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souridealist
2017-04-28, 07:19 PM
I picked up the Pathfinder GameMastery Guide a little while ago, and one of the appendixes is a list of recommended reading to give you a pretty thorough grounding in the tropes and traditions of the setting - a geography of fantasy, of sorts. It was interesting to me because I hadn't actually read much of what was on the list, but I'd always felt like I knew Golarion (and a number of other home-based settings whose worlds were not specified). I had a sense of what these things looked like.

So, what're your lists of essentials? It's not a recs list I'm asking for exactly - some of the things on my list aren't things I'd recommend without caveats - but the things you can pinpoint as influencing you when you sit down at the table.

Mine:
Fairy tales / Greek and Roman mythology / Arthuriana (no particular versions for any of them)
The Tortall Universe by Tamora Pierce
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland and Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne-Jones
The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
The Dragonriders of Pern books by Ann McCaffrey, mostly the early ones before the sci-fi elements really set in
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Old Kingdom books by Garth Nix
The Queen's Thief books by Megan Whalen Turner

I'm sure I'll remember twelve others as soon as I post this.

What've you got?

2D8HP
2017-04-28, 07:34 PM
Biggest influence was probably the first movie I begged to see:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a6/Seventh_voyage_of_sinbad.jpg/220px-Seventh_voyage_of_sinbad.jpg

Seventh Yoyage of Sinbad

Some other influential films were:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/60/Excalibur_movie_poster.jpg/220px-Excalibur_movie_poster.jpg

Excalibur

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/74/FirstMenontheMoon.jpg/225px-FirstMenontheMoon.jpg

First Men in the Moon

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/Brown%2Cr_time_macine60.jpg/220px-Brown%2Cr_time_macine60.jpg

The Time Machine


Vermithrax in Dragonslayer is the Dragon that shapes my vision of Dragons, and that she is a mother who mourns her young makes the story more interesting (yes I know personally that fathers mourn their young too, but different storytelling baggage).

http://i0.wp.com/4.bp.blogspot.com/_talQIilzbfQ/SnmYcLF0Q3I/AAAAAAAAAUQ/Q9RWFIUpBz8/s320/2509ccca24c0760.jpg?zoom=4&w=742

Just way too much literature to cite.


So very many places. For my earliest "inspirations", I was probably most influenced by seeing Sinbad vs. the scheming sorcerer Sokurah, when I saw "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tGCuLWdZTDs&itct=CBgQpDAYAiITCJ3h5IKW0c0CFUHcfgodyloJHzIHcmVsY Xhttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QTIeBuLnD-A/UR_ToMA9-VI/AAAAAAAAAKA/q8g2RT4XY-s/s1600/holmes+box.jpglZEjCz6XC1bmil_AB) at the drive-in (since I later learned that the movie was made in the 1950's it must have been re-released in the early 1970's). I can specially remember first watching it through the back window of a V.W. bug while my parents watched something boring Burt Reynolds movie through the front window, and marveling at the Dragon and the sword wielding skeleton! And sometimes "Jason and the Argonauts" (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg1v5HkpdEA) was on the T.V.!

I read the "Arabian Nights", Greek mythology and a lot of science fiction, but actual fantasy fiction before playing D&D? Maybe a couple of Conan short stories if that. The "Catspaw" episode of Star Trek influenced my vision of the Dungeon, and old Errol Flynn movies influenced my vision of what PC's should be like!

Another big influence was "The Hobbit" cartoon (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qT8jCTUqgzg) which I saw on channel 5 about the same time that I first encountered a Dungeons and Dragons box (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QTIeBuLnD-A/UR_ToMA9-VI/AAAAAAAAAKA/q8g2RT4XY-s/s1600/holmes+box.jpg).

Later fantasy books, films etc. were all post D&D for me.

I can remember watching "Conan the Destroyer" and "Young Sherlock Holmes" in the movie theater and thinking of how I was going to steal homage some elements in my games (I used a mashup of CtD and YSH twice! Once for Call of Cthullu, and again for Dungeons & Dragons)!

Just this year a PC I've "rolled up" was inspired by the "Delilah Bard" character from the novels "A Darker Shade of Magic" (http://www.tor.com/2015/01/21/a-darker-shade-of-magic-excerpt-v-e-schwab/), and "A Gathering of Shadows" (http://www.tor.com/2015/09/28/excerpts-a-gathering-of-shadows-ve-schwab/).

I don't GM anymore but mostly forgotten genre media is a goldmine!

