Gaming Generation Gap

[jasonbostwick]

I'm 22, and only started gaming when I was about 17. I devoured the Redwall books and read LotR when I was ten or so, but fantasy never really grabbed me before I moved on to what would be shelved under 'literature' at Borders.

My D&D sessions take more inspiration from Neal Stephenson novels, superhero comics, and old SNES RPGs than they do from fantasy. A few of my gaming friends have read some R.A. Salvatore books, but I was never particularily interested.

I certainly never had any contact with Moorcock, Vance, or Howard (and still really haven't read anything that would be considered Swords and Sorcery).


I'm trying a bit to reverse this trend - I just started reading fantasy again this summer. So far I've finished China Mieville's Perdido Street Station and The Scar and am just starting Iron Council. I've really enjoyed his stuff - fantasy that can work state-sponsored revisionist histories into the plot is something I can get behind.
I read Gaiman's collections of short stories on a roadtrip and loved them, but haven't started in on his novels yet - after I finish The City and the City I'll probably get to them.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

For me it's not just a generation gap, but also a language/location gap. I have never heard of most of the books people talk about, not merely because I am not a big fantasy reader, but also because the books might not have been very popular or available in Germany and almost certainly had titles that are not simple translations from the original ones.

On top of that, there is also an "interest" gap. I am not really a big fan of fantasy books. I always prefered Science Fiction.
Fritz, Leiber, Vance, those are all names that I just know from EN World.
I could name some Star Wars and Startrek book authors (that has always been more my type of books). But most of those are also fairly "new" - 80s and later.
I know some books and themes from Isaac Assimov, Heinlein or Arthur C. Clarke. if we are talking classics. But that's it.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I'm trying a bit to reverse this trend - I just started reading fantasy again this summer. So far I've finished China Mieville's Perdido Street Station and The Scar and am just starting Iron Council. I've really enjoyed his stuff - fantasy that can work state-sponsored revisionist histories into the plot is something I can get behind.
I read Gaiman's collections of short stories on a roadtrip and loved them, but haven't started in on his novels yet - after I finish The City and the City I'll probably get to them.

Those two are probably my two favourite authors just in general, not just fantasy.

 

[S'mon]

Easy solution - go read some Moorcock, Leiber and Howard short stories. Only takes a few minutes!

 

[Ariosto]

Leiber, like Raymond Chandler, seems IMO only to gather nuance as his works roll over the hill.

Gaiman and Mieville have a sweetness that is in itself and by its merits truly becoming ... but neither is quite the second coming of Goethe.

Or Hermann Hesse or Jack London. The werewolf does not read comicbooks.

How could one tell a story incomprehensible to the reader?

If you would read of valor, then be daring. If you would read of infinities, then at least expand the limits of your quantification.

But, G*d d*mn it, you've got to be kind.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I'm 24 and didn't start D&D until high school, around 2000. I read the entire Prydain Chronicles (but never saw the movie) and the Dark is Rising Sequence in middle school, and they remain my favorite books of all time, not just in the fantasy genre, but in general. I have not read any of the typically listed fantasy authors -- Tolkein, Moorcock, um...geeze, it's hard to even remember these guys' names since I never heard of most of them before...Vance....

I don't know how much the fantasy lit I read influenced my views on D&D. As for the future, I'd have to say anime will play a big role for lots of people. It does for me already. I'm unsure if Alexander and Cooper had an impact on the game for me, but Record of Lodoss War? Absolutely. And how can you not crack a hentai joke when using Evard's tentacles?

EDIT: Gaiman! I did read Neverwhere in high school. I guess he would also count as a big name.

 

[Clavis]

Honestly, the biggest culture/generational gap I've noticed isn't about the books different gamers have read, but the difference between Metal D&D and Non-Metal D&D. In the 80s, a very large percentage of D&D players were also involved in the Heavy Metal scene, and to great extent played D&D because of its "evil" and "satanic" reputation. In my experience, players who came of age in the Metal scene at that time, or were influenced by players from that time, have a very different attitude towards the game than other players. They tend to want to live out fantasies of power and rebellion rather than heroism. They don't want to play the King's loyal knight, but the outlaw the knight is hunting. They don't want to kill the Queen of the Succubi, but make her their girlfriend. They want to conquer and rule Hell, not destroy it. They tend to play evil and neutral characters, and if they play Good characters they're Chaotic Good rebels who want to stick it to society. Their idea of fantasy is as much about Frank Frazetta paintings and Manowar songs as any books. Their character concepts are more likely to be taken from Heavy Metal and its tropes than anything to be found in classic fantasy literature.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Easy solution - go read some Moorcock, Leiber and Howard short stories. Only takes a few minutes!

Easy solution for what? The generation gap? If so, wouldn't an alternate solution be for all the people of the older generations to go play the videogames Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Chrono Trigger? Of course, that would take a lot more time than reading a few short stories...

