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Post by crimhthanthegreat on Aug 14, 2007 6:33:37 GMT -6
Just wondering who each of you consider the biggest influences on you and the way that you play OD&D.
I have never tried to put together a definitive list of who influenced me, but I am going to try to do that and then post it here.
Just right off the top of my head:
Robert E Howard Jack London JRRT Robert Louis Stevenson Alexandre Dumas Joseph A. Altsheler
just to name a few for the moment.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 14, 2007 6:53:06 GMT -6
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. :-)
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Post by serendipity on Aug 14, 2007 7:16:30 GMT -6
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.
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Post by meepo on Aug 14, 2007 9:43:32 GMT -6
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.
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Post by coffee on Aug 14, 2007 10:13:19 GMT -6
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.
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Post by serendipity on Aug 14, 2007 15:25:24 GMT -6
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.
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Post by philotomy on Aug 14, 2007 16:06:37 GMT -6
Robert E. Howard Edgar Rice Burroughs Michael Moorcock Fritz Leiber J.R.R. Tolkien H.P. Lovecraft Roger Zelazney
Honorable mentions to A. Merritt and Poul Anderson, and probably others I'm forgetting, at the moment.
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Post by Rhuvein on Aug 14, 2007 16:07:24 GMT -6
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.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2007 18:38:06 GMT -6
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!!! ;D
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Post by philotomy on Aug 14, 2007 20:15:53 GMT -6
I want to add:
Homer's Iliad & Odyssey Virgil's Aenid Greek Myth in general Eddas
Also Gene Wolfe. Not an influence for most of my D&D playing years, but definitely an influence, now.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 15, 2007 8:25:48 GMT -6
Beowulf, Roman History, Anglo-Saxon History, Early Medieval History, Norse Sagas, Greek/Roman Mythology 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. ;D 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.
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Post by ffilz on Aug 15, 2007 10:54:29 GMT -6
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).
Frank
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2007 16:13:05 GMT -6
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.
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Post by philotomy on Aug 15, 2007 19:33:35 GMT -6
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").
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Post by foster1941 on Aug 16, 2007 1:07:07 GMT -6
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
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2007 14:05:24 GMT -6
I have to mention
L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt
Of course Conan fans know that de Camp and Lin Carter rewrote many Conan stories and put them into an anothology published under Ace.
But I also enjoy de Camp's and Pratt's "The Compleat Enchancter" series about Harold Shea and Doctor Reed Chambers.
Great fun stories!
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Post by foster1941 on Aug 16, 2007 16:48:23 GMT -6
Have you read The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt (sans de Camp)? Good stuff!
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Post by Stonegiant on Aug 16, 2007 17:34:07 GMT -6
Off the top of my head-
Steven Brust (A broken down castle) Joel Rosenberg (The Guardian of the Flame Series) Glen Cook (The Black Company Chronicles, The Tower of Terror) HP Lovecraft (Anything) Ursala K. LeGuin (The Earthsea Trilogy, THe City of Illusions) LOTR and the Hobbit
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2007 18:41:01 GMT -6
Have you read The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt (sans de Camp)? Good stuff! No, never have read it, hopefully I can find it. Hard to find Pratt's stories. I do have "Land of Unreason" by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt. I haven't read it yet.
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Post by angantyr on Aug 16, 2007 20:09:10 GMT -6
Tolkien (Hobbit, LotR, Silmarillion) Robert Adams (Horseclans) Moorcock (Elric) Lovecraft REH (Conan)
Kinda surprised to see the disdain for JRRT's LotR. Does remind me, though, of a sig I read very recently, quoting a reviewer who said something to the effect of "People who read the Silmarillion either give up in disgust after the first chapter, or live within it" Either you read it and really got it, or you missed the boat.
Middle Earth - there's no other place I'd rather be!
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Post by thorswulf on Aug 16, 2007 22:04:34 GMT -6
Wow, I don't think I'll list all of my influences as that would take entirely too long. Here's a condensed list:
Robert E. Howard Jack Vance Fritz Leiber Clark Ashton Smith Lord Dunsany
All of these writers are able to evoke mood better than most of their contemporaries, or new writers too. If you want to understand how far down the path of evolution that English has dwindled read any of these authors, and get a good dictionary if you need meanings for words.
