TheDiceMustRoll
Game Analist
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2016
- Messages
- 761
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Inspired by the Works of Fiction of: Orson Scott Card, Larry Niven, Andre Norton, David Brin, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Jack Vance, Alan Dean Foster, Keith Laumer, A.E. Van Vogt, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Joe Halderman, Dan Simmons, Fred Saberhagen and 100 worthy others.
The Grognardia blog was great. It's a pity James Maliszewski abandoned it at the end of 2012.Appendix N is great. I first learned of it from the now-defunct blog Grognardia.
Yes, I'm aware of that. Just thought I'd mention the fantasy fiction that I personally find inspiring for use in RPGs.Many of those books are on Appendix N.
If Comte hadn't already posted the contents of Appendix N, I would have included it in my own post. As you can see, Gygax does include specific suggestions for many authors, though for many he apparently finds all their works worthwhile, or at least too many to be listed.[/QUOTE]And GG wasn't very clear on what was and what wasnt to be read. Like he just says "lovecraft" and that's it.
I don't think it was intentional fraud; more like a combination ofI didn't follow entirely but was Grognardia going bust because if family tragedy or a semi-fraudulent kickstarter?
If you refer back to Gary Gygax's forward in the original version of D&D (1974), he specifically mentions four sets of fantasy writing:Back to appendix N. Aside from being good reads, I think it shows that the roots of the hobby weren't really in Tolkien at all, it was weird fiction. Gygax's Greyhawk game had a wizard with six shooters and Arneson's Blackmoor campaign work was full of lasers and sci-fi elements.
Aside from the unnamed works co-authored by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (who also influenced D&D through his wargames), these are two sets of Sword & Sorcery stories and one set of Sword & Planet novels. In the last part of Appendix N, he drops Burroughs from his short list but adds Vance, Merritt, and Lovecraft.Those wargamers who lack imagination, those who don't care for Burroughs' Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find DUNGEONS and DRAGONS to their taste.