion tables to allow characters to go back and forth between D&D, Boot Hill, and Gamma World, and explicitly states that all possibilities of adventure are contained within the worlds of the Prime Material.
Similarly, there are places where adventurers can journey to a land of pure Greek mythology, into the future where the island of King Kong awaits their pleasure, or through the multiverse to different planets, including Jack Vance’s “Planet of Adventure”, where they hunt sequins in the Carabas while Dirdir and Dirdirmen hunt them. (DMG 112).
In essence, what was being codified in the text is what was already happening- tables were using D&D to play in all sorts of ways, and going between all sorts of fantastical worlds.
C. The Modules & Early Play
There was also a rich history of these alternate planes existing in the modules. The go-to example for most people is the module Queen of the Demonweb Pits (Q1); who can forget that Web Level 4 has teleportation devices to multiple alternate worlds on the Prime Material Plane. The Pharisee - evil elves of Caer Sidi. The Nightmare World of Vald Tolenkov (the proto-Strahd). The last kingdom of the mountain dwarves. And so on. Each of them is an alternate world existing on the Prime Material Plane.
But these alternate realities can be found in so many modules! Castle Amber has a large proto-plane. EX1 and EX2 (the Alice Adventures) are funhouse mirror planes. Simply put, there was a general and acknowledged existence of many planes of existence, of many realities, and this was considered standard in early D&D. All campaigns, all games, from this Earth (Terra) to Greyhawk to Star Frontiers to all possible home campaigns exist within the Prime Material Plane. Moreover, the concept existed from the beginning, with Gygax's home campaign. While the examples are multitudinous, we can look at an example of early play and travel to different worlds as recounted by Jim Ward:
Isle of the Ape, Alice in Wonderland, Boot Hill. The borders of the planes were porous in 1974. Greyhawk was on Oerth, and famously had portals to other settings. But it also had explicit alternates, such as Yarth (level of magic is between Earth and Oerth), Aerth, and Uerth (magic is very weak). (Source- Polyhedron '84 interview).
D. Where did the Infinite Planes of the Prime Material Come From?
There is obviously a general 60s and early 70s gestalt that permeates the idea of infinite planes. But the idea of infinite, slightly different planes on the Prime Material, and the specific way that you travel between them using the ethereal plane .... while it borrows a little from all sorts of sources, and while it certainly is in line with the general gestalt, I think you can trace the idea to one very specific source.
June, 1970, was the publication date of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny (the author and the series is, of course, name-checked in Appendix N). The primary conceit of the series is that there are an infinite number of "shadow worlds" that the protagonist, Corwin, and certain others can move through, and each is slightly different than the other. There are an infinite number of alternate histories, of worlds, of possibilities, of creatures. While this may not have been the sole source (and certainly not for the outer planes) it certainly seems that it played on outsize role in crystallizing some of the concepts for the Prime Material and the ability to travel between these different parts of the Prime Material plane through the ethereal (the "shadow").
Aside about the First World in 5e
The most interesting thing currently about the Amber series today, of course, is that WoTC appears to be creating lore around a "First World" that has the basis of all the D&D tropes that are found elsewhere. For those of you familiar with the Amber series, you know that all the various parallel worlds are shadows of the one true world- the City of Amber. Now, this concept has been used in other places since Amber (because it's a cool concept) but it's interesting to me that we seem to have come full circle. Seriously, parachute pants are going to make a comeback any day now.
....and why does this Gygaxian Multiverse matter?
Sometime between the publication of the Manual of the Planes (1987) and Planescape (1994), we began to see a seismic shift in the focus of the D&D multiverse. This is my general belief; outer planes ... well, they seem cool, right? Why not futz about with the outer planes? Why not populate them, and make them interesting? Why not try and make them focal points of adventure? They are weird, and exotic, and an interesting design space. I would further say that the primary issue was the publication of the Manual of the Planes in 1987; prior to this publication, travel between parallel planes in the Prime Material was unexceptional- just something something portal, while travel to the outer planes was exceptional. But from the Manual of the Planes on, the focus and interest in D&D cosmology shifted to those outer planes.