Beowulf 12 labors of Hercules The Tain bo Culaigne Orlando Furioso Norse Mythology The Popul Vuh The Book of Five Rings Sketchbooks and paintings by Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Wally Wood, and Michael Whelan Heavy Metal Magazine
These are some of the inspirational non fiction and artwork that have influenced me.
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Post by Melan on Aug 22, 2007 7:44:30 GMT -6
(from early on) Leigh Brackett Robert E. Howard (although, being a teenage snob, I used to look down on him... I eventually grew up, though : Jack Vance Fighting Fantasy gamebooks (particularly Deathtrap Dungeon - I think me and my friends must have made a dozen replicas of that ) John Caldwell's Word of Chaos & The Heart of Chaos (Hungarian fantasy novels inspired by the U1 and L1 AD&D modules) Jeffrey Stone's Quest for the Nightstone and its two sequels (another Hungarian novel, written by the same author as the Chaos stories, only under a different pseudonym; its dragons-versus-helicopters-versus-undead-versus-tanks aesthetic AND the backstabbing, shady characters may have been the strongest direct influence on me... seriously, these three books deserve translation) The Epic of Gilgamesh (a bit later) Howard P. Lovecraft (Cthulhu) Fritz Leiber Michael Moorcock (Corum more so than Elric, which I never liked) fiction from history (e.g. Grimmelhausen's picaresques) (more recently) C. A. S. Lovecraft again (Dream-quest) even more Brackett A. Merritt even more Vance Catherine L. Moore (and even more recently) Talbot Mundy Harold Lamb, both are like discovering... or in my case rediscovering Howard's Conan There may be more I forgot, but they are probably not so important. Movies: Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns Conan I. swords&sandals movies I don't recall the titles of Flash Gordon (B&W serials and 1980 movie; also, the first comic books!) Computer games: Wizardry VII. (it was a rite of passage in our group to complete it) early on, Lords of Midnight, but it didn't last too long Ishar II-III. for a short period. And finally, on classics: Hard to say, I have loved Gilgamesh and straight Sumerian-Babylonian mythology since the age of ten. Homeros took some more time to get, and I'm still not too keen on the Romans.
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Post by thorswulf on Aug 22, 2007 21:52:04 GMT -6
Just a guess, but I'd bet most of us have read a lot of mythology over the years. The Popul Vuh is quite possibly the most visceral for me. I mean what kind of fantasy lover wouldn't like an underworld like Xibulba, and the House of Knives? Scary stuff! The most fun to read are probably the stories of Irish Heroes, CuChulainn and Fionn MacCumhail. Just fun stuff, fighting off armies single handedly, and all the exotic weapons.
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Post by Falconer on Sept 3, 2007 18:29:00 GMT -6
Hmm, I have many favorite books/authors. The most influential on my games?
J.R.R. Tolkien -- Undeniably #1. My favorites are The Book of Lost Tales, The Lays of Beleriand, and The Hobbit. I try to be a pre-The Lord of the Rings purist, but the latter has an undeniable appeal (MORIA!). Needless to say, hobbits and balrogs and ents are hobbits and balrogs and ents!
C.S. Lewis -- The Silver Chair and Giants-Drow are a great match. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is another great model for a campaign. I like the Red Dwarves/Black Dwarves thing. Oh, and having Father Christmas show up (with presents!) on the Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl was pretty hilarious! (At least, for us Americans.)
E.R. Eddison -- The Worm Ouroboros has lent many interesting scenarios and ideas.
Poul Anderson -- The Broken Sword and Three Hearts and Three Lions has contributed greatly to my understanding of many aspects of fantastic races, alignment, etc.
de Camp and Pratt - The Compleat Enchanter series has also contributed many great ideas.
I'd love to say that some of my other favorites such as Burroughs, Howard, Smith, Lovecraft, and Vance have been influences on my game, but quite honestly they haven't much, other than indirectly through Gygax. Regards.
