“Mana did not make it into the D&D rulebook because Gary Gygax and the other creators of D&D based their magic system on the novels of Jack Vance, where a limited number of spells could be memorized, cast once, and then forgotten.”

One of many amazing insights into how the concept of mana made its way from Polynesian antiquity into today’s gamer culture.

(via The History of Mana: How an Austronesian Concept Became a Video Game Mechanic—Vol. 2, No. 2—The Appendix)

Published by

Kars Alfrink

Designer turned design researcher. Postdoc at TU Delft. Exploring contestable AI.