Everyone remembered "Conan the Barbarian", so I couldn't steal use as inspiration anything from that, but "Conan the Destroyer" I could use scot-free!

:biggrin:

GungHo
2017-05-01, 08:58 AM
A lot of 70s-90s sword & sorcerer movies and other genre films, including the Sword the Sorcerer series, the Lou Ferrigno Hercules series, Wizards, The Beastmaster, Clan of the Cave Bear, The Dark Crystal, Dragonslayer, Highlander, Krull, The Warriors, Legend, Conan, Red Sonja, Willow, Zardoz, Erik the Viking.

Basically, MGM, Golan-Globus/Cannon, and Orion Pictures were all over my screen.

Geddy2112
2017-05-01, 09:07 AM
Although I have read/watched plenty of fantasy/sword and sorcery, most of my influence is elsewhere. Most of my character concepts are musicians or celebrities, from ~70's to now. Anything from David Bowie to Katy Perry to Gordon Ramsay.

I have run 4 campaigns in homebrewed settings.
The first was based off the city of Ravnica from Magic the Gathering. The second was a short campaign based off the movie Casablanca. The third was a copypaste of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Currently the world I am running is an amalgamation of Feudal Japan and Game of Thrones.

denthor
2017-05-01, 09:15 AM
while I have the Lord of the rings, the hobbit, C.S. Lewis Narnia books.

I am different I never wanted to be in those world's . I just want to roll dice and not put up any money.


To me this nothing more than a game like risk .

The difference is that I get to feel more powerful than I am. My character travels so I do not have to.

Dragonexx
2017-05-01, 07:46 PM
Anime most likely, which reflects how I do game design.

iceman10058
2017-05-01, 11:50 PM
The Wheel of Time books and anything Brandon Sanderson writes is influencing my characters at the moment.

Altair_the_Vexed
2017-05-02, 07:40 AM
I suppose my inspiration to play D&D type games is so far back in the depths of teenagedom for me that I don't really recall, save to say that I'm a fan of Pratchett, and Tolkien, and Howard's Conan - but not many other fantasy fictions. But aside from JRRT, my love of fantasy fiction came after D&D.

So what DOES inspire my gaming?

The news - but we're not allowed to talk about current politics on the board!
So let's just say that I like to transpose the current events (who's in control of what resources, who's betraying who, what the consequences of war are in terms of refugees, nations becoming bankrupt and so on) into my games. I don't pretend that any in-game nation or faction is like any particular real-world nation or faction, I just look at what's happening and drop it into my game setting.

Sir David Attenborough's documentaries on the natural world, particularly Planet Earth.
Look at those landscapes! Look at the creatures that live there! Look at how the people live off that land! It's all awesome, especially when Sir Dave is narrating.

Scripten
2017-05-02, 09:18 AM
I've read the great majority of the classics, everything Tolkein, Pratchett, and the like, as well as a lot of pulp sci-fi, but my biggest inspirations are probably Lovecraft and Glen Cook's Black Company series. My worlds tend to be very down-to-earth, if highly fantastical, and major NPCs are practical, but the flipside is that there's always an undercurrent of eldritch horror beneath the surface which bubbles up on the fringes of society. Unlike Cook, I aim for truly alien horrors instead of human-turned-monsters, and unlike Lovecraft, I enjoy having characters that are pragmatic.

So far, it's generally resulted in my players finding friendly NPCs to be jerks, including the good ones, and they lean toward helping the monsters until they hit the line of "Please bring me some tasty grey matter". It's been quite entertaining so far.

SpaceWalking
2017-05-02, 09:33 AM
I have a big list but just to generalize I take a lot of inspiration from music and film, so here's the list:

Evil Ways by Blues Saraceno
Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar
Pirate's of the Caribbean and the score
Punisher comic books
Indiana Jones films (NOT CRYSTAL SKULL! GOD NO!)
The Da Vinci Code (book and film)
Percy Jackson series (Not the movies lol)
Mr. Nobody
star wars saga and legends lore (comics, novels, all that stuff)
steampunk and magitech (such as Shadowrun)
Greek tragedies and betrayals
heavy metal
dark country
jimi hendrix
the pretty reckless
Odyssey
Old Slavery songs/chants (sorry if that's racist, I just don't know how to title them)

Yora
2017-05-02, 11:09 AM
The Empire Strikes Back is the big one. As it is for a lot of other things I enjoy that are not RPGs. All the magnificent looking places in it just feel perfect. Dagobah, Bespin, (and Endor) are exactly what I want my adventures to feel like.