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Post by Lord Gwydion on Sept 3, 2007 23:55:23 GMT -6
By the time I got into D&D at age 11, I was already into things medieval and fantastical.
Early on, it was a book of illustrated fairy tales that included a few non-standards like one of Brian Boru's children catching a leprechaun and the story of Aladdin and the Lamp along with Little Red Riding Hood and so on.
My elementary school library had D'Aulaire's illustrated book of Greek Mythology (too bad they didn't have the Norse one, would have loved that as a kid), a book on knights, also illustrated (to this day I think of a morning star as a spiked ball on the end of a chain, not as the AD&D version because of this book), and various childrens' adventure stories.
The public library had a series of books on UFOs, Bigfoot, ghosts, Nessie, etc. that I devoured, along with a series of SF adventures that I loved as well. Malory's Morte d'Arthur and a kids version of Ivanhoe were on the list there.
At home, it was a children's version of Beowulf and lots of Endless Quest, Choose Your Own Adventure, Wizards Warriors and You books, etc. (The public library had some more of these too).
Then just about the time I heard of this game called D&D, I started reading Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles.
In my early gaming days, it was Weis & Hickman, Lawrence Watt Evans, David Eddings, Katherine Kerr, some Piers Anthony, and a bunch of fantasy writers I don't really remember from the library, more game books, and eventually when I got into high school, Tolkien.
It wasn't until recently that I started reading Poul Anderson, REH, and some of the other early masters of the genre.
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Post by Finarvyn on Sept 4, 2007 19:10:47 GMT -6
How about a "do over"? Just wondering who each of you consider the biggest influences on you and the way that you play OD&D. I started to compile a list of the top books and realized that some posters listed just a couple while others listed a huge list. It became difficult to determine how to classify things like "ancient history" or the like; is there a specific book that influenced you a lot? As the thread was originally supposed to be about the bigest influences how about if we limit the list to 5-6 of the most influencial rather than a laundry list of every book you ever liked? That way we can really compose a nice list of the top books! So ... you can re-post a "top" list or go back to edit your earlier post. I think that might be more useful in the long run. Here's my new and revised list of five top authors: * Tolkien * Howard * Moorcock * Burroughs * Zelazny
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Post by foster1941 on Sept 4, 2007 20:51:56 GMT -6
Trimmed list, per Fin's instructions: - Gary Gygax (D&D books and modules -- as a "second generation" D&Der (i.e. started playing in the 80s), Gygax's D&D books and modules themselves were my primary influence, at least in the early years, and I discovered fantasy and swords & sorcery literature through them, rather than the other way around)
- A. Merritt (everything, but if you want some specific titles: The Moon Pool, The Face in the Abyss, The Ship of Ishtar, Seven Footprints to Satan, Dwellers in the Mirage)
- Philip Jose Farmer ("World of Tiers" series)
- Gardner F. Fox (Kothar series -- these Howard-pastiche/ripoff stories feel more "like D&D" to me than Howard's actual stories (and are better than the pastiches by de Camp, Carter, et al.))
- Joseph Campbell (The Hero With a Thousand Faces)
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Post by tgamemaster1975 on Sept 4, 2007 21:04:53 GMT -6
My top five authors are: * Robert E Howard * J R R Tolkien * Edgar Rice Burroughs * Fritz Leiber * Andre Norton
And in addition:
* Myths & Legends from around the world
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Post by Finarvyn on Sept 5, 2007 13:14:45 GMT -6
Gardner F. Fox (Kothar series -- these Howard-pastiche/ripoff stories feel more "like D&D" to me than Howard's actual stories (and are better than the pastiches by de Camp, Carter, et al.)) And don't forget about the 8 or so Niall of the Far Travels stories by Gardner F. Fox. They can be found in Dragon magazine.
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Post by ffilz on Sept 5, 2007 13:21:09 GMT -6
And don't forget about the 8 or so Niall of the Far Travels stories by Gardner F. Fox. They can be found in Dragon magazine. One of these days, I need to re-read those. They were definitely my favorite part of Dragon Magazine. Frank
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