Gaming Generation Gap

[ggroy]

Well, as a grognard (just, started in 81) I only like Tolkien and (a little bit) leiber of all the classic books. I have tried pretty much most of the others on the 'geek card' list but find most of them incredibly dull; I even don't finish them (Vance, Elric, Conan, etc are all books I found so poor that I didn't finish).

Most of these sorts of books I've never read, or only read the first chapter or so and stopped abruptly. I never quite understood what hardcore readers found fascinating about particular titles, authors, genres, etc ...

For Tolkien's stuff, I only ever read a chapter or two before abruptly stopping, largely out of boredom.

 

[Mark]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...estion-25-under-crowd-what-have-you-read.html

Thanks. I bumped it to see if more data points could be garnered.


To add to the discussion more, I also believe that some portion of the literature (from then and now) in question is best read as a young adult and often difficult to work through once someone's reading preferences have committed more fully to particular styles of writing.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Good point about the explosion of content, K-M. But your wrong about the Heavy Metal thing, they ripped it from DnD!

For Tolkien's stuff, I only ever read a chapter or two before abruptly stopping, largely out of boredom.

I can see where you are coming from, Tolkien is bloody long winded. But for me it is a nostalgia thing, I guess. The first ever fantasy books I got were LotR when I was 7, opened up a new way of thinking. I think Time of the Twins was next!

 

[Rechan]

To add to the discussion more, I also believe that some portion of the literature (from then and now) in question is best read as a young adult and often difficult to work through once someone's reading preferences have committed more fully to particular styles of writing.

Also, for some, it was "all they had" in terms of fantasy. I mean, back in the 70s there wasn't a LOT of material to go through, so you read what was available and there to reference. Now, there are so many books I Should read (in addition to movies and games), that I think I'd never get them all done.

 

[FriarRosing]

No one I play with has ever read any of the classic fantasy literature people have recommended as being close to D&D. Sure, we've read Tolkien, and I know a few folks who enjoy George R.R. Martin, but otherwise my friends aren't too big of fantasy buffs. And those who are mainly have read the D&D novels. Older sword and sorcery stuff is kind of lost on us. And, really, I'm not even that big into fantasy a genre even though I love D&D. I think I'm part of a newer generation whose introduction to fantasy was through video games. I came to D&D and fantasy through Warcraft 2, Diablo and the Baldur's Gate series. So, I think for a lot of people of my generation (and I'm 21, by the way), the original literature and inspiration is something of an unknown. Our experience is from computer games of our childhood, not books we read as kids. This is based on my own experience, of course.

Still, hearing about the likes of Moorcock and the other guys has piqued my interest in reading them. I'm sure if I ever finish my current to read list, I'll add them to my next one.

 

[ggroy]

To add to the discussion more, I also believe that some portion of the literature (from then and now) in question is best read as a young adult and often difficult to work through once someone's reading preferences have committed more fully to particular styles of writing.

For a long time, I found that I had a very hard time reading most fantasy and science fiction type books. After reading through several pages, frequently I didn't remember anything I had just previously read a few minutes prior. Sometimes after reading a paragraph or two, I had no clue what it was about.

I suppose when I was a younger, I never got into the habit of reading paperback fiction books.

 

[jmucchiello]

It also makes me wonder how, as the community ages and new, younger gamers come in, what the culture will be, where the RPG Community touchstones will be, and what qualifies you for a "Geek Card". For instance, a few months ago there was a thread asking "Those 25 and under, what of this long list of D&D inspiration material (Leiber, Moorcock, Tolkein, etc) have you read?" I'd say that 90% of the respondents 25 and under had read three or less.

You aren't missing anything not having read Leiber, Moorcock, and the other Pulp-ish writers. Theirs are stories that work best on a youthful mind. The older you are when you first encounter them, the less likely you will find them COOL. It's kind of like Ender's Game. You either like or not depending on how old you were when you read it.

I'm not saying you can't like them if you read them when you are older. I'm saying that they play best on a mind first discovering the "new" ideas of fantasy. If you have any amount of "seen it, been there, done it" in you, they will fall flat.

 

[ggroy]

I'm not saying you can't like them if you read them when you are older. I'm saying that they play best on a mind first discovering the "new" ideas of fantasy. If you have any amount of "seen it, been there, done it" in you, they will fall flat.

For most of the "ideas" of fantasy and science fiction literature, I learned most of it tangentially from reading books on topics like: history, warfare, politics, economics, espionage, psychology, sociology, science, some philosophy, etc ... and various non-fiction books written by some despicable individuals (ie. Machiavelli, Hitler, Marx, etc ...).

If I started reading fantasy and science fiction books again today, I think I may very well end up in the "seen it, been there, done it" category in overanalyzing things.

 

[Mark]

I guess I am of the youngest of those who began back in 1974, having been only 11 or 12 at the time. It's also true that a great deal of the literature read by the early D&D player generations was written by previous generations of authors, sometimes many generations earlier and before our time. In the Seventies, Tolkien was still enjoying a resurgence fostered by the American (US) Sixties counter-culture movement and Howard was being reprinted in paperback with those evocative Frank Frazetta covers. Artists like the Hildebrandt Brothers were getting their feet wet in fantasy and would go on to do the covers for Terry Brooks books and others. There was a feel to the times but it was made up of a mix of contemporary materials and artists as well as artists from previous generations such as those from the early Brandywine School and materials dating back many decades and even centuries.

Of course, at that time there were no video games and animation was in its infancy in regard to fantasy themes. D&D was also not yet self-referential. It should also be noted that there is some good deal of material that influenced early RPGing that embraced attitudes exposed as abhorrent by today's standards, particularly regarding race, gender, substance abuse, etc. Society has matured and raised its standards, and modern artistic materials reflect different attitudes. Rightfully so, IMO. However, I might be taking this conversation in a sociological direction the OP had not intended, so I'll stop there and leave it to Rechen to make that choice or not.

 

[Rechan]

You aren't missing anything not having read Leiber, Moorcock, and the other Pulp-ish writers. Theirs are stories that work best on a youthful mind. The older you are when you first encounter them, the less likely you will find them COOL. It's kind of like Ender's Game. You either like or not depending on how old you were when you read it.

I'm not saying you can't like them if you read them when you are older. I'm saying that they play best on a mind first discovering the "new" ideas of fantasy. If you have any amount of "seen it, been there, done it" in you, they will fall flat.

Well honestly, they say there's only like 7 plots. So to an extent, everything is done to death, it's a matter of seeing the execution. Or rather, it's interesting to see interesting interpretations, or when someone makes a subtle twist that hadn't been done with the same story.

I mean, if they have been mined completely for ideas and it's all popped up elsewhere, I can see your point. But, it's also kind of fun to see where references originate; watching Full Metal Jacket, The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca in my early 20s made me appreciate them a little more because I suddenly understood all the references others had made, and the influence on later works they effected.

On the flip side, I just could not read Of Mice and Men because the big orange hairy monster from Bugs Bunny cartoons utterly ruined Lenny's character for me. I couldn't read it without picturing George saying "What's up, Doc?"

And then there are those things I hear hyped and "You have to/got to read/see this" and when I get to it, I just find it utterly dull. This is more the case of movies than books.