Then there's Warcraft 3 for presenting a non-standard fantasy wilderness continent, which has a huge impact on my own setting. The Witcher and Princess Mononoke set the standard for great characters and interesting conflicts and also how to portray spirits (one of the few fantasy elements that D&D almost entirely ignores).

Mordar
2017-05-02, 12:01 PM
There's far too many to list (without forgetting dozens/scores), but one of the immediate influences that springs to mind that hasn't been listed yet is:


The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander

You know, the one with The Black Cauldron and all of that. Great hero journey, tons of great characters/character types...and very accessible to young readers.

- M

Dienekes
2017-05-02, 12:33 PM
History, and whatever book I happen to be reading at the time.

I've made games based on the Peloponnesian War, The Gothic War, The Crusades, WWI, The Cold War, and Ancient India. Then I throw in characters inspired by books like Joe Abercrombie's stuff, or Wildbow, or Game of Thrones.

Though recently I have seen Dark Souls stuff creep into my campaigns.

Velaryon
2017-05-02, 04:50 PM
I pull my influences from anywhere and everywhere, but most commonly from books, video games, movies and TV.

When it comes to the things that made me want to play D&D in the first place, I'd have to cite JRPG's from the 16-bit era like Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Ogre Battle, books like Terry Brooks's Shannara series (I read it before Tolkien so I didn't know or care how derivative it was), various Choose Your Own Adventure books, and a handful of random Conan comics that I barely remember anymore. Probably some cartoons like He-Man and Mighty Max play into it as well, I suppose. Oh, and Magic: the Gathering, definitely.

As for specific ideas for characters, plots, etc., I try to pull from places that my gaming group won't recognize. I'll take names video games they haven't played or books they haven't read. My current D&D campaign (which has been running for close to 8 years at this point) was structured similar to the games Arc the Lad 2 and 3, where the majority of the game is a series of missions that the heroes are hired to do, some of which may build off of previous adventures while others are unrelated. As the game progressed, it has switched to being more like the Suikoden games, where the heroes adopt a large castle as a home base, populate it with an ever-increasing roster of allies, and begin confronting international and sometimes global-level threats.

I don't like to copy things where my influences are obvious to the players, so I am unlikely to, for example, make a character similar to The Mountain from Game of Thrones, or a Harry Dresden-style wizard, because too many of my players would see right through it. I always put my own spin on ideas, but if it's too obviously based on something they already know, they might see that source material rather than the character or story I'm presenting to them, and I think that would take away from the experience.

2D8HP
2017-05-02, 06:13 PM
Lot's of non-fiction, but I'd like to give a shout out to:


I've been mining Ian Mortimer's "Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England" for setting backround, and I have just started reading his "Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England"....
The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51IM6lHhFLL._SY200_.jpg

The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethen England

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/512xmyoDUVL._SY200_.jpg

Which were great.

I'm now looking forward to the new one on Restoration England:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/511w1uEwrsL._AC_SX236_SY200_FMwebp_QL65_.jpg

8BitNinja
2017-05-02, 06:44 PM
Many of my first tabletop gaming experiences were adventures in a world almost plagiarized from Tolkien

Thrudd
2017-05-02, 06:49 PM
As a 10/11 year old, my first D&D games were inspired mainly by Tolkien and his various literary descendants (Brooks' Shannara, McKiernan's Iron Tower and Silver Call), Conan in his various incarnations, as well as the first trilogy of Dragonlance novels (which of course was basically being inspired by someone else's D&D campaign, so maybe that shouldn't count).

Now, my D&D is still inspired by Conan, with a little dash of Lovecraft-ish dreamland and mythos. Thundarr the Barbarian (which I watched as a kid, but never worked its way into my games). 19th century explorer/archaeologist adventurers. Vance's Dying Earth.

2D8HP
2017-05-02, 07:16 PM
...my D&D is still inspired by....


Your "still" list sounds awesome!

And judging by some of your previous posts:


That box was...



Avoiding an "empty room world" is...


You seem like an ideal DM!

Thrudd
2017-05-02, 07:44 PM
Your "still" list sounds awesome!

And judging by some of your previous posts:

You seem like an ideal DM!
(Nick Cage voice) That's high praise.

I know you'd probably dig my setting and DM style. If I actually had time to do more, maybe I'd try setting something up on one of those new-fangled virtual internets tables. It's always a fight between pay attention to real people-time, doing stuff I'm supposed to be doing-time, actually getting around to writing-time, and thinking about games-time.

souridealist
2017-05-02, 08:11 PM
There's far too many to list (without forgetting dozens/scores), but one of the immediate influences that springs to mind that hasn't been listed yet is:


The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander

You know, the one with The Black Cauldron and all of that. Great hero journey, tons of great characters/character types...and very accessible to young readers.

