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Scouring my new, favorite blog: Grognardia. I happened upon this post, which asks what's your Appendix N?
Now, you may ask "what's an Appendix N?" Well, the question was first posed from this blog. If you don't want to venture out to the internet, I'll explain: Appendix N was an Appendix (surprise!) in the back of the first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide which detailed Gary Gygax's inspirational material which he credits that aided him in the creation of the game and hobby.
I have my own copy of the book and Gygax's list is a bit light for my tastes, but he does attribute H.P Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Gygax goes on later to say that Tolkien wasn't as big of an influence as many believe and while first I did not believe it, I was rather eloquently convinced otherwise, by Mr. Maliszewski.
To go back to the original idea and the one that I wanted to post about, other than the shameless plug to a wonderful blog, I like the idea of keeping a sort of record of what inspired you. Think of it as a mental and inspirational bibliography. It's a good way to share with others your interests and keep a track of what you love, but it needs to be narrowed down.
The Appendix N usually is contained and focused to D&D games and while that is something I find rather appealing to list, I'd rather have something a bit more blanketing. Something that I may go back to cite. So, instead, I will list all the things that inspire my characters on Gaia, D&D campaigns, and storylines I have created. I do not do this to make a giant list of "THISISWATILYK" but because I think it is a worthy task to list what influences you so others might happen upon it and understand you better, especially when it comes to role-playing. I will explain the importance of why role-playing is an evolutionary process later, but for now: on to the list!
Asimov, Isaac. I, Robot; The Foundry Series.
Beowulf.
Epic of Gilgamesh
Grub, Jeff. The Brother's War.
Hammett, Samuel Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon.
Herbert, Frank. Dune.
Lovecraft, H.P. Dagon; Call of Cthulhu*.
Nibelungenlied
Pratchett, Terry. Guards, Guards*.
Salvatore, R.A. The Icewind Dale Trilogy ; The Sellswords Trilogy.
Stoker, Bram. The Lair of the White Worm; Dracula*.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit.
To clear a few things up, the most major of my inspirations on characters is Asimov's works and the Nibelungenlied. The story of Siegfried still rings out to many, many of my stories in D&D and I find it leaps and bounds more influential than most of the list.
Hammet was included because he was the introduction for me to Film Noir and the hardboiled detective novels. I adore his writing style and it was very much a large influence on many of the gritty stories that I create.
The Cthulhu Mythos was very influential, even if I have no finished all the books, but Call of Cthulhu was listed, not because it is the first most think of, but because it was so removed from Lovecraft's work. It is not the essential Lovecraft story to me, that would be Dagon, but Call of Cthulhu is quite a heroic tale compared to the usual horrific.
Pratchett got me into him with Guards, Guards and although the Discworld novels are great, I am going with what influenced me more, not what is better.
Stoker made the list more for The Lair of the White Worm than Dracula. I found the former to be much more enthralling and engaging than the smut that was the vampire novel. That's the child in me.
I specifically only put The Hobbit for Tolkien, because I did not enjoy reading Lord of the Rings and did not find it interesting until the movies. Heresy, I'm sure, but I felt it was put to a scope that was too epic and I was not taken with Tolkien's version of that writing. He was a very bland and boring man and that translated to reading to me. It was an epic and quite a tale, but the format was so contrasting, so different than The Hobbit, I couldn't appreciate it for what it was. That's not his fault, but my own and again this list is about influences, not a list of the best books ever.
I will update this list at a later date, for now, I will point to this list for inspiration.
 Super Flying Kick · Thu Dec 23, 2010 @ 09:00pm · 0 Comments |
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