A lot of OSR game companies and their legion of GMs like to tell the world how their game is based on Appendix N of the AD&D DMG. Likewise there are a lot of Old Schoolers who yell that (insert favourite version of D&D) is true Sword & Sorcery unlike (insert disliked version of D&D) which is Epic Fantasy. In most cases, they are WRONG and LYING to everyone. But not intentionally, at least I hope! Herein this post I explain what Sword & Sorcery really is, why D&D never was and never will be, and how to make your game closer to the S&S genre, if you choose.
Now that you have read the ‘clickbait,’ I wish to note that prior to the release of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, I was not concerned with being faithful to the Sword & Sorcery genre. In fact back in the ‘90s I ran a very successful campaign that simulated a Heavy Metal perspective of the Late Middle Ages. The AD&D 2nd Edition game provided a very flexible method of handling priests with their spheres, the Historical Campaigns added good advice on historical, epic, and legendary campaigns, and the Player’s Option books also provided some very interesting customisation options. More on that era in a future post. Suffice to say that since 2002, I have been compelled to find a way to be as faithful to the Sword & Sorcery as possible.
In a future post, I shall detail the ways in which D&D can hew closer to Sword & Sorcery.
What is Sword & Sorcery?
In 1961 Fritz Leiber (Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser) in a response to Michael Moorcock (Elric) in the Conan fanzine Amra, wrote:
“I feel more certain than ever that this field should be called the sword-and-sorcery story. This accurately describes the points of culture-level and supernatural element and also immediately distinguishes it from the cloak-and-sword (historical adventure) story — and (quite incidentally) from the cloak-and-dagger (international espionage) story too!”
Thus, Robert E. Howard is credited with inventing the genre with his stories of Bran Mac Morn, Conan, Kull, Cormac Mac Airt, Solomon Kane, and Turlogh Dubh O'Brien. His work stands as the gold standard for which all others are judged. However, he did not invent it out of whole cloth. Rather, he built it upon a very long history of the ballads, sagas, and legends of Europe and the Greater Middle East. In effect, Sword & Sorcery is about swords versus sorcery. In “Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: the Makers of Heroic Fantasy” published in 1976, editor Lin Carter came much to the same conclusion.
Sword & Sorcery Characteristics
What then are the particular characteristics that we should be concerned about? For purposes of this essay, I am not going to discuss the literary style of picaresque, swashbuckling, or episodic versus long-form storytelling. Those elements are germane to the type of adventures which I believe should be left entirely in the hands of the individual Game Masters. Instead, we must look at the characteristics that directly contradict D&D.
Sorcerers, Not Clerics, Druids, or Paladins
The D&D cleric class is the proverbial dead elephant in the room. Prior to the Blackmoor campaign, there have been no stories of armoured clergy invoking miracles. None, nada, zilch. Go ahead and look at the pulp stories of the 20th century, Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, gothic literature, mediæval literature, hagiographies, legends, ballads, myths, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And do not forget to search Non-Western sources as well.
Previously when I raised this issue on the Internet, some of the objections were the following:
“But surely Archbishop Turpin, one of the paladins of Charlemagne….” Not according to the actual stories. He may or may not have been armoured when he conducted mass before the troops but he most certainly never invoked any miracles in any of the stories.
“Knights Templar?” Nope. Not a single crusading saint in armour.
“But what about Bishop Odo of Beyeux?” First off, Odo was a historical figure but none of the fiction written about him ever depicted him working miracles while armoured.
“Any saints at all?” Nope. There were some former soldiers who later became saints, but they forswore arms and armour before working miracles.
“Priests of Mars or Ares?” Nope. They stayed far, far away from battle.
“Vikings?” Not even the Vikings. The closest would be chieftains officiating at a religious ceremony before battle, but none of the stories have them invoking miracles during battle.
“Chinese, Indian, Mesoamerican, Islamic, Judaic, et cetera?” Nope.
