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

[Marandahir]

Get new people to discuss fantasy literature with. They are stuck in the past.

2022 Goodreads Choice award, 2023 Nebula for best novel, 2023 Hugo for best novel, New York Times bestseller: Legends & Lattes, by Travis Baldtree. It's subtitle is "A novel of high fantasy and low stakes", it is the story of an orc who quits the violent mercenary game to open a coffee shop.

I love the Legends & Lattes series!

 

[TiQuinn]

I think it’s finding something that is neither grimdark nor light and frothy that is so elusive in modern fantasy. Earnest, high stakes, hopeful. I.e like Lord of the Rings.

Hmmm, check out The Daevabad Trilogy I mentioned. It’s a bit on the Romantasy side but that’s not its primary raison d’etre. It’s more grounded in Middle Eastern mythology which I really enjoyed.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Is it Sanderson's works? The romantasy 'Court of X and Y' style? Warcraft? How much anime(-adjacents)ness do you think the average DnD player considers now? Is Genshin impact the way younger player/DMs think of how fantasy 'should' be like even subconsciously? Or is it all a bit incestuous with Frieren, Dungeon Meshi and Critical Role being the touchstone of how things should be like?

I find Sanderson tedious to read, though I enjoyed a lot of his ideas. For me these days, I tend to read Wuxia and martial arts fantasy translations to get scratch the itch fantasy used to scratch (I just have a hard time connecting to a lot of the newer fantasy novels). Very much recommend the recent Condor Heroes translations. Most of these are older by at least a few decades. But some stuff, like To the Sky Kingdom by Tang Qi is more recent

 

[TwoSix]

There seems to be much less "doorstopper" fantasy being published physically (Sanderson aside); a lot of the energy in "big fantasy" seems to have moved into the romantasy genre and online into web serials and e-books.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I would argue that Conan is as relevant now as it was a decade ago. That is to say, not very, except in certain circles where it is very relevant.

Sanderson is big, but I am not sure how much impact his work has on gaming. Obviously the Cosmere RPG KS blew up, but we don't know yet whether that will translate into actually played games.

Frankly, I don't think genre literature has much impact on the RPG space these days. i think video games are a much bigger influence, as well as anime and American "cartoons". And, frankly, the MCU and Star Wars. I don't mean this pejoratively. The days of books driving RPGs are, I think, long gone.

I think every decade leaves a stamp but what lasts from each decade isn’t always clear till years later. But some things are foundational like Howard. Every era has its fads and fashions and what stands the test of time amid that takes time to discover

 

[Bedrockgames]

There seems to be much less "doorstopper" fantasy being published physically (Sanderson aside)…,

Way of Kings by Sanderson and Grace of Kings by Liu, while both books I enjoyed were the two that made me realize I didn’t want to read door stopper fantasy anymore. I also realized much I didn’t like the focus at that time on PoV characters (which I think contributes to the issue), not the obsession fabs and writers had with perspective in general. I just kind of went backwards reading older books with 200 or so page counts, and enjoyed them because more). It was refreshing occasionally reading something in third person omniscient (which I remember a lot of people labeling too old fashioned around the time I was reading Way of Kings). Still read longer books but I find I enjoy that more with writers lol Jin Yong. Still a good 200-250 page fantasy or science fiction book hits the spot for me these days

 

[TwoSix]

Way of Kings by Sanderson and Grace of Kings by Liu, while both books I enjoyed were the two that made me realize I didn’t want to read door stopper fantasy anymore. I also realized much I didn’t like the focus at that time on PoV characters (which I think contributes to the issue), not the obsession fabs and writers had with perspective in general. I just kind of went backwards reading older books with 200 or so page counts, and enjoyed them because more). It was refreshing occasionally reading something in third person omniscient (which I remember a lot of people labeling too old fashioned around the time I was reading Way of Kings). Still read longer books but I find I enjoy that more with writers lol Jin Yong. Still a good 200-250 page fantasy or science fiction book hits the spot for me these days

Fair. I read pretty quickly, so I still like big, bulky series with high word counts; ideally a million-plus.

 

[Reynard]

I think every decade leaves a stamp but what lasts from each decade isn’t always clear till years later. But some things are foundational like Howard. Every era has its fads and fashions and what stands the test of time amid that takes time to discover

I don't think "foundational" and "(currently) relevant" are synonyms.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Conan remains a favorite of mine, one I will continue to return to for years to come. But I am also a bit of An Old. I do think that REH continues to exist in fantasy DNA in much the same way Tolkien does. It perhaps isn't always as obvious, but if someone were to remove REH's works from existence, it would dramatically change fiction. Same with, say ERB's Barsoom series, or the works of Lord Dunsany.

I'm friends with Rebecca Yaros' agent. If the house she bought is any indication, people are reading the Fourth Wing books.

Looking at Amazon's Fantasy category, definitely:

 

[Mind of tempest]

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

There is not fantasy and not fantasy its design goals are so far removed as to be unuseable for dnd at any point.
It is pure distilled solo power fantasy without anything to make it good. It is like eating Styrofoam.
dnd is collaborative; it is inherently not is also does not really have much originality to lend to the game.

Naruto would be easier to stripe parts from.

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?

Given Romatasy is either mostly humans or hot super naturals in the same vein as the passing 00-10's fad of urban fatasty romance books minimal berely anything worth striping from that which is making me miserable I feel like history has some how ended and I missed anything worth doing.