D&D 5E appendix Next

[Oni]

Here is your task, should you choose to accept it. You are to create a new appendix N for the next edition of D&D, what do yo do with it? Do you expand it to include other media? Do you use it to reinforce the flavor of the original appendix N with new works that have been created since its original publication? Do you try to expand the list to make it more inclusive of a wider array of flavors? Do you try to push the flavor of the game in certain specific directions, perhaps away from its original inception?

So one more time, if you were given the task of writing the appendix N that would appear in the core books of the next edition, what's on it and why? What is your appendix Next?

 

[delericho]

Here is your task, should you choose to accept it. You are to create a new appendix N for the next edition of D&D, what do yo do with it? Do you expand it to include other media?

Probably. Personally, I quite like the idea of it just being a reading list, but the game should probably embrace the reality that players and DMs are much more likely to watch a film for a couple of hours than they are to wade through page after page of archaic prose.

Do you try to push the flavor of the game in certain specific directions, perhaps away from its original inception?

Not deliberately, but by choosing the "Recommended Reading", there will undoubtedly be some element of this.

So one more time, if you were given the task of writing the appendix N that would appear in the core books of the next edition, what's on it and why? What is your appendix Next?

From the existing Appendix N:

R.E. Howard: Conan series
Fritz Leiber: Lankhmar series
H.P. Lovecraft
Michael Moorcock: Elric series
J.R.R. Tolkien: "The Hobbit", "Lord of the Rings"
Jack Vance: Dying Earth series

There's probably plenty of other books on the list that are worth a read, but these appear to be the main ones. And, to be honest, much of the list is now rather obscure.

Older books to add:

A. Dumas: "The Three Musketeers"
M. Shelley: "Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus"
B. Stoker: "Dracula"

Modern Fantasy:

To be honest, there's a problem with modern fantasy - most of it is turgid, over-written drivel. Seriously, guys, if you need more words to tell your story than "Lord of the Rings", then frankly it's probably not worth the telling. It also really doesn't help that the genre is filled with epic (and unfinished) series - I always feel loathe to recommend the otherwise-excellent "Song of Ice and Fire" because I myself am sick of years-long waits for the next volume, for example.

Still...

B. Cornwell: "Arthur" trilogy (especially - the rest is good, too)
N. Gaiman (pretty much everything)
D. Gemmell: "Troy" trilogy (especially - much of the rest is good, but he tends to be very repetitive)
W. Gibson & B. Sterling: "The Difference Engine"
G.R.R. Martin: Song of Ice and Fire series
C. Mieville: Bas Lag series
T. Pratchett: Discworld series, "Good Omens" (with N. Gaiman)
P. Pullman: "His Dark Materials" trilogy
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter series
R.A. Salvatore: "Icewind Dale" trilogy, "Dark Elf" trilogy (and nothing else!)
M. Weis & T. Hickman: "Dragonlance Chronicles", "Dragonlance Legends"

There's probably a bunch more stuff that I would add if I thought of it, but nothing more leaps to mind at this point.

 

[Yora]

What is Appendix N?

 

[Oni]

R.A. Salvatore: "Icewind Dale" trilogy, "Dark Elf" trilogy (and nothing else!)
M. Weis & T. Hickman: "Dragonlance Chronicles", "Dragonlance Legends"

It never once occurred to me to put any of the D&D novels on a reading list meant to convey the flavor of the game. It seems weirdly self-referential, but obvious.

 

[tlantl]

You know I never in all of the years I've been playing these games have I actually read those recommended reading appendices. I have gotten inspiration for my games from the literature I've read and movies I've watched, hell even television inspires me.

My games take inspiration from westerns, science fiction, horror, espionage thrillers, A whole lot of sources. I take surprisingly little from actual fantasy sources because I really don't like the genre. Weird huh. I play fantasy video games and D&D and that's it for fantasy for me.

My D&D is very different from the games I've played in. The Eberron setting is the closest to my homebrew game world with it's industrialized magic, but I go more towards steam punk and less fantastical contraptions. I love the tinker gnome.

 

[Oni]

What is Appendix N?

