TSR Appendix N Discussion

[squibbles]

[...] @Mannahnin said that "the game itself is definitely not a particularly good Tolkien emulator." Very true, but I would go further in that it's not really great at directly emulating any single Appendix N work. It's hard to picture Conan, for example, striding into a dungeon and getting dissolved by green slime - the indomitable Cimmerian is, I would posit, far more easily brought to life in 5e with its nigh-superheroic characters.*

And that's okay - what makes D&D so great is that it is not any one single thing, but a stew of influences. Tolkien, REH, Anderson, Leiber, Vance, et al. It's all of them and none of them. [...]

True, it's not a great LotR emulator or a great Conan emulator. But the gameplay loop of the earliest editions of D&D was a pretty good emulator of Vance--incentivizing blank slate pícaros to get themselves killed whilst risking their lives for treasure and/or magic doodads. The Monsters and Manuals blog has a great post about this, using Vance's Planet of Adventure series as an example. And then it became less specific and more all-things-fantasy-to-all-people over time.

No, that's not correct.

Let's use your example and go to the classes. They are absolutely NOT Tolkien-influenced (with one major exception, of course).

Where did the classes come from? Funny you should ask me of all people!

-Assassin. Not Tolkien. Arneson's group (Hammock) by way of Kask, but based on the historical model.
-Bard. Not Tolkien. Doug Schwegman mixed together histrocial references fors a skald, a bard, and a minstrel.
-Cleric. Not Tolkien. This was Bishop Carr (guess who?) designed from Hammer Horror films to defeat Sir Fang, as modified by Gygax's conception of Bishop Odo.
-Druid. Not Tolkien. This one is Dennis "Chariot of" Sustare, and swirling the 70s ideas about Druids that came from the Romans.
-Illusionist. Not Tolkien. Peter Aronson really loved the illusions Magic Users could cast and wanted to create a whole class based on it.
-Monk. Not Tolkien. This is Remo Williams, as Brian Blume wanted.
-Paladin. Not Tolkien. This was Poul Anderson.
-Thief. Not Tolkien. The players at Aero Games wanted a "Box Man" and created one, which was then appropriated by Gygax who added a little Vance and Zelazny.
-Figher (fighting man)/Magic User. Not Tolkien. Based on generic archetypes.

That leaves one - the Ranger, which wasn't Gygax, but was Joe Fischer, who read the Paladin and thought- "I want that, but Aragorn."


This is the issue I pointed out- if you don't know not only the D&D history, but also the antecedent fantasy history, it all looks like Tolkien.

It isn't. Races? Sure. The rest? Not so much.

Amen. And, if it were up to me, this short explainer, or one like it, would be stickeyed on every D&D forum on the internet.

The only thing I can contribute to that discussion is that I've met Terry Brooks (he lives nearby), and found him to be an excellent human being. He's patient with his fans, he's very supportive of derivative works, and apart from the occasional bit of shade he throws at George R. R. Martin's publishing schedule, he never has anything bad to say about other fantasy authors.

He's not flawless, and neither are his books, but if you're hunting for inspiration in your D&D game you can do much worse than Terry Brooks.

I can second this. I met him at a chapter reading in a Barnes and Noble when I was a kid, before having read any of his books. I remember him being affable, unpretentious, and generous with his time.

 

[teitan]

*This is also something I think about a lot with DCC RPG. It frequently emulates the high lethality of early D&D, but if you look at Appendix N, characters frequently survive against all odds, again and again.

I have found with "roll the body" luck checks that it isn't as lethal outside of the funnel as legends would lead you to believe. ;-) I have had one luck check failure on a "roll the body" check and it was because they had a negative luck modifier impact the actual roll, rather than the roll itself being a failure.

 

[Parmandur]

I have found with "roll the body" luck checks that it isn't as lethal outside of the funnel as legends would lead you to believe. ;-) I have had one luck check failure on a "roll the body" check and it was because they had a negative luck modifier impact the actual roll, rather than the roll itself being a failure.

