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Post by Finarvyn on May 24, 2010 12:05:32 GMT -6
I was reading a thread on the Goodman Games pages about Appendix N.
Growing up, my entire group had read Tolkien, Dune, Conan, Elric, Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser, Three Hearts and Three Lions, and many others from Gary's list. My current gaming group reads David Eddings, Mercedes Lackey, and other more modern authors.
It occurs to me that one key difference between today's gamers and "old school" gamers may simply be their fiction reading background.
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Post by Morandir on May 24, 2010 15:12:12 GMT -6
Definitely. I've always been a big fan of fantasy, but it wasn't until recently that I read anything in appendix N (with the exception of Tolkien, which was my intro into fantasy fiction). I wasn't aware that most of them even existed until after I discovered the OSR community. Before that, what I read was the big name modern guys - Robert Jordan, Robin Hobb, Salvatore, Tad Williams, and so forth.
As of now, I'm the only one in my group who has read most of them. One guy has read some Solomon Kane stories, and I've gotten my wife to read a few pages of Vance and Howard (Tower of the Elephant). Other than that, our shared fantasy experience is Tolkien, JK Rowling, and C.S. Lewis.
Put that with the fact that D&D for them means 3e, and I have a hard time as a referee getting them to buy into the various pulp S&S and old-school gaming ideas that I love. It's frustrating at times, but I'm slowing getting them to come around.
Additionally, I think part of it is that today, visual media - video games, movies, tv shows etc. - serve as the primary form of exposure to fantasy, rather than books. Thinking of fantasy as the LotR/Narnia/Harry Potter movies, the Elder Scrolls video game series, WoW, Final Fantasy, anime etc. will give you a much different impression of how things should be in D&D than if you're using Conan and Elric for inspiration.
Mor
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Post by Falconer on May 24, 2010 19:01:51 GMT -6
I think Howard, Lovecraft, Vance, and the rest have immortal appeal. D&D ought to have stuck with those roots and drawn people to that literature rather than entering into an incestuous relationship with its own offspring literature (junk which is now definitely dated). One of the things I really like about the OSR is that it is really grounded in an interest in “pulp S&S” and propagates an interest therein.
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Post by Finarvyn on May 25, 2010 13:52:20 GMT -6
And I don't mean to imply that newer authors aren't as good as old-time ones, but they have a different feel nowadays. I think that some of the older authors didn't worry so much about being "PC" and not offending anyone....
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Post by Dave L on May 26, 2010 14:16:39 GMT -6
And I don't mean to imply that newer authors aren't as good as old-time ones, but they have a different feel nowadays. I think that some of the older authors didn't worry so much about being "PC" and not offending anyone.... For the older authors there was no PC, the concept just didn't exist.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2010 10:35:32 GMT -6
Not only that Fin, but that folks are reading less of anything overall, it seems. History and literature were part and parcel of all book shelves in the LGTSA days. Remember, this whole "Fantasy Thing" evolves from Wargaming as well. Due to the many periods covered, that included anthropology (Gary had many such books on his shelves), period histories and many related study areas. Whereas the many authors in "N" (Tolkien, De Camp, Pratt, Leiber, Lovecraft, etc.) were all heavily influenced by history, legend, mythology and current works of literature (Lovecraft discovered Smith (unmentioned in the appendix N) through Smith's poetry, for instance, and in reading Smith's letters or other's commentaries on the times (re: Book of the Dead by E, H, Price) everyone of the predecessors who wrote fantasy or SF or weird fiction were extremely well-read in many areas outside of their preferred genre. Taint so today as it was with them or by emulation, with us in Lake Geneva. It has been my contention that this has contributed in whole or part to the slump in the lack of truly interesting ideas apparent in the field which is now many times greater in size than in those days. RE: Uninformed quantity as opposed to informed quality.
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Post by geoffrey on Jul 29, 2010 12:45:17 GMT -6
Smith (unmentioned in the appendix N) I've noticed that Gary never seemed to mention Clark Ashton Smith, but that a number of your modules have some inspiration from Smith. Did you ever try to get Gary to read Smith?
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Post by James Maliszewski on Jul 29, 2010 13:21:27 GMT -6
One of the things I really like about the OSR is that it is really grounded in an interest in “pulp S&S” and propagates an interest therein. I agree, but then that's been my personal hobbyhorse ever since I returned to old school gaming back in late 2007. I don't think D&D should become ossified or narrowly restrict its inspiration to only a certain sub-set of fantasy/science fiction literature, but I do think it's vital that we understand the literary background out of which it grew. Too few gamers seem to appreciate the roots of the game and the hobby and that's a pity.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2010 13:24:01 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2010 13:56:34 GMT -6
I agree with James. Here is a quick listing (and incomplete at that) which influenced D&D.
