I will start with my list, tho I will shoot it up a bit after:
1) a passing knowledge with a mythology. Preferably Greek/Roman myths, but any will do. This gives you a background in the gods and alot of the classic monsters.
2)Lord of the Rings: preferably the books, but the movies are a passable alternative
3)Any and all of Jim Butcher's books: Both Dresden files and the Codex Alera. Good easy reads but more depth than Harry Potter.
4)Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger series. Good depiction of the classic game world.
5) Any of the other good fantasy: The riftwar, the belgariad,...
The first thing that I would point out is that none of these are computer games. I dont think that computer games help with the background to role playing games, and frequently hurt it. Even the best of todays MMORPGer is a pale and limited imitation to what even a poor pen and paper game can do. With a good DM, the sandbox is infinite and constantly evolving. With the best MMORPGer, the sandbox is fixed and only altered by faceless programmers on an intermittent basis.
On top of that, a pen and paper game is an internal activity with hearing as the main source of information. That is more similar to reading, where the visualization is internal, and the information source is language, than it is to a computer game, where the main interface is visual. In a computer game, you see the trees. In a book, or a pen and paper game, you imagine the trees.
Lastly, I think that books tend to give a better background in motivations. In any computer game I have played, the feelings of the players involved were pretty irrelevant. Books give you a why someone is doing this that computer games cant. That helps make it a role playing game.
1) a passing knowledge with a mythology. Preferably Greek/Roman myths, but any will do. This gives you a background in the gods and alot of the classic monsters.
2)Lord of the Rings: preferably the books, but the movies are a passable alternative
3)Any and all of Jim Butcher's books: Both Dresden files and the Codex Alera. Good easy reads but more depth than Harry Potter.
4)Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger series. Good depiction of the classic game world.
5) Any of the other good fantasy: The riftwar, the belgariad,...
The first thing that I would point out is that none of these are computer games. I dont think that computer games help with the background to role playing games, and frequently hurt it. Even the best of todays MMORPGer is a pale and limited imitation to what even a poor pen and paper game can do. With a good DM, the sandbox is infinite and constantly evolving. With the best MMORPGer, the sandbox is fixed and only altered by faceless programmers on an intermittent basis.
On top of that, a pen and paper game is an internal activity with hearing as the main source of information. That is more similar to reading, where the visualization is internal, and the information source is language, than it is to a computer game, where the main interface is visual. In a computer game, you see the trees. In a book, or a pen and paper game, you imagine the trees.
Lastly, I think that books tend to give a better background in motivations. In any computer game I have played, the feelings of the players involved were pretty irrelevant. Books give you a why someone is doing this that computer games cant. That helps make it a role playing game.
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