D&D 5E appendix Next

[Bedrockgames]

I was a child of 80s, and 2E really shaped my sense of what D&D should be, so those two things would be reflected in my list. Also, i would probably have more movies listed than books, simply because movies really shape my gaming for some reason:

FILMS
Excaliber
Dragonslayer
The Princess Bride
Army of Darkness
Spartacus
Princess Mononoke
Big Trouble Little China
Beastmaster
Fire and Ice
Dark Crystal
Pirates of the Carribea(all three)
Time Bandits
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The 13th Warrior
Gladiator
Lord of the Rings (cartoon and the live action)
Enter the Dragon
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Destroyer
Legend
Krull
Eric the Viking
Clash of the Titans
Young Sherlock Holmes (lots of gaming fodder here)
Willow

 

[steeldragons]

Forgot a couple more:

Ellis Peters' "Brother Cadfael" series (medieval monk -brown robes guy, not kung-fu guy- herbalist/apothecary/detective solving mysteries in the Middle Ages. GREAT stuff!..not to mention a nice inspiration for Assassin characters, poisons, etc.)

and

Terry Brooks' "Shannara" series...or at the very least, the first one, "The Sword of Shannara."

 

[Tallifer]

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"

Plus The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer
The poems of Chretien de Troyes
The Nibelungenlied
Le Chanson de Roland

I would put all these in the Appendix and leave out most of the derivative modern stuff. Especially leave out all the hack in-house TSR/WotC books.

 

[steeldragons]

Ok, last ones I forgot...I swear...

Raymond E. Feist's "Riftwar Saga" trilogy ("Magician", "Silverthorn" and "A Darkness at Sethanon")

Ok, I'm done now.

 

[thedungeondelver]

I say: take the original list, add everything that's been added to it since in whatever form "inspirational reading" lists took. Why take anything away?

 

[Kaodi]

I think the thing to do would be to split Appendix N into two parts. The first part would be from the historical Appendix N, and would include a word about Gygax himself. The second would be an expanded list. I think the films listed in the original Eberron Campaign Setting should probably all make it in to this latter part of the Appendix. A lot of the stuff from Paizo's Planet Stories should probably also make it in.

A caveat about the second list though: it should not include anything that it would be terribly difficult to find.

 

[mkill]

* World of Warcraft
* Harry Potter
* Pokemon
* Buffy the Vampire Slayer
* Naruto
* Skyrim

No really, I'm dead serious. If you're a teenager now and pick up a D&D PHB, these will be popculture references you'll use in your game, among tons of other stuff.

Don't turn D&D into some ivory tower "true fantasy" game that can only create stories from a selected and approved canon that perfectly represents the artists vision. Because that's not what Appendix N is about. It's about what you think is the good stuff. It's about shared popculture knowledge.

In 2012, millions of people will know what you talk about when you say "Expelliarmus", or "For the Horde!". Only a few people will know who August Derleth is without googling.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I'm glad Raymond E. Fiest got mentioned. Also:

• Brandon Sanderson — Elantris, Mistborn
• Neal Stephenson — The Baroque Cycle
• Terry Goodkind — Wizard's First Rule

 

[Libramarian]

* World of Warcraft
* Harry Potter
* Pokemon
* Buffy the Vampire Slayer
* Naruto
* Skyrim

No really, I'm dead serious. If you're a teenager now and pick up a D&D PHB, these will be popculture references you'll use in your game, among tons of other stuff.

Don't turn D&D into some ivory tower "true fantasy" game that can only create stories from a selected and approved canon that perfectly represents the artists vision. Because that's not what Appendix N is about. It's about what you think is the good stuff. It's about shared popculture knowledge.

In 2012, millions of people will know what you talk about when you say "Expelliarmus", or "For the Horde!". Only a few people will know who August Derleth is without googling.

You appear to be confused about the purpose of an appendix N. The purpose is to introduce people to good stuff that they probably don't know about. Not to list the stuff they already know.

 

[Scribble]

You appear to be confused about the purpose of an appendix N. The purpose is to introduce people to good stuff that they probably don't know about. Not to list the stuff they already know.

I disagree.

The purpose, from my reading, was simply to cite works that he found inspirational when cobbling together the rules, and a campaign.

To that end Appendix N(ew) should contain stuff that people actually have found inspirational towards writing the rules or building a campaign.