Finarvyn Administrator Dungeon Master member is offline
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 4,674 Location: Near Chicago Karma: 178
Re: What books/authors were your biggest influence « Reply #1 on Aug 14, 2007, 7:53am »
Off the top of my head: * Robert E. Howard (Conan, Solomon Kane, El Borak, and others) * J.R.R. Tolkien (Middle-earth) * Fritz Leiber (Fafhrd & Grey Mouser) * Michael Moorcock (Elric, Hawkmoon, Corum)
Most of those authors seemed to emphasize the lone "questing hero" style of adventure, which was a lot like our early D&D games. One or two players and a DM.
Later in life I discovered Roger Zelazny (Amber, Dilvish) and wish I had him as an influence a decade or two earlier.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
serendipity Level 4 Theurgist Member #00-00-02 member is offline
Bunny Master
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Female Posts: 140 Karma: 9
Re: What books/authors were your biggest influence « Reply #2 on Aug 14, 2007, 8:16am »
Okay, so I already know my list is probably going to look a little different from everyone else's....
Lewis Carroll (Alice, of course) Richard Adams (Watership Down) Patricia Wrede (Dealing with Dragons, etc) Anne Logston (Shadow) Piers Anthony (Xanth) Ru Emerson (Night-Threads)
I'd also have to add the Chicks in Chainmail books and the RuneSword series, which are written by various authors. I could include JRRT, but only The Hobbit.
Serendipity Certified BM (Bunnymaster) Chronicler Extraordinaire C&C Playtester - 2003 Gamer since before 2/94
meepo Guest
Re: What books/authors were your biggest influence « Reply #3 on Aug 14, 2007, 10:43am »
Quote:
I could include JRRT, but only The Hobbit.
That's funny - I feel the same way. Reading LotR is like pulling teeth for me but I LOVE The Hobbit and have read it probably a half a dozen times in my life.
It's not that I don't enjoy the story of LotR, it's just that I often find the books unbearably slow. It's one of those rare cases where I prefer the films to the books.
Joined: Jul 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,503 Karma: 57
Re: What books/authors were your biggest influence « Reply #4 on Aug 14, 2007, 11:13am »
I read the Conan stories back in the late 70's. They were the ones put out by Ace or whoever, with everybody and their dog writing them (seriously, each volume had only one or two stories actually by Robert E. Howard).
Just lately I've gotten the first volume of the collected REH Conan stories, in the order he wrote them. It's eye-opening. I'm taking my time and savoring them, instead of dashing through like I usually do.
Other than that, I'd have to say Moorcock, Zelazny's Amber series, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams and David Eddings.
Dieter the Deathless, anger-fueled fighting machine.
serendipity Level 4 Theurgist Member #00-00-02 member is offline
Bunny Master
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Female Posts: 140 Karma: 9
Re: What books/authors were your biggest influence « Reply #5 on Aug 14, 2007, 4:25pm »
Quote:
Reading LotR is like pulling teeth for me but I LOVE The Hobbit and have read it probably a half a dozen times in my life.
It's not that I don't enjoy the story of LotR, it's just that I often find the books unbearably slow. It's one of those rare cases where I prefer the films to the books.
My fingers itch to pick up a blue pencil whenever I start to read LotR. (You could eliminate that entire chapter if you altered this sentence here.) As for the movies, people seem to either love or hate them; I fall squarely in the 'love' camp, though not so much that I'll watch the extended versions again. I'm still in hopes that the Hobbit will be made into a movie, as it is a highly entertaining book.
Re: What books/authors were your biggest influence « Reply #7 on Aug 14, 2007, 5:07pm »
Hmm, thought provoking question for sure.
Off the top of my head ~ main influences:
The Hobbit Beowulf Tarzan/Princess of Mars - Burroughs Robert Louis Stevenson Terry Brooks ~ Shannara Anne McCaffrey ~ Dragonriders of Pern LoTRs Bryan Jacques ~ Redwall series R.E.H. Wallace - Ben Hur Howard Fast - Spartacus Crichton - Eaters of the Dead Ken Follett - Pillars of the Earth
Edit Hamilton - Mythology Bulfinch's Mythology John Grant - Viking Mythology
I've read a ton of sci-fi, so I'm sure I've picked up some ideas there from the less technical or space novels.
Still to read though on my now list . . . The Prydain Chronicles, Three Hearts and Three Lions, Gord the Rogue and The Earthsea Trilogy.
I hope to be able to read Moorcock, Vance & Lovecraft among the many other fantasy writers.
"Enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" ~ Gary Gygax 1 November 1973 Men & Magic
"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:" Second Witch ~ Act IV Scene I Macbeth
Kyrel Level 6 Magician Defender vs Spam member is offline
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 488 Location: Florida Suncoast Karma: 13
Re: What books/authors were your biggest influence « Reply #8 on Aug 14, 2007, 7:38pm »
Robert E. Howard Clark Ashton Smith Jack Vance Hickman & Weis (Chronicles & Legends--don't laugh ) The Hobbit Beowulf Roman History Anglo-Saxon History Early Medieval History Norse Sagas Greek/Roman Mythology Books about Military History/Stategy & Tactics (any genre will do) Edith Pargeter (Ellis Peters) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle D & D Endless Quest Books (again, don't laugh) Joe Dever (Lone Wolf & the Legend of Lone Wolf) Any solo game book from the 80's (grew up on this stuff) Star Wars Just to name a few... Great Topic!!!
Finarvyn Administrator Dungeon Master member is offline
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 4,674 Location: Near Chicago Karma: 178
Re: What books/authors were your biggest influence « Reply #10 on Aug 15, 2007, 9:25am »
Quote:
Beowulf, Roman History, Anglo-Saxon History, Early Medieval History, Norse Sagas, Greek/Roman Mythology
Quote:
Homer's Iliad & Odyssey, Virgil's Aenid, Greek Myth in general, Eddas
I gotta ask – did you read all of these things before playing D&D, or were they later inspirations?
I read my share of mythology (mostly dumbed-down versions and not true classics like Homer) but didn’t feel like they influenced my game nearly as much as authors such as Tolkien, Howard, and Leiber did.
I suppose it’s because: 1. those books are hard to read and I prefer a fun book to a historical one. I find the concept of "the classics" much more interesting than actually reading them. 2. I didn’t have much interest in historical RPG-ing as much as Fantastic RPG-ing, so Tolkien fit my needs more than Medea.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 505 Karma: 15
Re: What books/authors were your biggest influence « Reply #11 on Aug 15, 2007, 11:54am »
I read many (most?) of the above mentioned titles during my early years of gaming, but I'm not sure how much of an influence they really were. I figured out very quickly that there was no way D&D was really going to tell the same stories with the mismatch of D&D "physics/magic/whatever" and fiction, plus the fact that a gaggle of players will tell a very different story than a single author. So I guess the influence was more just a celebration of fantasy with a good dose of good old swords and sorcery (and of science fiction on my SF gaming - probably a bit more influence there).
Kyrel Level 6 Magician Defender vs Spam member is offline
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 488 Location: Florida Suncoast Karma: 13
Re: What books/authors were your biggest influence « Reply #12 on Aug 15, 2007, 5:13pm »
For the most part, before. To be brief, I had a love of the medieval period before I started playing D & D (mind you, I was already well into my 13th year of life when I actually played a "real" game of D & D; before that, me & my best friend at the time used to have "paper based" games--I'm not sure how to explain them). Fostered by my love of 1 on 1 gameboooks (Lone Wolf, Endless Quest, Freeway Warrior, Car Wars, Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy Books, etc.), & TSR based fantasy (early Dragonlance for the most part), which I started to read around 6 ( my copy of Dragons of Autumn Twilight cost my Mom & Dad a whopping $2.95 in 1984) or so, I quickly developed a taste for adventure. My mother, also an avid fantasy & mythology enthusiast, definitely helped encourage reading such material (my Father never reads very much; I was well into high school when I finally believed that my Father could actually read). From game books, I moved onto the local elementary school library, & started checking out books all about medieval culture, life, etc. (as an interesting side note, my 5th grade teacher sought to put a stop to all this by having a meeting with my parents & explaining to them that I was "psychological disturbed"; my Father answered the only way he knew how: a very colorful string of violent expletives directed at the teacher, which resulted in her backing off of me for the rest of the term). I still have my copy of Beowulf I received for Christmas in 1988 (that special 5th grade year again). I actually take a lot of pride in my own personal library: everything from culture to history to religion & beyond (between me & my better half, we have over 5000 books, seriously). Anywhoo, the whole jist of this is that by the time my parents bought me the "Black Box" edition of the game (1991), I already had a pretty firm background of the subject matter; and I've been twisted ever since.
Re: What books/authors were your biggest influence « Reply #13 on Aug 15, 2007, 8:33pm »
Quote:
I gotta ask – did you read all of these things before playing D&D, or were they later inspirations?
Later. I read the "dumbed down" versions like everyone else, but they didn't really influence my D&D games, at the time (although you might say Clash of the Titans did).
Years later I read those things, again, and they definitely influenced my gaming, then. Not so much my main D&D campaign, but I've been running pseudo-historical/fantasy-myth mini-series games, too. I've done Greek (sailing to Colchis, exploring the ruins of Troy), Viking (an Eaters of the Dead rip-off -- this was before the 13th Warrior movie made the plot well-known, an quest for a magical spear, setting up a Vinland colony), and Bronze Age Levant ("Days of Shamgar").
