{"id":107,"date":"2018-02-27T08:21:53","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T14:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/?p=107"},"modified":"2018-02-27T08:34:16","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T14:34:16","slug":"using-fairy-tales-in-your-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/2018\/02\/27\/using-fairy-tales-in-your-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Fairy Tales in Your Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much is being written these days about the literary inspirations of Dungeons & Dragons.\u00a0 The fantasy and science-fiction enjoyed by Gary Gygax made the game what it was in its first few iterations.\u00a0 Later editions were shaped by the fiction enjoyed by others.\u00a0 More than 40 years after the game began most gamers recognize it as a toolkit for building the fantasy campaign that they want to play.\u00a0 We’ve seen settings and campaigns inspired by a wide variety of fiction novels and short stories, movies, Japanese animation and comic books.\u00a0 I’d like to propose another genre to inspire your games: fairy tales.<\/p>\n

Some have seen the value of using myths but I haven’t yet come across a recommendation for fairy tales as the spring from which to draw forth material for fantasy roleplaying.\u00a0 I think this is a shame as fairy tales have much to offer.\u00a0\u00a0One reason for this may be the idea that fairy stories are strictly for children but a little knowledge of history sets the record straight. What we call fairy tales today used to be a tradition of oral storytelling aimed at general audiences. Don’t let the modern, watered-down renditions of fairy tales seen in the children’s section of book stores put you off.<\/p>\n

So what makes them so great? They are a rich source of ideas. Most of us RPG gamers are reading fantasy novels written in recent years and fantasy RPG books. We are seeing the same themes and tidbits repeated in those books and using them to piece together our own campaigns. We are painting with a limited palette. Fairy tales offer us more colors. Fairy tales are also written in an older style that is more information dense. Minor details are tossed out to let the story move quickly. Most are only a few pages long and pack a lot of action on each of those pages. In one hour you can mow through a lot of fairy tales and assess what you want to use. Finally, fairy tales are international. Many collections offer stories from cultures all over the world. We get stuck in fantasy themes from just western Europe too easily if we aren’t careful. Fairy stories offer a brief and efficient survey of eastern Europe and many other regions.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to imagine how to do this poorly. Basing a D&D campaign on Little Red Riding Hood would annoy everyone. So how does one do it right? By understanding what fairy tales have to offer. I see three main virtues.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A source of ideas<\/li>\n
  2. Primal themes<\/li>\n
  3. A window into older times<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Source of Ideas<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I began reading fairy tale collections to look for decent stories for my children but I was struck by how many ideas I was getting for RPG campaigns.\u00a0 Curses, magic items and new monsters were jumping off the pages.\u00a0 RPG books are stuffed with magic items that have been considered for use in games.\u00a0 They’re great but they soon look suspiciously familiar.\u00a0 Fairy tales offer a wide selection of things I would never have though of – things that were never considered for use in games and outside of the usual.\u00a0 A Hans Christian Andersen story featured a cauldron that, when filled with boiling water, could be commanded to fill the room with the smells of any house named.\u00a0 Can you imagine the PCs of your campaign using this as a spying device?\u00a0 When the room stinks of garlic the local lord must be entertaining a diplomat from the Southern Kingdoms.\u00a0 When the smell of ginger is inescapable the wizard of the Eastern Empire must have arrived with his retinue.\u00a0 And what will your players tell the inn keeper who pounds on the door and demands to know why they’re nauseating the other guests?<\/p>\n

    Too often we limit the magic of our campaign to the list of spells in the rulebooks we’re using.\u00a0 Magic should be strange, varied and unpredictable.\u00a0 The NPCs of your campaign should be pulling out curses and enchantments that your players haven’t heard of.\u00a0 Many fairy stories revolve around a curse that needs to be lifted or an enchanted transformation that needs to be reversed.\u00a0 A story in an Andrew Lang collection recounted a kingdom where the fey and a cabal of wizards had been feuding for generations.\u00a0 Their strikes and counter strikes were effecting local politics, crops and wars.\u00a0 A prince had to seek out reclusive fey creatures to learn how to reverse a wizard’s spell that held a castle frozen in time.\u00a0 Only when the castle was returned to normal time could he rescue the princess and restore the realm’s political relations.<\/p>\n

    Not many gamemasters feel the desire to create new monsters for their games but if you do fairy tales won’t disappoint.\u00a0 I especially like the ideas I found for putting new twists on old monsters.\u00a0 Your players have probably battled a hydra to the death.\u00a0 But what if the hydra is an enchanted prince?\u00a0 A prince who knows the incantation to awaken a magic item that was owned by his family long ago?\u00a0 Now the players have to fight the hydra but be careful not to kill it or the secret they need will be lost.<\/p>\n

    Primal Themes<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Scholars have written about how fairy tales communicate in simple terms themes that are common for all people.\u00a0 These themes can be an inspiration to gamemasters that are looking to add that something extra to their games that bring the narrative above the level of just killing monsters and carting home treasure.\u00a0 This can be a tricky sort of thing that is usually attempted after a gamemaster has a handle on basics like combat rules, running a dungeon well and choosing opponents.\u00a0 I’ve heard the accounts of frustrated gamers who don’t care about the sob story an NPC tells them or how the local lord is up to dirty politics again.\u00a0 Fairy tales have survived centuries of retelling and in the process have cut out the dead wood that bored audiences (why do you think they’re so light on details compared to modern writing?).\u00a0 These tales are full of basic themes and concepts that people of every generation have wrestled with.\u00a0 There’s going to be something there that grabs your players’ attention.\u00a0 A glass mountain that no one can figure out how to climb, a maiden that exists only inside a particular mirror, a ruin of a castle where time stops – you can use these themes to not only present a challenge to your players but also a mystery they want to explore.\u00a0 You can give your adventures that hint of something primal that doesn’t sit right with your players.\u00a0 Even when they overcome the obstacle and grab the prize they’ll wonder if they missed something…<\/p>\n

    Window into Older Times<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Because fairy stories have survived from older times they can give us a window to look into the conditions of long ago.\u00a0 Too many campaigns feature situations and NPCs that come from the 21st century.\u00a0 Details of living in a fantastical, medieval society get glossed over.\u00a0 Fairy tales let you see elements of daily life in rural, pre-industrial times.\u00a0 Many tales tell of households that are starving to death.\u00a0 What does this represent?\u00a0 It doesn’t represent anything!\u00a0 Before the Industrial Revolution there were many families and even villages where the crops failed, the money ran out and people were looking at a very unsymbolic wasting away from hunger.\u00a0 This prompted action.\u00a0 People would move or start raiding travelers on the nearby highway.<\/p>\n

    Some tales start with sending sons away because they can’t feed them anymore or entering into agreements with outsiders to get their children married off.\u00a0 Problems the reader understands are approached in ways the reader thinks odd because the priorities of past ages are at work.\u00a0 The value of honesty, a good reputation and chastity seem way overblown to modern readers.\u00a0 This should prompt them to start seeing how the values of past ages pushed people to different decisions than we expect now.\u00a0 A smart gamemaster can find ways to breath authenticity and color into a campaign world from fairy tales.<\/p>\n

    I hope this post introduced you to the idea of using fairy tales as an inspiration for your fantasy roleplaying campaigns.\u00a0 If your experience is anything like mine, you don’t need to read many before new ideas start coming.\u00a0 I wouldn’t be very helpful unless I offered some assistance in guiding you away from the dumbed-down versions of fairy tales that are too easy to find these days.<\/p>\n

    Books Worth Investigating<\/h4>\n

    For those who haven’t spent much time in fairy tales I offer this short list of books to get one started.<\/p>\n