Do you have an "Appendix N"?

[Agrippa]

When playing or DMing Dungeons and Dragons, or any other fantasy RPG, we all tend to draw on outside sources for ideas. They can be from books, comics (I'm lumping in manga), songs, cartoons, video games, TV shows and movies, all that matters for this thread is how they effect your game. Hell through in stage plays if you want. Don't feel shy, just post a list of your top inspirations for D&D and other fantasy RPGs. I'll take the liberty of posting a link Gygax's original Appendix N (http://www.digital-eel.com/blog/ADnD_reading_list.htm) for all to read. In the mean time I'll get to work on my Appendix N.

Cartoons/Anime

Avatar the Last Airbender
The Avengers: Earth Mightiest Heroes
Batman the Animated Series
Disney's Gargoyles
Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Inuyasha (if for no other reason than I'd like to see if I can do a better job with the characters or setting material)

Books

Codex Alera
Discworld
Dragerea
Dresden Files
Elric Saga
The Nightside series
The Philip Marlowe novels

Comic Books/Manga

The Authority (from what I've heard about it)
The League of Extraoroinary Gentlemen Vol. I and II
Planetary (see The Authority)
Sandman
Scott Pilgrim

Live Action TV Shows

Burn Notice
Criminal Minds
Leverage
Grimm
Supernatural
The X-Files

Film

Hellboy and Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Marvel Cinematic
Sin City (have not read any of the graphic novels yet)

Video Game

Other

[Maquise]

Let me think of some of mine:

Books:
Redwall Saga
Inheritance (I might not think much of it now, but it did get me into fantasy)
Lord of the Rings
This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Horus Heresy saga

Games:
The Elder Scrolls series
Mass Effect
Amnesia: The Dark Descent

I'll add more if I think of any.

[UndertakerSheep]

Here are a few of mine

Books:
Lord of the Rings
The Belgariad
The Dwarves
D&D Related Books

Games:
Elder Scroll series
Final Fantasy
Breath of Death VII
Tales of Series
Age of Mythology
Heroes of Might & Magic
Guild Wars (2)

Shows:
Star Trek
Fairy Tail
Naruto
Avatar
Game of Thrones
Journey Quest
Legend of the Seeker
National Geographic Survival Shows
British detectives

Movies:
The Lord of the Rings
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Mist
Star Wars
Disney's Robin Hood
Sherlock Holmes

I think that's everything that has inspired me lately. I'll add some more when I think of it

And wow, never knew my inspiration list was this diverse.

[Morph Bark]

I take most inspiration from little bits here or there given an original twist, but the ones below are especially good for these IMO:

Animated Series
Avatar: The Last Airbender / The Legend of Korra

Comics/Manga
Batman (villains especially)
Bleach (obviously using its potential much better)
Fullmetal Alchemist

Movies
Star Wars
The Avengers

Video Games
Pokemon
Soul Calibur series
The Tales of series (a big one for me)

[Eldan]

Hm. Things I like to draw on, or at least would like to draw on, if I was good enough:

Comics:
The Sandman (Neil Gaiman)
Lucifer

Books:
Kraken (China Mieville)
Zamonia Series (Walter Moers)
Small Gods, other Discworld novels (Terry Pratchett)
Stardust, American Gods, various short stories (Neil Gaiman)
The Voyage of the Beagle (Charles Darwin)
The Dresden Files (Jim Butcher)

Movies:
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
Pan's Labyrinth

Games:
The Myst series
The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind

TV Series:
Doctor Who


There's probably more, that's what I can think of, right now.

[Jeff the Green]

A lot of these are more for world-building than campaigns or characters.

Film:
The Fisher King
Monty Python

Games:
Commander Keen
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
Final Fantasy (particularly IX, X, XI, and XII)
Jak and Daxter (particularly II and III)
Kingdom Hearts
Neverwinter Nights (1&2, +expansions)

Literature, Ancient to Medieval:
Anaeid (Vergil)
Divine Comedy (Dante)
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Gawain and the Green Knight
Illiad and Odyssey (Homer)
Le Morte d'Arthur
Metamorphoses (Ovid)
Misc. Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and European mythology
Old and New Testament
Poetic Edda
Prose Edda
The Quran
The Talmud

Literature, Renaissance to Modern:
Belgariad and Malorean series (David and Leigh Eddings)
Book of Mormon
Discworld series (Terry Pratchet)
The Dresden Files
Elenium and Tamuli series (David and Leigh Eddings)
The Golden Bough (James Frazer)
Jonathan Strange and Mister Norell
Narnia series (C.S. Lewis)
Redwall series (Brian Jacques)
The Space Trilogy (C.S. Lewis)
A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters (Madeleine l'Engle)
Various books by Agatha Christie

Television:
Doctor Who
Leverage
The X Files

[Tarsten Corvus]

The Legend of Druss.

The Dragon Reborn.

Warriors. (if you wanted like awakened cats or animals.)

[DigoDragon]

Most of the older Final Fantasy games are in my Appendix N.
Particularly numbers IV, VI, and Tactics.

