D&D General No One Reads Conan Now -- So What Are They Reading?

[Paul Farquhar]

sao is not fantasy it is video games and it utterly useless for dnd

D&D is constantly drawing on other genres for inspiration. "Not fantasy" is irrelevant.

 

[Dioltach]

Yup, I still read Conan. At least the REH stories. I've tried reading some of the pastiches, but they feel flat by comparison.

I've also recently been rereading Jirel of Joiry, Solomon Kane, Lankhmar. The modern equivalent of old-fashioned sword & sorcery seems to be grimdark, and I enjoy Joe Abercrombie's "First Law" books and Mark Lawrence's "Broken Empire" series.

Mostly though I've been getting my fix from the various anthologies collected by Gardner Dozois (and/or GRRM): Rogues, Dangerous Women, Warriors, The Book of Swords.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Doesn't have to be actual literature ofc but basically what are the cultural touchpoints for what fantasy looks and 'feels' like for modern players in your experience? Bonus if it's from players who started with 5e.

Biggest ones for new 5e players would be Critical Role, Dimension 20, World of Warcraft, Baldur's Gate III, Skyrim, Minecraft, Pokemon

Tied for last on the list would be every book

 

[Kromanjon]

Brandon Sanderson, Seanan McGuire, Sarah J. Maas, Ilona Andrews...

Not to mention the amazing selection of manga that even stores in Ballarat are now carrying...

Here's last year's Goodreads top contendors for

Fantasy
View attachment 398440

Romantasy
View attachment 398441

Young Adult Fantasy
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Science Fiction
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See which category has the most votes?

As someone who used to buy books from covers alone, none of these would ever make the cut. Modern cover design has definitely turned sour for me.

As for the question at hand I do feel like things have become more and more self-referential. OD&D was influenced by external things but over the years it has iterated a lot upon itself (of course bringing in influence from other places as well) until todays D&D seem most influenced by its own history. The same goes for Marvel and Star Wars and any other long running franchise. I do however feel like it is those evergreens that are most influential today.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Pretty sure at this point the circle has closed: Tolkien's influence has become zeitgeist and Howard's has become (at best) background radiation. Through D&D, those sources influenced a huge swathe of video games, and they both influenced the fantasy genre. Then those video games and books/films influenced others, which influenced others. Now those things are cycling around again and influencing D&D.

I am, apparently, now too old to have any idea what the youth think or care about. Personally, I'm just real weary of how oppressively DARK so much of fantasy became in the 80s and 90s, and how those things have now broken containment and spread everywhere, giving us things like Superman interpretations where he's a sullen, moody jerk saving the world because that was the homework his Space Dad assigned him. Feels like everywhere I turn, the only thing people want to offer is WH40k with the serial numbers filed off, and I'm just. so. gorram. sick. of such utterly crapsack, nothing-matters, nothing-changes, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here, "the only stories worth telling are ones where people murder each other for pointless, stupid bovine feces while the world collapses."

My best attempts to describe what I would prefer that isn't this have been instantly written off as either plastic and hollow, or as so overwhelmingly, cloyingly sweet that nobody could stomach them. At the time, my knee-jerk reaction was to say "sounds like what someone who can't see past grimdark gloom would say" but that wasn't kind or productive at the time, and really wasn't accurate either. But it really does seem like trying to have even the TINIEST bit of true sincerity, to have any form of heartfelt message no matter how nuanced and careful, is instantly dismissed as either infantile drivel, obviously a sham, or so painfully saccharine that it would drive off almost everyone.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Personally, I'm just real weary of how oppressively DARK so much of fantasy became in the 80s and 90s, and how those things have now broken containment

Yeah, me too. I think some of this romanticy might be a backlash against that, but I haven’t read any. (Apart from Jim Butcher’s latest, that seems to trend in that direction).

 

[GobHag]

I do however feel like it is those evergreens that are most influential today.

Yeah, what I'm trying to find is what are those evergreens now? Aside from LotR ofc.

 

[Aldarc]

The cynical answer is that no one is reading much anymore. Overall, reading has gone down, especially among men. Women still read. (As do the men here who will inevitably post to tell me that they still read as if that somehow disproves trends.)

 

[BookTenTiger]

The cynical answer is that no one is reading much anymore. Overall, reading has gone down, especially among men. Women still read. (As do the men here who will inevitably post to tell me that they still read as if that somehow disproves trends.)

Do you have evidence to back this up? I'm not doubting you on it, but it's a pretty strong opinion posted without any data.

 

[BookTenTiger]

There's been a lot of fantasy lit between Conan and now that's had, in my view, a big influence on RPGs:

Harry Potter brought the idea of wizards to a new public understanding.

Hunger Games made archery cool.

Percy Jackson taught a whole generation about Greek mythology.

Romantasy is a hugely popular genre right now. I'm not sure how it will impact D&D and other RPGs, but maybe it'll bring some new audiences to the game?