- M

I actually did list those! Eilonwy was my original rebellious princess. I was pretty young when I read them, so they were sort of my introduction to the idea of fantasy with real costs and consequences, and heroes who grew up. Also to the pronunciation-related adventure that is Welsh.


I have a big list but just to generalize I take a lot of inspiration from music and film, so here's the list:

Percy Jackson series (Not the movies lol)


BOO TO THE PERCY JACKSON MOVIES. /twitching with rage. The books meant a lot to me - especially growing up with ADHD - and the movies took something so good and RUINED IT.

I don't use them for D&D so much, but I have sometimes wondered how you'd map that universe to a system of its own. And then I get stuck, because it turns out game design is hard and I'd rather play them.

2D8HP
2017-05-02, 09:37 PM
Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles.



The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander




The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander


That's enough for me, I'll start reading The Book of Three tonight!

Mordar
2017-05-03, 01:20 PM
As a 10/11 year old, my first D&D games were inspired mainly by Tolkien and his various literary descendants (Brooks' Shannara, McKiernan's Iron Tower and Silver Call), Conan in his various incarnations, as well as the first trilogy of Dragonlance novels (which of course was basically being inspired by someone else's D&D campaign, so maybe that shouldn't count).

Now, my D&D is still inspired by Conan, with a little dash of Lovecraft-ish dreamland and mythos. Thundarr the Barbarian (which I watched as a kid, but never worked its way into my games). 19th century explorer/archaeologist adventurers. Vance's Dying Earth.

I always kind of though Thundarr would kind of fit in with Shannara...that's not a spoiler, is it? Ariel, Ookla...ride!

Kind of calls to mind a little bit of the Gunslinger too...in my head at least.

As 2D8HP's thread elsewhere indicates...Moorcock also factors into my D&D (AD&D) inspirations.


I actually did list those! Eilonwy was my original rebellious princess. I was pretty young when I read them, so they were sort of my introduction to the idea of fantasy with real costs and consequences, and heroes who grew up. Also to the pronunciation-related adventure that is Welsh.

How the heck did I miss that? Sure, we went slightly different directions with the names...but I looked like three times...ugh. SHAME on me! Shame!

- M

Thrudd
2017-05-03, 02:53 PM
I always kind of though Thundarr would kind of fit in with Shannara...that's not a spoiler, is it? Ariel, Ookla...ride!

Kind of calls to mind a little bit of the Gunslinger too...in my head at least.

As 2D8HP's thread elsewhere indicates...Moorcock also factors into my D&D (AD&D) inspirations.

- M
"Gna Gna Naaaa!"

Totally, Thundarr, Shannara (as it turned out to be eventually) and Dying Earth all share that post-civilization lost knowledge trope, melding of ancient and far-future.

I'm thinking about replacing halflings in my next setting with Moks.

JAL_1138
2017-05-03, 04:05 PM
Non-tabletop? I yoink a lot of things from existing published resources such as modules or individual adventures, most of my material in fact, but bits and pieces of other stuff bleeds in and informs how I use and change the stuff I steal borrow from modules.

*Mythology—Greek/Roman, Norse/Germanic/Anglo-Saxon, Sumerian/Babylonian, Celtic, Indo-Persian, Slavic, Mesoamerican, Buddhist/Asian, etc.
*Later European mythology/legends—Carolingian romances, Arthurian legend
*Fiction/Literature—Discworld, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Greek tragedies, Tolkien, Lewis, the Star Wars expanded universe, I dunno if you'd count Dragonlance novels here, old Choose Your Own Adventure novels, Bradbury, Lovecraft, etc.
*Film—Good Lord, too many to list. Star Wars, Star Trek, LotR, Conan, Highlander, Disney, Apocalypse Now, Hammer horror, the Seventh Seal, the Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven, westerns, Alien, etc., etc., so on and so forth.
*Television—Star Trek, Firefly, the Twilight Zone, Cowboy Bebop, etc., etc., so on and so forth.
*Philosophy/Religion—majored in philosophy; was a couple credits shy of minoring in religion. I like to play around with various aspects of metaphysics and the like for worldbuilding.
*History—too many sources to list; there's a lot of interesting things to pull bits and pieces from for plots and worldbuilding, and historical info helps add verisimilitude. "Medieval Demographics Made Easy" is a good worldbuilding resource
*Metafiction—Joseph Campbell, TVTropes
*Video games—lots of classic adventure games and RPGs; the Ultima series, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Zork, Fallout, etc., etc., so on and so forth.