In fact the only depiction, fictional or otherwise, of an armoured spell-caster was Elric of Melnibone and he was not religious in any way at all.
But please do your own research. I would be thrilled to be proven wrong. Until then, we must deal with the fact that in ANY literary genre prior to 1970, divine spellcasters never wore armour while working their miracles. Clerics, Druids, and Paladins as we know them are inventions of Dungeons and Dragons.
Tombs, Not Dungeons
Dungeons as defined by D&D likewise do not exist in the Sword & Sorcery genre. Certainly there are stories of Conan and other S&S heroes looting tombs and encountering supernatural horrors but nowhere near the scale of the typical D&D dungeon. The “dungeon clean-up crew,” disintegrating corridors, the all other mega-dungeon weirdness is an invention of D&D
No Demi-Humans & Humanoids
Were there any dwarves, elves, gnomes, goblins, halflings, hobgoblins, or orcs in any of Howard’s work? What about Leiber or Moorcock? Looking at the world’s literature, there have certainly been stories about fairies but with the exception of a handful of half-elves, none of the protagonists have been non-Human. Moorcock’s Elric was a Melnibonean who was certainly not human but he stands as a famous exception. Except for Elric, all of the protagonists of S&S have been humans who moved through human societies. Secret societies of hidden folk such as serpent people were by definition secret and no effect on the day to day goings on.
Remember that in 1974, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit both by J.R.R. Tolkein were extraordinarily popular. And just about every D&Der I met back in the ‘70s assumed that all of the dwarves, elves, halflings, orcs, wights, Type VI demons (balrogs), and Treeants (ents) were exactly as Tolkein described them. Not only that, but there were arguments about how Trolls were supposed to be ogres and not rubbery regenerating monstrosities because the Oxford professor said so. So it should be no surprise at all that Gygax & Arneson included a strong Middle Earth element in the ruleset. After all, D&D was designed to be broad enough to encompass Sword & Planet (John Carter of Mars) and Gothic Horror (Hammer Films, et al.).
Now a case could be made that the LotR is indeed Sword & Sorcery since it is swords versus sorcery, but the general consensus in literary circles is that it is Heroic Fiction rather than S&S for a number of literary reasons. My argument is that Middle Earth is not S&S precisely because of the non-Humans nations living side-by-side with Human nations, trading and warring, et cetera. Prior to Tolkein, such depictions were relegated to children’s stories and not tales of derring-do.
Only incorporeal need magic to hit
In all of Robert E. Howard’s stories, the only creatures unaffected by non-magical weapons were incorporeal. The Wolf-Man movie does not belong in the Sword & Sorcery genre because there were neither swords nor sorcery. But as I noted above, the popular conceptions of werewolves was that they could only be hit by silver.
As an aside, in the Dark Shadows TV series, vampires could also be killed by silver bullets. Did Lake Geneva and the Twin Cities’ campaigns allow that also? I do not recall any of my players attempting that.
Minimal Magic Items
Why does D&D have so many magic items and why do DMs feel the need to sprinkle them liberally throughout their dungeons? Prior to D&D, have there been any characters in any form of media, carrying as much magic items as your typical mid-level D&D adventurer? No there has not.
And while the pre-D&D 3e rules discouraged the placement of Ye Olde Magick Shoppe, a lot of campaigns have them. Needless to say, Sword & Sorcery protagonists do not go shopping for magic items!
But Does D&D have to be S & S?
Given that it is now obvious that D&D is NOT Sword and Sorcery, is that okay? Of course it is!!! It is still YOUR game! YOU get to decide what kind of campaign you are going to run. Your players and you will agree on the genre(s), tropes, et cetera. That is the true beauty of Dungeons & Dragons unlike all other games in the world — you are encouraged to make it your own.
“As with any other set of miniatures rules they are guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign.”
— Dungeons & Dragons Book 1 Men & Magic, Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson
Next up: How to make your D&D game better fit the Sword & Sorcery genre.