The game does disincentivize casual spellcasting, but more with escalating inconvenience as consequences than deadly diaaster. Which nocely leads to more traditional fantasy accurate mage behavior. DCC Gandalf prefers to swing a sword and ride horses because he doesn't want to risk rolling low a bunch of times to no big purpose.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If I were going to write my own Appendix N, to include only the authors/sources that have contributed meaningfully to my current D&D campaign, it would be as follows:

Andrews, Shirley. "Atlantis: Insights from a Lost Civilization."
Brooks, Terry. "The Heritage of Shannara" (Trilogy)
Dumas, Alexandre. "The Three Musketeers"
Ellsworth, Shawn. "The Seas of Vodari"
Haggard, H. Rider. "King Solomon's Mines"
Hope, Anthony. "The Prisoner of Zenda"
Square Enix Co., Ltd. "Final Fantasy" (Game franchise)
Stevenson, Robert Lewis. "Treasure Island"
Verne, Jules. "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"
Westerfield, Scott. "Leviathan"
Wizards of the Coast, "Unearthed Arcana - Ixalan"

And if I were going to write my own Appendix N to include all of the authors and sources that have contributed meaningfully to all of my D&D campaigns I've run over the years, it would have tens of thousands of entries.

I would like to return to this list for a moment. The classic literature included here (I highlighted for convince), if it didn't influence D&D directly (which I doubt) certainly influenced authors who where included in Appendix N. The original Appendix N tended to omit sources that where not in the fantasy genre. As well as comics and Hollywood movies of the 30s to 60s, which where also a clear influence.

NB: I'm not sure when the Shirley Atlantis book was published, but Atlantean literature was certainly a big influence on REH.

 

[teitan]

I think a major component of the D&D "secret sauce" is the war gaming origins: pulp heroes have to win, but war games require a potential failure state. That changes the narrative possibilities, but in an exciting way.

all this. Even the key to alignment, "what team do you play for" is rooted in war gaming but also in Poul Anderson, moreso really than Moorcock when it comes to D&D, but the implementation is straight war gaming factionalism.

Working this out after reading Three Hearts & Three Lions really gelled the whole concept of alignment in not just D&D but Warhammer Fantasy as well. DCC seems to be a lot more Moorcock while Warhammer gets into it less with a lot of lip service.

 

[teitan]

See, if a person is trying to shave Appendix N to its smallest number of works, I think Three Hearts and Three Lions has to stay. There are so many things in it that inspired D&D, that the book is an immovable object on the list.

However, I also happen to think that The Broken Sword is the better novel. But, it does not have anywhere near the number of concentrated D&Disms as Three Hearts and Three Lions.

Three Hearts & Three Lions, Elric of Melnibone, Conan, Fafrhd & The Grey Mouser, Zothique, Dying Earth and Lovecraft. That's the bare minimum I think that one needs for an Appendix N. Adding to it after would be Wagner's Kane novels, DeCamp, Zelazny, Wellman, & Lin Carter's End of Time cycle. I really do not think Tolkien is important to D&D at all except for halflings. The D&D dwarf & elf are more Poul Anderson than Tolkien. The OD&D assumed world is more Anderson meets Lankhmar than Tolkien. It is essentially monotheistic with demons as the source of power for chaos. Elves have a questionable loyalty to anyone that isn't an elf and lean towards Chaos when you read between the lines culturally (thus DCC emphasis on Patrons for Elves). Halflings themselves are borderline Bilbo/Frodo really. The Thief class isn't even present.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

True, it's not a great LotR emulator or a great Conan emulator. But the gameplay loop of the earliest editions of D&D was a pretty good emulator of Vance--incentivizing blank slate pícaros to get themselves killed whilst risking their lives for treasure and/or magic doodads. The Monsters and Manuals blog has a great post about this, using Vance's Planet of Adventure series as an example. And then it became less specific and more all-things-fantasy-to-all-people over time.

Fascinating read. Dungeoncrawling as picaresque narrative is an interesting thought. And heck, even before Vance, looking at the genre fiction of the last century and earlier, picaresque narratives were much more common then.

I have found with "roll the body" luck checks that it isn't as lethal outside of the funnel as legends would lead you to believe. ;-) I have had one luck check failure on a "roll the body" check and it was because they had a negative luck modifier impact the actual roll, rather than the roll itself being a failure.