In my opinion, this shift missed the original brilliance of the Prime Material. The Prime Material is, quite literally, everything you could ever imagine. It is all worlds. Ever. It is your friend, Bob's, OD&D Monty Haul campaign. It is the d20 modern world. It is the 4e Gamma World. It is the homebrew Rakshasa world. It is Star Frontiers, but with Kender instead of Sathar. It is our planet, right now, as well as both versions of Battlestar Galactica (unfortunately, it is also Battlestar Galactica 1980). It is Warlocks in Battletechs fighting amongst a thousand dying suns, and a comedic Flintstones setting. As weird as a singular Planescape might be, nothing can be as weird as ... everything. Or, um, Everything Everywhere All at Once.
All the campaign settings that have been printed, or can be printed, or can even be imagined, are already within the Prime Material.
So, in a certain sense, there is never a need to worry about how something "fits into" the D&D multiverse.
Because everything is already in the D&D multiverse and always has been. And a focus on this, on the sheer weirdness and variety of the D&D multiverse, allows for D&D to stay weird. Wait, weird? Hmmm...
E. OD&D and Gygaxian 1e Were Too Weird to Live, and Too Rare to Die
One thing that I think often gets lost when discussing early D&D is how truly bizarre it could be. And the reason for this is that it wasn't "pure." It wasn't just Tolkien-esque high fantasy. Nor was it simply appropriated Howard/Leiber swords & sorcery. It wasn't extrapolated wargaming. And it wasn't the myths of a particular country.
It was all of it, and more. Because there were no particular preconceptions as to what had to be in D&D, or what had to be excluded. Where did your monsters come from? Well, anywhere! Little bit of Arabian mythology? Put in a djinn. Want to put in a little John Carter homage? How about some carnivorous apes, or giant white ones? Did you see some cool toys? Why not an ankheg, or an owl bear? Do you like 50s monster movies? How about some giant ants? Rakshasas, dinosaurs, critters from Japanese or Irish or Egyptian mythology? They were all fair game.
Everything was put into a blender, and became "D&D."
And it was the same with the remainder of the core rules; holy knights on steeds bound by oaths (Paladins) and wandering martial artists (Monks) and vaguely-Celtic spellcasters (Druids) and organized groups of killers-for-pay (Assassins) all hobnobbed in the same general vicinity. Any type of thematic weirdness was quickly covered up in the general concept of D&D.
These ideas were further explored in the overall weirdness that we saw in early D&D; early modules referenced dinosaurs, space travel, and parallel and pocket worlds.
As recounted numerous times, the earliest adventures run by Gygax himself had PCs crossing over to Boot Hill or Isle of the Ape (King Kong, dinosaurs). Entire sessions could revolve around the party ending up on the spaceship Warden from Metamorphosis Alpha. I don't want to continue belaboring this point, but weirdness was baked into D&D's core from the beginning because of the multiverse.
F. Experimentation and the Prime Material Plane
Part of the reasons that experimentation and "remix culture" was so built-in to D&D from the beginning was because of the general acceptance of the Gygaxian multiverse. As the 1e DMG put it- all worlds, and all possible worlds, were contained within the prime material plane. This had some profound ramifications-
It meant that your home campaign and mine, both set in Greyhawk, contemporaneously existed side-by-side (and that would allow players to bring PCs from one home campaign to another).
It also meant that, for example, all the Gamma World campaigns also existed in the prime material plane.
And our "Earth" (aka, what we would now call D&D Modern) existed.
And Alice in Wonderland's universe.
In short, the PCs could travel to any possible reality. This sort of free-for-all also extended into the printed material- such as spaceships (Barrier Peaks) and Alice in Wonderland (EX1 and 2) and even the various planes referenced in Q1. It was even relatively common for home groups to use a "cafeteria" approach to employing Deities and Demigods or its antecedent OD&D supplement.
These same feelings- what we would call "the (genre) streams being crossed" was also just a general part of the gestalt of that era. It was common to see fantasy works which had "modern people" placed in fantasy settings (e.g., Stephen Donaldson) or technology that was indistinguishable from magic (Julian May) or parallel universes (Zelazny). Over time, however, and especially with the increased settings in 2e, that gestalt ended and genre borders calcified.