[Dienekes]

Hmm, I have either based entire campaigns or sections around twisting together or apart different aspects of these things

Books
A Song of Ice and Fire by GRRM
The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie
The Prince by Machiavelli

Comic Books
V for Vendetta

Video Games
Dragon Age: Origins

Movies
Star Wars: Prequels (admittedly in an attempt to see if my players could do it better)
The Godfather

History
Fall of Rome
World War I
The Peloponnese War
The Discovery of the Americas
The Viking Invasions
The Gunpowder Kingdoms
Mongol Invasions
The War of the Roses
The Holy Roman Empire

[Riverdance]

An interesting note, although Gygax mentions Tolkien in his list of influences, he does not include him in the note at the bottom in which he lists the works most influential in the creation of D&D. :smallconfused:

[Knaight]

Generally speaking, Appendix N consists mostly of nonfiction, shifts frequently, and contains a lot of short works. With that said:
Essentials
From Sumer to Rome: The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies
Romance of The Three Kingdoms
Science (Academic Journal)
Nature (Academic Journal)
The Golden Bough
Le Morte d'Arthur

Currently Relevant
The Road To Manzikert
The History Of Arabic Science (Academic Journal)
The History of Rome (Podcast)
A Concise History of China
Lots of stuff that touches on religion too heavily to discuss here.

[Agrippa]

An interesting note, although Gygax mentions Tolkien in his list of influences, he does not include him in the note at the bottom in which he lists the works most influential in the creation of D&D. :smallconfused:

That's because Tolkein didn't serve as one Gygax's greatest inspirations. He was an inspiration. He ranked the works of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Jack Vance, Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock higher on his list of inspirations for D&D.

[EccentricCircle]

Lets see, maybe not the most original of lists, but there might be a few things on there which not everyone has read...

Books
Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings (Defines fantasy and worldbuilding for me)
Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia (Inspired my interest in Parallel worlds, plus the Ruins of Charn are an incredibly evocative image)
Pulman: His Dark Materials / the Ruby in the Smoke et al (an excellent answer to Narnia)
Herbert: Dune et al (taught me how to make important issues like politics and religion essential to my games)
Azimov: Foundation et al / The Caves of Steel (A very interesting case study in created history.)
Clarke: 2001 et al, Rendezvous with Rama. (Shows one how to do Hard SF well)
Rothuss: The Name of the Wind (one of the best fantasy books i've ever read)
Canavan: The Black Magician Trillogy (taught me how to think about how magic works rather than just what it does.)
Reeve: Mortal Engines (inspired a love of Airships and taught me how to write a dystopia that still has wonder in it.)
Stroud: The Bartimaeus Trilogy (An excellent example of spirits and extraplanar things should work)
Zhan: Heir to the Empire et al (Shows that stories don't have a nice simple end, even if you did blow up the death star.)
Adams: The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. (A crash course in absurdist humour)
Pratchett: Discworld et al (taught me how to deconstruct fantasy tropes long before a certain website came along)
Mann: The Affinity Bridge et al (The best Steampunk series i've found yet)
Crichton: Jurrasic Park et al, Timeline. (Books that show you how expeditions can go horribly horribly wrong)

Film and TV
The Lord of the Rings (arguably the best fantasy films ever made)
Star Wars (Had a massive influence on me growing up)
Indiana Jones (My advice to anyone unsure how to write a Dungeon Crawl adventure is to go and watch the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark.)
Pirates of the Caribean (Swashbuckling adventure)
Star Trek (massively influential)
Stargate SG-1 (involved detailed storylines)
Babylon Five (use of long storylines and Wham Episodes)
Children of Dune miniseries (for similar reasons to the books above)
Dragonflyz (I really like Flying cities, dragon riders and power crystals. and I think this cartoon is responsible)

Other
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Original Series) (I listed to this on a loop as a kid.)
Jackson and Livingstone: Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks (taught me how to play D&D before I tried to play D&D)
Lego (theres no better way to learn how to build a fantasy world than by literally building medieval villages out of small plastic bricks.)

[NikitaDarkstar]

Hmm not that I DM, but I imagine my Appendix N would have a lot in common with where I draw on for writing in general.

Books and folklore
Neil Gaiman in general
The Malazan Book of the Fallen + The Malazan novels
Guardian of the Swords
Norse mythology (most of it)
Greek mythology (especially concerning Hades, the after life and the war between the titans and the olympians)

Cartoons/Anime
Ragnarök Online: The Animation
Transformers
Tailspin
Wolf's Rain

Comic Books/Manga
Sandman
Ragnarök


Live Action TV Shows
Babylon 5
Doctor Who
Andromeda
Star Trek
La Femme Nikita (not the reboot)


Film
Lord of the Rings
Top Gun
Regin of Fire
The Lion King

Video Games
Age of Wonders
Unreal Tournament
Assassins Creed
Black and White
Mass Effect
Dragon Age
Warcraft
Ragnarök Online
Guild Wars

[valadil]

Mine is whatever I'm into at the moment. There is no longterm appendix N, because I don't usually reread, rewatch, or replay anything. And even if I did, it's extremely unlikely that I'd be watching and reading the same thing at the same time.