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I'm reading the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Inspired by "D&D Trolls: Where do they come from?": http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=76271. D&D monsters - or very similar beasties - are scattered throughout fantasy literature. Perhaps it'd be an idea to try and put together a list of what's where. For example: Fritz Lieber's...

Really good ideas. I just want to make some simple suggestions of my own. For dealing with the "variability" of a sorcerers magic the best solution is to set DC to 1d20 + spell level - as with the DMG option. I also think perhaps the whole "known spells" idea is wrong. Sorcerers are...

The Briar King by J. Gregory Keyes has been recently released: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345440668/104-0888963-8480720?v=glance. I keep on hearing people say it's very, very good http://www.sffworld.com/authors/k/keyes_gregory/sffreviews/briarking.html. Any first hand views?

I've read: The Hobbit: No Comment. Tales of Averoigne: Ashton Smith is really... disturbed. Averoigne is good, and it's not even his best stuff - that would be Zothique. Really macabre and creepy. And some of his stuff is a huge influence on D&D, and www.eldritchdark.com is a fantastic website...

Yes, it's absolutely fantastic isn't it. I only saw it when it was linked to on the boards, not being that interesting in Wizards' fiction. John Rateliff really knows what he's talking about and, so far as I know, there's no-one else attempting anything like this anywhere else on the net...

I think the PCs need to get something, even if it's just knowledge of some sort from the quest. As long as what they've done isn't just futile and pointless I think they'll be okay.

I'm willing to excuse Martin. I think what he's doing is interesting and narratively clever. There's a definite series arc, each book has a clear story arc and each chapter also has a clear progression. I'm not opposed to all serial fantasy, just it's dominance and I think Martin does it better...

The entire series is collected in two volumes of the Fantasy Masterworks series. Links follow: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1857983270/qid=1075411024/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_10_1/202-6796737-1567004...

Umbran, I really didn't want to kick off this "can we say that some books are better than others" row that periodically ignites on book threads. I think you can strike objective from my post, and the arguement that publishers are using mass marketing campaigns to push rubbish on people who don't...

Was is well done? What did the players think? Is there anyway I could get hold of some details?

One of the standard fantasy plots is the quest. This can be done with a twist: so that when the players get to the end the ancient tome has crumbled, the staff of power has rotted or the sword has be destroyed by rust. Or you can have the object of the quest, unbeknown to the players, be...

Double post, my apologies.

I'm not entirely sure. Lots of trashy fantasy novels regularly get rave reviews (Eragon? maybe) and are really enjoyed by large numbers of people. This is happening more and more, particularly - I think - with the recent fantasy explosion in children's literature. I think you could make a case...

Yeah, you've a point. Obviously multi-book series aren't new (The Once and Future King, Gormenghast & EarthSea obviously spring to mind), but I have the impression that in the 90s they became more dominant than they were before. Multi-book series just dominate the fantasy section, with the huge...

For the record, I don't think the book is racist. However, this is just about the only thing it isn't. I do think the book is uniquely bad. It is bad in terms of the design of the setting, the characterisation, the plot and the writing. I also think the points in the rant do stand when leveled...

I've been reading the Fifth Sorceress "fan" site. Fifth Sorceress is becoming a bit of obsession for me. It's almost like some-one decided to take all that's wrong with the worst fantasy and distil it into a single book. The site contains a very intelligent look at the state of play of modern...

By match I mean have characters names mesh together coherently; a group with names like - Vulrik the Slayer, Laerintyr Athalar, Sir Thomas of Seventrees and Grimbolt of the Many Faces - just doesn't mesh and is ridiculous. I suppose it's an extension of forming a group of PCs with a coherent...

How do you go about selecting character names for your group? It's hard to choose a really top notch name for one character alone, but how do you arrange things so that the names of all the characters in group match.

Yeah, I've just looked at this: http://www.dicecollector.com/D12_OPAQUE_ROUNDED_SOLID_1.jpg and the answer is no.