Outside of the funnel, yeah, in the last DCC campaign I ran, no one died. Some Judges do lean into the old-school deadliness, too, and I think that can color expectations.

Three Hearts & Three Lions, Elric of Melnibone, Conan, Fafrhd & The Grey Mouser, Zothique, Dying Earth and Lovecraft. That's the bare minimum I think that one needs for an Appendix N. Adding to it after would be Wagner's Kane novels, DeCamp, Zelazny, Wellman, & Lin Carter's End of Time cycle. I really do not think Tolkien is important to D&D at all except for halflings. The D&D dwarf & elf are more Poul Anderson than Tolkien. The OD&D assumed world is more Anderson meets Lankhmar than Tolkien. It is essentially monotheistic with demons as the source of power for chaos. Elves have a questionable loyalty to anyone that isn't an elf and lean towards Chaos when you read between the lines culturally (thus DCC emphasis on Patrons for Elves). Halflings themselves are borderline Bilbo/Frodo really. The Thief class isn't even present.

Like Three Hearts & Three Lions, I think Tolkien also has to be there. Even if the mode of play of D&D is dramatically different from Lord of the Rings, considering the presence of Ents, Hobbits, Balrogs, Wraiths (looking at their original art, their inspiration by the Nazgul is pretty clear) in original D&D, plus the continued presence of Halflings (and the Halfling connection to the Thief class), Orcs, Cloaks of Elvenkind, Rings of Invisibility (present plenty of other places, but most strongly in LOTR), Staffs of Power, and other elements, I think Tolkien has to stay.

The Elves of DCC definitely have more to do with Anderson's Elves, or Moorcock's Melniboneans. As for Halflings, I think about removing them from my games sometimes. Tolkien's one of my favorite authors, but when I run DCC, I want less Tolkien and more CAS, Moorcock, Vance, Leiber, and Carter. And I've yet to find anything close to a Halfling in other Appendix N works.

 

[Parmandur]

Fascinating read. Dungeoncrawling as picaresque narrative is an interesting thought. And heck, even before Vance, looking at the genre fiction of the last century and earlier, picaresque narratives were much more common then.


Outside of the funnel, yeah, in the last DCC campaign I ran, no one died. Some Judges do lean into the old-school deadliness, too, and I think that can color expectations.



Like Three Hearts & Three Lions, I think Tolkien also has to be there. Even if the mode of play of D&D is dramatically different from Lord of the Rings, considering the presence of Ents, Hobbits, Balrogs, Wraiths (looking at their original art, their inspiration by the Nazgul is pretty clear) in original D&D, plus the continued presence of Halflings (and the Halfling connection to the Thief class), Orcs, Cloaks of Elvenkind, Rings of Invisibility (present plenty of other places, but most strongly in LOTR), Staffs of Power, and other elements, I think Tolkien has to stay.

The Elves of DCC definitely have more to do with Anderson's Elves, or Moorcock's Melniboneans. As for Halflings, I think about removing them from my games sometimes. Tolkien's one of my favorite authors, but when I run DCC, I want less Tolkien and more CAS, Moorcock, Vance, Leiber, and Carter. And I've yet to find anything close to a Halfling in other Appendix N works.

I think a bug difference between Tolkien and most of the rest of the Appendix N material is that Tolkien needs no introduction. Middle schoolers picking up their first Starter Set in 2023 aren't going to need a D&D box to tell them to go read the Hobbit.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think a bug difference between Tolkien and most of the rest of the Appendix N material is that Tolkien needs no introduction. Middle schoolers picking up their first Starter Set in 2023 aren't going to need a D&D box to tell them to go read the Hobbit.

They will, however, need someone to tell them how to pronounce Tolkien.

Pedantically.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think a bug difference between Tolkien and most of the rest of the Appendix N material is that Tolkien needs no introduction. Middle schoolers picking up their first Starter Set in 2023 aren't going to need a D&D box to tell them to go read the Hobbit.

Absolutely. Heck, back in nineteen-eighty-something, I knew Tolkien before I picked up a D&D box.

In the late 70s, I think the Ace/Lancer Conans would have meant people would've been more familiar with REH, Carter, and de Camp than they are today. These days, outside of those that peruse Appendix N, Carter and de Camp are probably all but forgotten.