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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 3867735" data-attributes="member: 18280">I mean, literally, all of us are disadvantaged to some degree or another.  There is a hard limit to how much we can take in, and that limit (to some degree or another) influences what we can put out.  The defining novels of the Western Fantasy Canon -- books like Dracula, Frankenstein, Lord of the Rings, and The Water of the Wondrous Isles -- influence what comes after them.  Our ability to understand and appreciate what the authors who are influenced by, say Dunsany, or Howard, or Lovecraft, is limited by our own knowledge of these authors....and, of course, by what influenced them.Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot is a better read if you've read Dracula and seen Nosferatu.  There are many fantasy (and non-fantasy) books that are richer if you understand the Biblical and mythological allusions they are making.And, yes, game designers should be aware that our culture is steeped in these memes.  You don't have to read Frankenstein to be influenced by Mary Shelley; you don't have to read Howard to be influenced by his legacy, either.I agree that being well-read outside the fantasy genre is just as, or even (in some cases) more likely to provide some significant advantage than being well-read within it.  But there is an interesting case to be made that all novels are fantasy novels.  Some are just fantasies about how we wish humans behaved.   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> Because influence runs from the past to the future, understanding influence and allusion requires you to at least make a breach into the past.  But that doesn't mean ignoring the present, which would leave you impoverished in another way -- bereft of the vitality and energy of the new, as well as how your society adapts old influences and creates new ones.I sincerely wish that I knew all of the old classics, as well as all of the new stuff that is destined to become classic.  There's just not enough time...... <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />   And, even if it were possible to be caught up right now, I'd be unable to keep up!Exactly what I meant by noise-to-signal.  As time passes, the signals get stronger and the noise falls away.  It is easier to know which older novels are worth looking at now.  I am sure that it was no easier to determine when they were coming out, though.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Lets agree to disagree on this one.  I think resonance is important to making fantasy work; the more resonance, IMHO, the more likely the fantasy is to "ring true".  Even things that seem to be utterly new, when examined, often turn out to be older ideas in different clothing.  For example, I think that the original Star Wars film owes an aweful lot to Edgar Rice Burrough's Mars series, with its Jeds and Jeddaks, its deserts with large pad-footed animals being used as beasts of burden by warlike natives, and its Sith.Perhaps.  But I tend to think that the resonance of older ideas infuses the "new fantasy" market segment quite a bit more than you do.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> RC</blockquote>

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