BWR
2017-05-03, 04:30 PM
I'd say the greatest influence on how I play D&D is D&D.
Sure there have been books and movies I've cribbed characters and miscellaneous stuff from but this hasn't been in anything but details. The stuff in various D&D products is the vast majority of how I've played and run it.

quinron
2017-05-03, 07:00 PM
Kind of calls to mind a little bit of the Gunslinger too...in my head at least.

It's interesting you should mention that, since the Dark Tower has always been a big influence for me. I like to run games with fantasy Western elements, but I've never had the patience to teach anyone how to play Deadlands.

Stephen King's work as a whole was formative in discovering my love of adult speculative fiction. I guess that's why I most enjoy adventures featuring sinister otherworldly presences committing unsavory acts just behind the curtains of society. It's also probably why devils and hags are my favorite villains.

Dimers
2017-05-03, 09:25 PM
The SCP Foundation (http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-series).

Rogozhin
2017-05-03, 11:48 PM
I have been rewatching the X-Files and am working on some adventures inspired by that... right now it is in the form of a noble who has approached my party to investigate the disappearnce of another party who was sent to the icy Northern waste on a research mission...

Velaryon
2017-05-04, 12:52 AM
I thought about it some more, and I can list a few certain characters that were influenced by specific things.

-Jackie Chan's Drunken Master films (but then, the whole 3.X Drunken Master prestige class is based on this)
-Date Masamune, as portrayed in the video game Samurai Warriors 2 (but I made him a Sith Lord)
-Thibbledorf Pwent, but more racist against orcs
-Richter Belmont from Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
-Roy Lee from the movie Kung Phooey

Milo v3
2017-05-04, 05:40 PM
Probably Gnosticism and Kill Six Billion Demons.

Psikerlord
2017-05-04, 07:37 PM
A lot of 70s-90s sword & sorcerer movies and other genre films, including the Sword the Sorcerer series, the Lou Ferrigno Hercules series, Wizards, The Beastmaster, Clan of the Cave Bear, The Dark Crystal, Dragonslayer, Highlander, Krull, The Warriors, Legend, Conan, Red Sonja, Willow, Zardoz, Erik the Viking.

Basically, MGM, Golan-Globus/Cannon, and Orion Pictures were all over my screen.

Oh man, Willow! Love that show

Including past and present not D&D influences:

Discworld. DAvid Gemmel books. Conan. LotR books/movies. GoT show (havent read the books). Stardust. He-man show. Dragonslayer movie. Barbarian brothers movie. Spartacus tv show (recentish, I think that's what it was called). Penny Dreadful show. Shannara books. DAvid Eddings books. Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. Cthulhu/touch of lovecraft.

Big Papa Turnip
2017-05-05, 01:15 PM
...David Eddings books...

Ayyy, I was hoping to see Eddings pop up here. The Belgariad and the Malloreon were some of my favorite series as a kid, I absolutely devoured them. I loved (and still do) how pleasant and entertaining it was to just listen to read the characters holding conversations with each other.

And Silk is still one of my favorite characters of all time.

Mordar
2017-05-05, 02:38 PM
Ayyy, I was hoping to see Eddings pop up here. The Belgariad and the Malloreon were some of my favorite series as a kid, I absolutely devoured them. I loved (and still do) how pleasant and entertaining it was to just listen to read the characters holding conversations with each other.

And Silk is still one of my favorite characters of all time.

To me Eddings was like "new pulp" (and that's a very good thing!!!)...I remember buying the books at the Hy-Vee (grocery store) with allowance money.

Other important authors to me in my formative years (beyond Tolkien):


T. Brooks (no, being derivative isn't a bad thing in this case)
R.E. Howard
F. Leiber
M. Moorcock
L. Alexander
E.R. Burroughs


Tons of others came along too, but these were the early ones for me (late 70s/early 80s) that set the fantasy table for my RPGing.

- M

JAL_1138
2017-05-05, 03:21 PM
I wouldn't call it an influence so much as a resource, and I've shilled it a few times in various threads so please forgive the repetition, but a not-exactly-tabletop resource I really like is Medieval Demographics Made Easy (http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm). It's got some really nifty kingdom-building info that's really helped me generate settings. There are several generators using the information from it linked at the bottom of the Medieval Demographics page to take most of the work out of using it.