Traditional Parlor Games (EGG taught me "20 Questions" for instance and I still remember a few he threw at me then).
Traditional Board Games.
Historical Board Games/Miniatures ("Wargames" prior to the rise of SPI's attempted redefinition as "Simulations")
Fantasy/SF/Weird/Mystery/Adventure fiction (not just the sub-category of S&S which many assume EGG was only promoting in kind through a snap-shot given in the)D&D Foreword). This included Swift, Stevenson, Poe, Verne, Haggard and an endless list of other classic authors and their works.
Myth/Legend/Folklore/Alternate Lore (Lemuria/Atlantis/Hollow Earth theories, etc.)
Other Classic Literature (Dante, Greek Classics, et al)
General Historical and related areas, such as anthropology, military history, linguistics (diachronic), engineering, geography and other cross-interdisciplinary areas.
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Post by coffee on Jul 29, 2010 22:28:10 GMT -6
Historical Board Games/Miniatures ("Wargames" prior to the rise of SPI's attempted redefinition as "Simulations") SPI made some good games, but their real problem was that they made too many simulations. Avalon Hill's classics may not have been as historical, but by gawd they were playable! Good to see you here, Rob. My utmost appreciation to you for all you've done for this hobby I love so much. Have an exalt just for still being you.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2010 12:18:41 GMT -6
Well, thank you, Coffee. I agree with your assessment of SPI. Though I liked a lot of their games (USN comes to mind immediately) AH's were ever my favorites. I cut my teeth on Afrika Korps at 13 years of age (and therein lies another story, indeed). It's good to see some of the Old Guard gamers here, like myself, that also play GAMES, not just RPGs.
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leon
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Post by leon on Oct 1, 2010 13:15:49 GMT -6
I think Howard, Lovecraft, Vance, and the rest have immortal appeal. D&D ought to have stuck with those roots and drawn people to that literature rather than entering into an incestuous relationship with its own offspring literature (junk which is now definitely dated). The game was inspired by the game itself or sources which were directly influenced by D&D like "official" D&D literature, computer RPGs which copied D&D or "lesser" (and newer) fantasy fiction which was also heavily influenced by D&D or by its sources (but which never managed to match): Cheap LOTR, Elric, etc. knock offs come a dime a dozen these days. And of course other stuff like super hero comic books and manga which have little (if anything) to do with D&D have unfortunately "polluted" the later editions of the game. So the term I can think of for D&D's later influences is coprophagia. D&D ate its own feces (Sorry for the strong imagery).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2010 16:43:16 GMT -6
I have an essay, not longish, but as of the moment not edited, which I feel puts the whole matter in a different light. To summarize some of the important aspects. All authors from Appendix N were influenced by other literature, such as folk tales, legends, poetry, contemporary fiction, film, theater and the critical discourse which took place regarding all of these. In presenting these condensations as their expressed works from such influences, EGG went for straight genre fiction relations, though with more range I might add than what is being expressed in the posts above that seem to extract the same "types" out of the list's holistic context which he presented with even his short brush stroke. The literal translation of APPENDIX N as interpreted as "D&D Literature" is quite absurd from a critical viewpoint because of this. The ranges are at best distillations of the fiction-writers as part of an ongoing part of story, and story derives from everywhere in our life. Therefore, and in support of that, if one were to seriously study Vance, Lovecraft, CA Smith, one would soon find where their sources for inspiration derive from. If you had asked them if they were just this or that, they would have said no, and like any good writer would have pointed a broad finger at the classic stories and of those other related areas as I noted above. Thus opining that the APPENDIX N is "REPRESENTATIVE" of D&D is a fallacy. EGG never stated that it was a definitive list, nor that it was anything other than a RECOMMENDED READING list. Just like recommended reading, its expanded use is assumed to be more or less not only a sampling of it at one level of participation, but by extension also a beginning reference for those who wish to uncover how and why such writers perfected their craft to reach such levels of excellent storytelling. More writers, publishers and critics seem to concentrate on the finished art of these writers than what ACTUALLY INSPIRED THEM to write these stories and to perfect while doing so their craft. That's a grave problem, because, as you see, the more one imitates a form which was singularly inspired to begin with by all facets of fictional storytelling, the more the uninspired/uninformed writer or designer and his or her work becomes watered down in imitation or worse. These greats became great by studying multiple and varied facets of their craft, not by studying and templating each other or one particular form or genre. They were inspired by each other--but to compete to do better, not imitate. A big difference between gaining and keeping originality or paling by comparison in rehashed, pitiful examples so apparent today in both fiction and RPG.
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