DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is the oldest tabletop role-playing game of sword and sorcery – emphasis on the sorcery. Because without magic, D&D wouldn’t be very exciting, unless you like war-gaming the Battle of Agincourt while rolling constitution cheques to not contract the plague.
Magic, and its evolving rules, gives D&D its storytelling power, letting players’ minds wander beyond the real world. It makes sense that, in the game’s first edition, D&D creator Gary Gygax borrowed mythical races and monsters such as ents, orcs, and the Balrog from JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Gygax also modelled certain game mechanics after Jack Vance’s Dying Earth stories. Like Vance’s tales, Gygax’s magic was inherent, like gravity, but could only be summoned by text-bound formulas. It was also kind of clunky.
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