Hagashager
2017-05-05, 11:23 PM
I read an awful lot, as can be expected, I read an awful of Fantasy particularly.

Recently I've been reading through the Witcher series. I've actually never played the video-games, but I know their plots, and was intrigued by Geralt of Rivia and his story as told by the actual author.

This played directly into my latest DnD session. In the second book of the series Geralt encounters a mermaid, mermaids only communicate in elven song, which makes an awkward situation for Geralt. I though this was a good premise for my next session and so introduced a mermaid for the party to encounter who could only speak in song.

it was...interesting forcing both myself and my players to talk to me in song.
it was awkward as hell, I hated do it, the players were not subtle in their disdain for having to talk to me in song. I stuck to my guns though ,and they admitted at the end of the session that they thought it made for interesting RP to be forced to speak in a way They never though.

It was actually pretty similar to the book that inspired the encounter. One of my players even vented his frustration in a very similar way to Geralt in Sword of Destiny

Ninjaxenomorph
2017-05-06, 09:24 AM
Hmm, tough question for me. Bits and pieces tend to be taken from different pieces of media. I enjoyed the immortal Byzantine warriors in the newest Tomb Raider game, which led to a brief wiki walk on the Byzantine Empire, which led to one of the bigger nations in the setting I work on. In the same setting, there was a race based on a faction in Endless Legend, as well as a region that's basically Pacific Rim with samurai mechs (taking a bit from Escaflowne), and another region that's Mad Max: Fury Road and Fallout stuck together. Kill 6 Billion Demons has influenced a bit of how I interpret Psionics, strangely enough. The game Bastion heavily colors how I tend to do any frontier region.

As for feel and tone of my games... I think Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines would be the closest work I thematically imitate; societies are lumbering, warring beasts, metaphorically speaking, always seeking each other's blood, but individuals can be strong enough for change. Having near-schizo tech but still be internally consistent is important for me as well; I tend to think heavily about the implications of certain aspects. I try to think about what I want in a setting (say, a flying city), think about how it came to be, what problems it would face, how those issues would be addressed, while still keeping what I want.

I can't really think of anything that inspired the disparity of villains in my games; I try to keep moral dilemmas out of my games, while not making them saccharine. I tend not to do joke villains, and make either truly evil villains or ruthless villains with a cause. Bionicle might be where that comes from.

DontEvenAsk
2017-05-15, 09:25 AM
...the things you can pinpoint as influencing you when you sit down at the table.

Mine:
Fairy tales / Greek and Roman mythology / Arthuriana (no particular versions for any of them)
The Tortall Universe by Tamora Pierce
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
...
The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
...
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede...

Not an answer to your question, but: with these on your major influences list, I think I'd play pretty much anything you run! Lemme guess: somewhat cheeky and satirical of the usual tropes, very down-to-earth where it's needed, but also respectful of the older mythic sources and with perhaps more research into said myths than is usual?

(It's also nice to find someone who's into the same weird books as I am. I've never met anyone else who knows the Enchanted Forest Chronicles before, and Tortall fans are difficult to spot.)

Edit: It feels rather rude to post without answering the question, so here goes, in no particular order:


