D&D 5E appendix Next

Here is your task, should you choose to accept it. You are to create a new appendix N for the next edition of D&D, what do yo do with it? Do you expand it to include other media? Do you use it to reinforce the flavor of the original appendix N with new works that have been created since its original publication? Do you try to expand the list to make it more inclusive of a wider array of flavors? Do you try to push the flavor of the game in certain specific directions, perhaps away from its original inception?

So one more time, if you were given the task of writing the appendix N that would appear in the core books of the next edition, what's on it and why? What is your appendix Next?

Oni said:

Here is your task, should you choose to accept it. You are to create a new appendix N for the next edition of D&D, what do yo do with it? Do you expand it to include other media?

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Probably. Personally, I quite like the idea of it just being a reading list, but the game should probably embrace the reality that players and DMs are much more likely to watch a film for a couple of hours than they are to wade through page after page of archaic prose.

Do you try to push the flavor of the game in certain specific directions, perhaps away from its original inception?

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Not deliberately, but by choosing the "Recommended Reading", there will undoubtedly be some element of this.

So one more time, if you were given the task of writing the appendix N that would appear in the core books of the next edition, what's on it and why? What is your appendix Next?

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From the existing Appendix N:

R.E. Howard: Conan series
Fritz Leiber: Lankhmar series
H.P. Lovecraft
Michael Moorcock: Elric series
J.R.R. Tolkien: "The Hobbit", "Lord of the Rings"
Jack Vance: Dying Earth series

There's probably plenty of other books on the list that are worth a read, but these appear to be the main ones. And, to be honest, much of the list is now rather obscure.

Older books to add:

A. Dumas: "The Three Musketeers"
M. Shelley: "Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus"
B. Stoker: "Dracula"

Modern Fantasy:

To be honest, there's a problem with modern fantasy - most of it is turgid, over-written drivel. Seriously, guys, if you need more words to tell your story than "Lord of the Rings", then frankly it's probably not worth the telling. It also really doesn't help that the genre is filled with epic (and unfinished) series - I always feel loathe to recommend the otherwise-excellent "Song of Ice and Fire" because I myself am sick of years-long waits for the next volume, for example.

Still...

B. Cornwell: "Arthur" trilogy (especially - the rest is good, too)
N. Gaiman (pretty much everything)
D. Gemmell: "Troy" trilogy (especially - much of the rest is good, but he tends to be very repetitive)
W. Gibson & B. Sterling: "The Difference Engine"
G.R.R. Martin: Song of Ice and Fire series
C. Mieville: Bas Lag series
T. Pratchett: Discworld series, "Good Omens" (with N. Gaiman)
P. Pullman: "His Dark Materials" trilogy
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter series
R.A. Salvatore: "Icewind Dale" trilogy, "Dark Elf" trilogy (and nothing else!)
M. Weis & T. Hickman: "Dragonlance Chronicles", "Dragonlance Legends"

There's probably a bunch more stuff that I would add if I thought of it, but nothing more leaps to mind at this point.

What is Appendix N?

delericho said:

R.A. Salvatore: "Icewind Dale" trilogy, "Dark Elf" trilogy (and nothing else!)
M. Weis & T. Hickman: "Dragonlance Chronicles", "Dragonlance Legends"

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It never once occurred to me to put any of the D&D novels on a reading list meant to convey the flavor of the game. It seems weirdly self-referential, but obvious.

You know I never in all of the years I've been playing these games have I actually read those recommended reading appendices. I have gotten inspiration for my games from the literature I've read and movies I've watched, hell even television inspires me.

My games take inspiration from westerns, science fiction, horror, espionage thrillers, A whole lot of sources. I take surprisingly little from actual fantasy sources because I really don't like the genre. Weird huh. I play fantasy video games and D&D and that's it for fantasy for me.

My D&D is very different from the games I've played in. The Eberron setting is the closest to my homebrew game world with it's industrialized magic, but I go more towards steam punk and less fantastical contraptions. I love the tinker gnome.

Yora said:

What is Appendix N?

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Appendix N

I would keep it a reading list, but include the gems of the old list plus some newer fantasy, mostly of a similar style or one that D&D emulates well. After all, it's a bit silly to recommend something for inspiration and then not deliver on letting you play like it.

I don't see a problem with unfinished series - just recommend the first book if it stands on its own (and e.g. Game of Thrones does).

Oni said:

Appendix N

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Ah... I wasn't born back then for five more years.

I would keep Appendix N, as is, since while some are obscure today, they do explain many D&D concepts and tropes. Like Poul Anderson's 3 of Hearts, 3 of Lions. And people should be reading de Camp and Andre Norton.

I would add:

Clark Ashton Smith - Averoigne, Zothique, Hyperborea stories

He should have been in Appendix N, his fantasy stuff was superb and did influence some things (the Geas spell, in particular, was from him, not the geas of Celtic mythology)

Karl Edward Wagner - Kane series

Conan meets Lovecraft. The first in the series, Darkness Weaves is excellent, one of the best fantasy novels period, IMHO, but none of the rest are all that great. First novel is perhaps the source of the D&D assassin (as opposed to the historical version, though some is definitely borrowed from that)

Glen Cook - Pretty much all his fantasy stuff. While it comes after D&D, EGG did praise his work in a Dragon magazine.
(Apparently he was a close friend and roommate of Fritz Lieber)

@delericho covered just about everything I was going to suggest and then some...both the original "keep it" from App. N and the "new/modern" stuff.

I would propose something like this...

R.E. Howard's Conan series.
Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar series.
M. Moorcock's Elric series.
Lovecraft goes in as a "Legacy" though I've never read any of his stuff.
J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit", "Lord of the Rings" trilogy & "The Simarillion"
Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" (which, I understand, besides being its own book, also has a collected compilation of 24 of her stories under that title)

Beowulf
Sir Thomas Mallory's "La Morte d'Arthur"
Geoffrrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales"
Anything by Shakespeare, but particularly "Hamlet", "MacBeth" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Anything by W.B. Yeats, but particularly, his anthologies: "Fairy & Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry", "Irish Fairy Tales" and "The Celtic Twilight."
Stoker's "Dracula" (good add, delericho, I probably wouldn't have thought of that)

Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" series.
[EDIT] Oh yeah, and "Game of Thrones" if not the whole "Song of Fire & Ice."[/EDIT]

Weis/Hickman's "Dragonlance: Chronicles" trilogy (the "Legend's" trilogy and all subsequent Dragonlance works are optional, imho.)
Salvatore's "Icewind Dale" trilogy (leave the Drizzt/Dark Elf thing out or optional)

Marion Zimmer Bradley's "The Mists of Avalon" (the Arthurian myth told through the eyes of the women: The Lady of the Lake/Morgaine/Gwenhwyfar) and "Firestarter" (the Trojan War/Illiad story seen through the eyes of Cassandra)