Up too Late

Richard Dansky, ex-editor of mine and a friend, has his first real novel out and published. It is Firefly Rain, and is getting good reviews. I'm waiting for my copy to arrive from Amazon right now. Hopefully you are, too.

Meanwhile, James Maliszewski continues to disassemble the pieces of the original Dungeons & Dragons to see what made it work. He's looked at the thief, cleric and the magic-user, and now he's prodding at demi-human level limits. Not too much there for me to disagree with, and in fact, much of what he says resembles my own thoughts.

I'd like to briefly discuss the magic-user in D&D, though. I mentioned in a comment on James' post that the MU (as we used to call them) was basically an artillery piece, transported over from the miniature wargame part of D&D's heritage. I'd like to expand on this a bit, before I pass out to sleep.

The traditions of magic in literature prior to the arrival of D&D were that magic was hard to use, difficult to control, and when used by the Good Guys, often subtle rather than overt. I think if D&D were being designed today, we'd see a wizard class that would conform to that image. Minor spells that could be cast-at-will would be the norm, with more powerful magics either being the result of rituals, or, if damaging, being dangerous to the caster.

The original D&D, however, was not truly designed with the literature in mind. Over on the table-top battlefield, the wizard provided a fantasy army with an artillery options akin to a trebuchet, catapult or ballista. The mighty figure wielded powerful spells that could put a unit to sleep, blast it with fire, rain missiles down upon it or shock it with lightning. While the description was magical, the mechanical effects were similar to lobbing rocks or firing small, sharpened logs into people. When D&D turned to adventure, the wizard came along and brought with him his powerful artillery spells.

In the tight constraints of the dungeon, I'm sure that the constraints on the powers of the wizard were shaped by the fact that his battlefield spells were designed to take on units, not single monsters. Spell levels were introduced as a means to balance the wizard against the hero. New spells were added, I have no doubt, as the people playing encountered new situations and would ask "what if there was a spell to deal with this?" The wizard became a utility knife character, with very big cannon.

What's interesting to me is how much the D&D wizard has influenced literary magic. Wizardry in typical fantasy is now fuller of the blasts and zorts you'd expect from the dungeon crawl, than the subtle displays of yore.

A closing thought hits me, though – in the 4e talk, they've discussed wizards as "controllers", using area effect spells or terrain modifying spells to shape the battlefield. It's an interesting definition and very tied to the clear tactical focus of the new edition. It also is a very clear break from the old utility knife wizard of the previous editions. One wonders if wizards will retain the ability to cast spells that duplicate the class abilities of others (knock being an obvious example).