Gygax and the pursuit of reality

 Musings I was having today:

It's pretty well known that Gary Gygax was a stickler for detail when it came to dungeons - the name "Gygaxian naturalism" is used to refer to the approach to dungeon design that foregrounds the dungeon's "ecology", and demands a level of realism usually regarded as absurd in the context of a fantasy game.

There's a lot to unpack here that I'm going to try to skip over. For one, the idea of realism being opposed to fantasy is, in my view, an irritating fallacy. The response "Well it's fantasy, it's not supposed to be realistic" misses the point: An immersive and engaging fantasy requires at least some level of consistency, and a certain amount of relatability to anchor the players' interpretation of what's going on. If one nitpicks a detail like a character's being able to shrug off a stab wound, or goods in a shop costing more than anyone could possibly afford, the response "Well why don't you take exception to all the magic spells and dragons then?" is a non-sequitur.

To drag forth a point from this burgeoning rant, I don't think Gygax was entirely gratuitous in his approach. The Gygaxian naturalist approach aims at a sort of internal consistency that enriches the game beyond a mere stream-of-consciousness play of fantastical situations. In so doing, Gygax was actually tapping into the thing that an RPG can do that no other medium/genre of game can do, at least not to the same degree, namely, creating a world that feels real, that has solidity, and that the players feel they can genuinely explore.

I've written before about how this facet of RPG play actually runs incredibly deep. Essentially, because of the structure of RPG play, the way the players experience things in the fictional world gives the impression that the world has its own facts that go beyond their experience, which creates a deep sense of reality; if he world has its own facts, that means you can have genuine discovery, which underpins a very authentic experience of exploration.

In my view, this sense of exploration was what the early pioneers of the hobby were pursuing and perfecting. Back in the '70s, if you wanted to explore Hyboria or Middle Earth, you couldn't put on a video game or binge watch a lore series on YouTube - your options were limited to re-reading the books (and seeing the same parts of the world through the eyes of the same protagonist), or playing some form of tabletop boardgame or wargame. What early TTRPG enthusiasts tapped into was the ability to present a fantasy world that could be explored freely, and that had the sense of reality that the most captivating fictions had - that sense that the world went beyond what you could see in front of you.

My inspirational reference point for this is the discussion in the fifth edition Tunnels and Trolls rulebook, published by Corgi in 1985. In it, Ken StAndre and Liz Danforth give an excellent impression of the allure of RPGs generally, by introducing the reader to the wonder of breaking out of the dungeon to explore the fantasy world that acts as its backdrop. The whole thing is well worth a read, if you can find it somewhere. The focus is summed up in the tagline: "Lose yourself for hours in the Tunnels and Trolls world..."

Gygaxian naturalism is an attempt to follow this seam. If the players only experience the most exciting set-piece encounters the dungeon has to offer, they'll be excited, sure, but they won't have much of a sense of it as a real place. But if they stumble upon the goblin latrines, or the fungus-bread bakery, it gives a sense that there's stuff down here that's not placed here for them to experience, but rather is here because it needs to be. It's somewhat like the difference between experiencing the fiction created by the haunted house ride, on the one hand, and on the other, getting off the ride and looking backstage.

The level "The Clockwork Mansion" in the video game Dishonored 2 was revelatory for me in this regard. The level presents a mansion arranged like a funhouse, with rooms that shift and morph according to the designs of its mad creator. But (minor spoiler warning), if you're quick, you can sneak "backstage" into the access tunnels while the rooms shift. Even though this is, of course, designed by the developers for the player to be able to access, it feels subversive, as though you're slipping out of the illusion and into reality. The layers of fiction thus created give the player the sense that the space is real enough to explore, which is extremely immersive. And it's a similar effect to Gygaxian naturalism: The mansion consists not just of things the player-character is meant to experience, but also of the bits that make those bits work - that's what makes it feel like a real, explorable space.

(I recommend to anyone interested in this sort of thing this video interviewing the lead designers for the level. In my view, it has a strong claim to being the best level in any video game to date.)

Here's the thing: You don't need to go to the lengths Gygax goes to to create the same thing for your players. Assuming you're playing in the paradigm where players are unlikely ever to explore every room within a large dungeon (or every area within an analogous adventure locale), the players can assume that the goblin latrines and the fungus-bread bakery are "offstage" somewhere, in a bit they haven't seen. But as a GM, if you want to create the experience of authentic exploration, you should be looking for a way to show the players that there's more in the world than just what they experience, and what they encounter doesn't exist there just so that they can encounter it. Treating your dungeon as an ecology, so they can discover not just elements that point to its self-sustaining existence, but connections between its elements that they may never have figured out (the bakery feeds the goblins, the latrines fertilize the fungus), is an effective way to do this. And watching them put two and two together is just a joy.

In my view, you can understand a lot of Gygax's weirder moments if you think of him as chasing this feeling of the fictional world as a place that stands on its own with its own self-sustaining reality. Suddenly, the intent behind "YOU CANNOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT" makes a lot more sense, for example. Generally, this achievement of a sense of independent reality is something that has taken a backseat in modern game design, with the story experience taking precedent instead. I think that's a shame, because in my view, as stated, this sidelines the one thing that makes RPGs truly special, in favour of something that many other forms of media/genres of game can - lets face it - do better. That the point is difficult to articulate concisely and clearly (and that Gygax's own attempts to home in on it are routinely subjected to ridicule, albeit not unfairly) makes it all the more difficult to mobilise a contrary approach to gaming. I think it forms part of the bundle of values the OSR aspires to, but it seldom gets put with the clarity or emphasis it deserves.