Mythology - Norse, Classical, Egyptian, Chinese, Irish, Judeo-Christian, Islamic, African, Mesopotamian, Mesoamerican - any folktales, myths, legends, fairytales, and miscellaneous similar things I come across, basically. This includes Robin Hood, King Arthur, The 1001 Nights, Beowulf, Gilgamesh, and so forth, as well as more modern literature about mythologies such as.
History - mostly the ancient world and the early modern period, but I've been known to sneak in more modern patterns. This includes historical fiction and historical fantasy - I, Coriander; Swallows and Amazons; The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate; The Inquisitor's Apprentice; Theodosia Throckmorton; The Clockwork Century; heck, even the Enchanted Tree House books.
Classical Literature - Homer, Sophocles, Cicero, Catullus. Sappho.
Tortall - great pragmatic fantasy series. 9/10 would recommend (but not Mastiff).
Tolkien - of course. Not so much Lewis, but Tolkien, yes.
The Inheritance Cycle - by Chris Paolini. Do not read these books. I'm not kidding, don't do it. They're really bad. I read them as an elementary schooler and loved them, and there's a lot of good stuff hidden in there, but it's poorly executed and just generally buried in dreck. Old shame. Do not touch.
Order of the Stick - technically not tabletop itself, yes? It's not the oblique references to game rules that I'm referring to, but the world-building and the ethical and philosophical questions.
Cornelia Funke - German fantasy author. Probably the most influential for me was her Inkworld series, followed by Reckless. Both are fairly dark fantasy and filled with twisted fairytales. Anything that twists or reinterprets fairytales probably belongs on this list.
Ursula K. LeGuin - Earthsea, Annals of the Western Shore, and The Left Hand of Darkness are all my jam.
Ender's Game - because my copies of this and TLHoD are about the same size, and one is black and the other is white, and they're both sci-fi books but one is about winning a war and the other is about establishing a peace, I think of these two as Together somehow and usually place them next to each other on the shelf. Which has nothing to do with how influential the book was for me, of course, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Patricia C. Wrede - the aforementioned Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which are a "take that!" at bad fantasy and overused fairytales at once. Also the Sorcery and Cecilia books, co-written with Caroline Stevermer, which are Regency fantasy - like Jane Austen, but with magic - and the Frontier Magic books, which are Wild West fantasy - not exactly Weird West, I think, but definitely fantasy. Some of her miscellaneous work, too - short stories and the like.
Jane Austen - her too, for that matter. It's by no means boring, however dry the prose may seem.
Shakespeare - similarly to Austen. Particularly The Tempest.
Hamilton (2016 musical) - this ties back into the history thing. Have I mentioned I love history?
Roald Dahl - The Witches, Matilda, The BFG. Confession time, Matilda is still my ideal of a psion, not Professor X.
Downton Abbey - for social-based (mis)adventures.
Deltora Quest - along with the Inheritance Cycle, this was my introduction to most of the more common fantasy tropes. Yet still, as I recall, relatively fresh and interesting.
Brandon Mull - not the best urban fantasy out there, but fun and creative.
The Mysterious Benedict Society - superspy genre? Sci-fi? It's not really like any other series. It's like puzzle-based gaming, but novels.
American Girls - yes, the dolls, but the books!
Jessica Day George - Dragon Slippers and Tuesdays at the Castle (and sequels) are delightful. Sorta Dragonlanceish? But also Patricia C. Wredeish?
The 'Ology series - Dragonology, Wizardology, Pirateology, and so forth. I loved them as a kid. Still have them, in fact.
Neil Gaiman - Stardust, The Graveyard Book.
Rudyard Kipling - I loved the heck outta Rikki-tikki-tavi, the Just So Stories, and The Jungle Book. Talking animals? Kipling. Human ingenuity and resourcefulness? Kipling.
Spirited Away - I don't think I have much Japanese influence, but what I do is from here.
InuYasha - anime and manga. The other half of my influence from Japanese media. Unless you count mythology and history, of course. (Talk to me about ninja sometime!)
H.P. Lovecraft - in my opinion a number of his works don't properly qualify as horror - Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror, A Shadow over Innsmouth, and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward are dark supernatural mystery; At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow out of Time are xenoethnology. However, The Thing on the Doorstep (upon which I based my award-winning, if noobish entry to the Villainous Competition - along with The Colour out of Space and The Rats in the Walls are very definitely horror. At any rate, I've only read a small part of his total corpus... another time, perhaps.
Edgar Allan Poe - speaking of horror... The Cask of Amontillado, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat, The Fall of the House of Usher - and then The Raven, naturally, and the stories of Arsene Dupin. (Sherlock Holmes before Sherlock Holmes!)
Sherlock Holmes - the original short stories, the official tie-in novel The House of Silk, the televised adaptation Elementary, the movies with Robert Downey Jr - this is my jam. Sherlock Holmes had a number of contemporary fictional detectives, as well, who similarly inspire me.
Poirot - more in the detectives theme, yes.