First, the Prime Material plane became ... less interesting. Focus shifted to the outer planes, or to a specific campaign setting (such as Planescape).
Second, specific campaign settings became the locus of creativity; in other words, instead of having more generic "D&D" settings with expansive weirdness, you began to get more focused settings with specific rules. Dark Sun is amazing, but it also relies on specific rules to make it amazing. You don't want spaceships in Dark Sun, and you certainly wouldn't want to fall into Alice in Wonderland.
G. Weirdness and 5e
This is where I get to the more interesting, and likely controversial, part of my general thoughts; what does any of this have to do with 5e?
Here's the thing- there are times when I feel that for some people, OSR (and OD&D / 1e specifically) is viewed as a reaction to 5e.
I’m old! And I’m not happy! And I don’t like things now compared to the way they used to be. All this progress — phooey! In my day, we didn’t have these cash machines that would give you money when you needed it. There was only one bank in each state — it was open only one hour a year. And you’d get in line, seventeen miles long, and the line became an angry mob of people– fornicators and bards, mutant children and soulless, dead-eyed elves— and you waited for years and by the time you got to the teller, you were senile and arthritic and you couldn’t remember your own name. You were born, got in line, and ya died! And that’s the way it was and we liked it!
D&D was simpler then. There wasn’t all this concern about fun! It my days, we didn’t need to have fun. When you started playing D&D, you were given a few scrap pieces of paper and some pencils and told to start mapping. You wouldn't be told piddly little details like distances and directions by the DM. If you tried to ask how big a room was just so you could map it and find your way out, well, you'd be attacked by an ethereal mummy just for showin' that DM up! And that’s the way it was and we liked it!
D&D was a carnival! We entertained ourselves! We didn’t need youtube to learn how to play D&D or fancy figur-eeeeeens to visualize the battle. In my day, there was only one way to see how the battle was going — it was called ”Stare at the sun!” That’s right! Our theater of the mind was really theater of the sun. You'd just stare at it until you eyeballs burst into flames! And you thought, “Oh, no! Maybe I shouldn’t have stared directly into the burning sun with my eyes wide open.” But it was too late! Your head was on fire and all your friends were roastin' marshmallows over it. And that’s the way we played D&D and we liked it!
Ahem. Different rule-sets do play different, but while the older rulesets can be used for "dungeon crawls," it truly does them a disservice given that they were used for so much more than that, even at the time. More importantly, it ignores the many things that 5e is doing right!
One thing that is certainly true today is that we have a lot more influences on culture and on the game. For example, it is much easier and more common for players to want to base characters off of anime, or any one of a number of diverse sources that weren't commonly available in the 70s and 80s (with a few notable exceptions like Battleship Yamato, Robotech, and G-Force). But while the overall diversity in that sense has increased, I would say that the specific tolerance for those things that break the verisimilitude of a campaign setting has decreased.
For example, I would say that it very common to see people on forums today make comments like, "I don't like science fiction in my fantasy." Or, "I don't let people bring their own characters into my campaign."
To put this in a more specific context:
In OD&D/1e terms, you might have a campaign setting that was generally medieval tech, but an individual might have a laser rifle.
In 5e, it is generally seen that the campaign setting itself would have to allow the specific tech for most DMs to approve it.
In OD&D/1e, people might take their characters to different tables.
In 5e, that doesn't seem to happen.
In OD&D/1e, it was not uncommon to have adventures on different worlds on in different genres.
In 5e, it is uncommon for a table to have the party go from one world to a different genre'd world.
In short, while I think that overall 5e has done an amazing job of incorporating numerous diverse cultural cues and viewpoints, the one thing it is not so great at is allowing the "weird" exception. Something which has long been baked into D&D's DNA.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this! Personally, I am happy that WoTC seems to be going a little harder into the multiverse, but I don't think that the idea has fully hit the community yet in the same way that it was accepted at the beginning. But give ... it ... time!