Crossing the generation gap requires a lot more than the young generation embracing what came before. It also involves people of the older generation embracing what has come since. Both are pretty tricky, though, hence the generation gap.

Of course, as my comment above indicates, I think the biggest change across the generations is the rise of whole generations who got their fantasy fix from videogames, rather than books. As I mentioned in the "what books have you read if you are 25 or under?" thread, I read a lot of fantasy stories, albeit not stuff like Vance or Moorcock, but my love of fantasy comes from videogames, not books.

To phrase this in a more amusing manner... I played the SNES Lord of the Rings game before I ever knew that there was a series of novels called The Lord of the Rings (as a side note, that game was absolutely horrid). It was only much later that I came across the books, and I took an interest in them partly because they had a videogame adaptation (The game was so terrible I'm surprised I bothered. Good thing I did, though.). Of course, I only ever played the Lord of the Rings SNES game because it was a fantasy game, and I was mostly interested in those thanks to games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy IV.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

And there are even some great JRPGs NOT made by Square-Enix!

Agree a lot with Twin Bahamut. Video games are a major influence on me, and I do like fantasy games. I'd still like to do some kind of Suikoden or Legend of Dragoon game some day, and I wouldn't mind playing in a FF Tactics styled game. I'd consider Dragon Warrior and Legend of Zelda my first tastes of the fantasy genre. And Ultima, if I had ever been able to find it in a store as a kid Never have I known so much about a game without even playing it.

You mentioned myth and folklore in the under 25 thread. Those also heavily influenced me. I love mythology especially. One of my favorite games I ever played in (and not D&D) involved our characters being the chosen "champions" for deadly games held every 1000 years to determine what god(s) can reign supreme till the next tourney, as a way of avoiding war between them. The winning champions getting a wish for their troubles. We went to several different cultures' underworlds (Xibalba being the coolest by far), had lots of interactions with our deities (more often than not in an antogonizing fashion; half the group wanted to win so they could use their wish to gain enough power to slay their own patron deity ), encountered lots of mythic monsters, got items of power from our gods to aid us (my goddess was Athena, I got the Aegis), etc... Great fun. Eating ambrosia, paying for sex with a succubus in the underworld, trying to sabotage and kill the other champions (even if they were other players)...

Oh, and I had never even heard of Lord of the Rings until the movies came out, nevermind that Tolkein guy.

 

[TwinBahamut]

And there are even some great JRPGs NOT made by Square-Enix!

Yep, tons. I'm a big fan of a great many RPGs made by various videogame companies, not the least of which are the Suikoden series and the Fire Emblem series. But I can't help the fact that Square-Enix's games defined my childhood.

To prove how much they did, consider the fact that my username is not a D&D reference. I have been using this name online since well before I ever knew that Bahamut was the name of a D&D god.

Agree a lot with Twin Bahamut. Video games are a major influence on me, and I do like fantasy games. I'd still like to do some kind of Suikoden or Legend of Dragoon game some day, and I wouldn't mind playing in a FF Tactics styled game. I'd consider Dragon Warrior and Legend of Zelda my first tastes of the fantasy genre. And Ultima, if I had ever been able to find it in a store as a kid Never have I known so much about a game without even playing it.

I'll certainly agree with all of that (except Ultima, since I am not as familiar with that one). Suikoden alone has had an insane amount of influence of all of my homebrew settings and campaigns. The game Shadow Hearts gave me quite a few ideas for an Eberron campaign I was going to run. Of course, more recent games like Persona 3 and The World Ends With You are also turning out to be huge influences, and would probably define any campaigns I would run in a theoretical 4E version of D20 Modern.

You mentioned myth and folklore in the under 25 thread. Those also heavily influenced me. I love mythology especially. One of my favorite games I ever played in (and not D&D) involved our characters being the chosen "champions" for deadly games held every 1000 years to determine what god(s) can reign supreme till the next tourney, as a way of avoiding war between them. The winning champions getting a wish for their troubles. We went to several different cultures' underworlds (Xibalba being the coolest by far), had lots of interactions with our deities (more often than not in an antogonizing fashion; half the group wanted to win so they could use their wish to gain enough power to slay their own patron deity ), encountered lots of mythic monsters, got items of power from our gods to aid us (my goddess was Athena, I got the Aegis), etc... Great fun. Eating ambrosia, paying for sex with a succubus in the underworld, trying to sabotage and kill the other champions (even if they were other players)...

That sounds like it must have been a blast. It doesn't really sound like my preference, but it does sound fun.

My fondness for myth and folklore tends to mix with anime and videogames to create a general fondness for over-the-top action involving swordplay and martial arts and an exaggerated Epic Tier where unspeakable evils and dark gods are the default foes, not impossible challenges.

Oh, and I had never even heard of Lord of the Rings until the movies came out, nevermind that Tolkein guy.

That is understandable. Before the movies came out, you basically had to stumble upon Tolkien's works by chance, unless you knew a bunch of people who knew a lot about the history of the fantasy book genre.