Joined: Jun 2007 Posts: 432 Location: Hollywood, California, USA Karma: 40
Re: What books/authors were your biggest influence « Reply #14 on Aug 16, 2007, 2:07am »
In the 80s (as a kid/teenager): Gary Gygax (D&D books/modules, Gord novels) Michael Moorcock (Elric series) L. Sprague de Camp (edited Conan series w/ REH & Lin Carter, Harold Shea series w/ Fletcher Pratt, Lest Darkness Fall) J.R.R. Tolkien (Hobbit, LotR) Terry Brooks (Elfstones of Shanarra) Fritz Leiber (Fafhrd & Gray Mouser series) Roger Zelazny (Amber series) Poul Anderson (Three Hearts & Three Lions, The High Crusade) H.P. Lovecraft (Cthulhu Mythos stories) T.H. White (The Once & Future King) movies (Star Wars, Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, etc.) music (The Clash, The d**ned, Iron Maiden, Jethro Tull; Beethoven, Berlioz, Dvorak, Elgar, Mahler, Mussorgsky, Orff, Rimsky-Korsakov, R. Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, etc.)
nowadays (as an adult (at least ostensibly)): A. Merritt (everything) Philip Jose Farmer (World of Tiers series) Robert Howard (original Conan series, Soloman Kane series) Edgar Rice Burroughs (Barsoom series) Gardner Fox (Kothar series) Poul Anderson (The Broken Sword) Jack Vance (Dying Earth series) Roger Zelazny (Jack of Shadows) Lord Dunsany (stories, The King of Elfland's Daughter) Gene Wolfe (Book of the New Sun) Fletcher Pratt (The Blue Star) John Bellairs (The Face in the Frost) Margaret St. Clair (Shadow People, Sign of the Labrys) Fred Saberhagen (Empire of the East series) Andre Norton (Witch World series) Joseph Campbell (Hero with a Thousand Faces) real-world mythology, history, folklore "legit" fiction (Balzac, Borges, Carroll, Conrad, Dickens, Diderot, Dumas, Faulkner, Garcia-Marquez, Greene, Hardy, Hesse, Hemingway, Hugo, Kafka, Melville, Pynchon, Steinbeck, Stendhal, Twain, Voltaire, Zola, etc.) movies (Harryhausen, Disney, King Kong, The Wizard of Oz; Bava, Bergman, Bresson, Bunuel, Cronenberg, De Palma, Eastwood, Fassbinder, Fellini, Ford, Hawks, Herzog, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Kurosawa, Lang, Leone, Lynch, Malick, Milius, Mizoguchi, Pasolini, Rivette, Rohmer, Rossellini, Tarkovsky, Verhoeven, Welles, Wenders, etc.) music (Aphex Twin, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Fairport Convention, Genesis, King Crimson, Roxy Music, Stereolab, Richard Thompson, T-Rex, The Who; Adams, Bach, Brahms, Britten, Charpentier, Glass, Handel, Lully, Mozart, Nyman, Part, Pergolesi, Prokofiev, Rameau, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Vaughn-Williams, etc.) nature humanity life
![[Home]](http://images.proboards.com/menu/home.gif "[Home]")
![[New Topics]](http://images.proboards.com/menu/topics.png "[New Topics]")
![[Help]](http://images.proboards.com/menu/help.gif "[Help]")
![[Search]](http://images.proboards.com/menu/search.gif "[Search]")
![[Login]](http://images.proboards.com/menu/login.gif "[Login]")
![[Register]](http://images.proboards.com/menu/register.gif "[Register]")
![[Search This Thread]](http://images.proboards.com/search2.gif "[Search This Thread]")
![[Share Topic]](http://images.proboards.com/new/buttons/share.png "[Share Topic]")
![[Print]](http://images.proboards.com/buttons/print.gif "[Print]")
Author
Logged
![[avatar]](http://images.community.wizards.com/community.wizards.com/user/finarvyn/avatar.jpg "[avatar]"){kind=avatar}
![[avatar]](http://members.iinet.net.au/~rabbit/bungroup.jpg "[avatar]")
![[avatar]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4qI6i7wKX1c/SdZoRveimpI/AAAAAAAAADI/N5Grto0YRg4/S220/Mage.JPG "[avatar]")
![[homepage]](http://images.proboards.com/buttons/www_sm.gif "[homepage]")
I'm still in hopes that the Hobbit will be made into a movie, as it is a highly entertaining book.
![[avatar]](http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k173/PhilotomyJurament/Untitled.jpg "[avatar]")
![[avatar]](http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m109/Rhuvein/KEEPavatar.jpg "[avatar]"){kind=avatar}
![[avatar]](http://content.turbine.com/sites/compendium.ddo.com/images/uploaded/a/ac/Mindflayer.png "[avatar]")
