When the world of Dungeons & Dragons was first created in 1974, it brought together disparate elements of gaming to create an entirely new experience. The real achievement was in coming up with a system that could continue to evolve with the players, allowing them to make up their own adventures as they leveled up. When creators Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson sat down to come up with the initial setting, though, they had several sources in mind. Some of them might surprise you.
- Improvisational theatre dating back to Italian commedia dell’arte served as an inspiration for the role-playing element of the game, in which players took on the persona of their own fantasy adventurer.
- Early 20th-century wargaming was the first to simulate battle with rules that were published in “manuals,” such as Fred T. Jane’s Jane’s Fighting Ships (1905/6 ed.) or H.G. Wells’s Floor Games (1911).
- Although Gygax denies a major influence, J.R.R. Tolkien’s touch can be seen in the different character races of the game, including elves, dwarves, and orcs. The game originally included “hobbit,” “ent,” and “balrog” races, which the Tolkien copyright-holders forced the duo to change.
- Jack Vance’s Dying Earth (1950-1984) stories were the source for a large part of the magic system in D&D, most notably the fact that only a certain amount of spells can be remembered at once. In addition, each spell can only be cast once before it’s forgotten. The game also includes the series’ ioun stones, which grant magical benefits.
- Different character classes come from different mythological sources. For example, the barbarian is based on the “Conan the Barbarian” stories, while the bard is comes from Celtic tradition. The cleric is modeled after the Templar priests, and the monk is based off of Asian martial artists.
- The alignment system (in which characters are grouped based on their devotion to Law or Chaos) is based off of the 1961 novel Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson.
- The weapon “vorpal sword” comes from Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky.”
- The Book of Genesis in the Bible inspired the spell “Blade Barrier,” based off of the flaming sword which guarded the garden of Eden.