Criminal Minds, Bones, Columbo, Psych, Numb3rs - the more modern kind as well. I prefer those that have some particular unique characteristic - not a gimmick, but perhaps a schtick - over just general cop shows like NCIS or CSI.
The Matrix - Not the franchise, just the first movie. I'm seriously considering a setting that is actually a Matrix run by elves. Not drow, just elves. That are evil. Evil elves.
Inception - haven't seen, but know about.
Children of the Lamp - Philip Kerr. This does for the 1001 Nights what Rick Riordan does for Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology.
The Phantom Tollbooth - my first hardcore allegory.
The Land of Elyon - Patrick Carman. It's. Uh. It's a thing. I guess it's fantasy? It's also sort of Christianity? I'm not sure.
Circle of Avalon - I think that's what it's called? Where these three girls do magic and there's fey and stuff. Checked it out from the library when I was quite small.
Indiana Jones - when someone mentions a quest for an ancient artifact, this is what springs to mind.
Guardians of Ga'Hoole/Wolves of the Beyond - Kathryn Lasky. Little me loved animals.
Warrior Cats - see Lasky, above. I tried to make a Warrior Cats video game once.
Tales from Dimwood Forest - and most other things from the "talking mouse adventures" genre.
Phantom Stallion - and other "horse girl" genre.
Alien and Aliens - not the later movies in the series, but these two... they have a special place in my heart.
Spartacus - the movie. We watched it in high school Latin.
The Eagle - also a movie. Has Channing Tatum doing his usual Channing Tatum thing. Also, Roman Britannia.
Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, Kane Chronicles. He takes mythology I love and turns it on its head and makes new things out of it - a vital skill to learn.
Buffy/Angel - a big part of my childhood.
Anything by Tony DiTerlizzi and/or Holly Black - Spiderwick Chronicles, WondLa, Magisterium.
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman. Movie first, actually, and then the books. Formative.
Ye Olde Novels - Frances Hodgson Burnett, Jules Verne. Also, Black Beauty.
Maleficent (2014) - much more my style than Tolkien. Some other Disney movies as well - most notably Brave. Pirates of the Caribbean, vaguely? I think? Disney's Robin Hood? Let's just say Disney.
The Dark Crystal - I dimly remember watching this. I remember the plot, but not so much the visuals - this was before I started to notice the fakeness of puppet special effects.
Labyrinth - for some reason I always think of this movie and The Dark Crystal as being part of the same category. Both are puppet-animation quest movies that scared the heck out of me, I guess.
Madeline L'Engle - probably the reason I'm so comfortable with sci-fi elements in fantasy.
The Last Dragon Chronicles - probably the other reason I'm so comfortable with sci-fi elements in fantasy.
Young Wizards - Diane Duane. Yanno what, I'm just gonna say that I like science fantasy. That's a pretty safe statement.
The Elder Scrolls - pretty much Morrowind onwards. I started on Oblivion, so a lot of my stuff has a similar "feel" to Oblivion. (Which can mean bright and fresh and green, or culturally rich city/town, or ravaged hellscape, depending.)
Star Trek - mostly The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, though I've got a soft spot for the reboots. (I'll critique their - imo many - flaws until the cows come home, but I just can't shake liking them.) 'Darmok', 'Masks', and Cardassians in general are particular favorites of mine.
Star Wars - the original trilogy, the new trilogy, Star Wars: The Old Republic (the MMO; if I'd meant Knights I would've said Knights), and some knowledge of (but never watched) the prequel trilogy.
Marvel Cinematic Universe - particularly Phase One.
Harry Potter - read the first book when I was quite small, and nothing's been quite the same ever since.
Understanding Comics - by Scott McCloud. Really helps with medium awareness and general creative development, even outside of a comics medium.
Discworld - without Ankh-Morpork, the fantasy city would be bereft.
Game of Thrones. I have never read or watched Gane of Thrones, but I have learned most of the important things from spoilery internet stuff.
Gulliver's Travels.
Basically anything you'd read in American high school English.
Mad Max: Fury Road.
Dragon Age - another of those I haven't played but have researched a lot.
Fallout - see Dragon Age.
Ye Olde Slave Narratives - Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano, etc. Not necessarily slave narratives all the time; slavefy narratives, also - like Ngola Nzingha of Matamba, who fought slavery but was not a slave, and the rather amazing quilombo royalty like Dandara who developed capoeira.
Miscellaneous TVTropes - seriously, you'd be surprised at how much you can get from TVTropes. It's not just a time sink.
Music. Classic rock, metal, country, faux-folk/folk rock. Highlights (as regards influence on my D&D practice, not overall quality) include The Mariner's Revenge Song and The Infanta (The Decemberists), most things by Simon and Garfunkel, Okkervil River, and The Mountain Goats, and occasional folk songs - sometimes from Ireland and Scotland; sometimes from the Appalachians. Blackmore's Night, also, though not their love songs. I have a friend who puts together playlists for an original (non-D&D) setting of ours, so those tend to put me in a fantasy mood as well and sometimes color my creative choices. ...and then there's Mordred's Lullaby (Heather Dale) and Garden of Shadows (Erutan)! I apologize for this list-within-a-list - I'll stop now.


Wow... that list looks a lot darker than I expected. Well, half really dark and half stuff I read in grade school. Weird.