Appendix N

 

[Hassassin]

I would keep it a reading list, but include the gems of the old list plus some newer fantasy, mostly of a similar style or one that D&D emulates well. After all, it's a bit silly to recommend something for inspiration and then not deliver on letting you play like it.

I don't see a problem with unfinished series - just recommend the first book if it stands on its own (and e.g. Game of Thrones does).

 

[Yora]

Appendix N

Ah... I wasn't born back then for five more years.

 

[trancejeremy]

I would keep Appendix N, as is, since while some are obscure today, they do explain many D&D concepts and tropes. Like Poul Anderson's 3 of Hearts, 3 of Lions. And people should be reading de Camp and Andre Norton.

I would add:

Clark Ashton Smith - Averoigne, Zothique, Hyperborea stories

He should have been in Appendix N, his fantasy stuff was superb and did influence some things (the Geas spell, in particular, was from him, not the geas of Celtic mythology)

Karl Edward Wagner - Kane series

Conan meets Lovecraft. The first in the series, Darkness Weaves is excellent, one of the best fantasy novels period, IMHO, but none of the rest are all that great. First novel is perhaps the source of the D&D assassin (as opposed to the historical version, though some is definitely borrowed from that)

Glen Cook - Pretty much all his fantasy stuff. While it comes after D&D, EGG did praise his work in a Dragon magazine.
(Apparently he was a close friend and roommate of Fritz Lieber)

 

[steeldragons]

@delericho covered just about everything I was going to suggest and then some...both the original "keep it" from App. N and the "new/modern" stuff.

I would propose something like this...

R.E. Howard's Conan series.
Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar series.
M. Moorcock's Elric series.
Lovecraft goes in as a "Legacy" though I've never read any of his stuff.
J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit", "Lord of the Rings" trilogy & "The Simarillion"
Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" (which, I understand, besides being its own book, also has a collected compilation of 24 of her stories under that title)

Beowulf
Sir Thomas Mallory's "La Morte d'Arthur"
Geoffrrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales"
Anything by Shakespeare, but particularly "Hamlet", "MacBeth" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Anything by W.B. Yeats, but particularly, his anthologies: "Fairy & Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry", "Irish Fairy Tales" and "The Celtic Twilight."
Stoker's "Dracula" (good add, delericho, I probably wouldn't have thought of that)

Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" series.
[EDIT] Oh yeah, and "Game of Thrones" if not the whole "Song of Fire & Ice."[/EDIT]

Weis/Hickman's "Dragonlance: Chronicles" trilogy (the "Legend's" trilogy and all subsequent Dragonlance works are optional, imho.)
Salvatore's "Icewind Dale" trilogy (leave the Drizzt/Dark Elf thing out or optional)

Marion Zimmer Bradley's "The Mists of Avalon" (the Arthurian myth told through the eyes of the women: The Lady of the Lake/Morgaine/Gwenhwyfar) and "Firestarter" (the Trojan War/Illiad story seen through the eyes of Cassandra)

 

[Bedrockgames]

I was a child of 80s, and 2E really shaped my sense of what D&D should be, so those two things would be reflected in my list. Also, i would probably have more movies listed than books, simply because movies really shape my gaming for some reason:

FILMS
Excaliber
Dragonslayer
The Princess Bride
Army of Darkness
Spartacus
Princess Mononoke
Big Trouble Little China
Beastmaster
Fire and Ice
Dark Crystal
Pirates of the Carribea(all three)
Time Bandits
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The 13th Warrior
Gladiator
Lord of the Rings (cartoon and the live action)
Enter the Dragon
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Destroyer
Legend
Krull
Eric the Viking
Clash of the Titans
Young Sherlock Holmes (lots of gaming fodder here)
Willow

 

[steeldragons]

Forgot a couple more:

Ellis Peters' "Brother Cadfael" series (medieval monk -brown robes guy, not kung-fu guy- herbalist/apothecary/detective solving mysteries in the Middle Ages. GREAT stuff!..not to mention a nice inspiration for Assassin characters, poisons, etc.)

and

Terry Brooks' "Shannara" series...or at the very least, the first one, "The Sword of Shannara."

 

[Tallifer]

Beowulf
Sir Thomas Mallory's "La Morte d'Arthur"
Geoffrrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales"
Anything by Shakespeare, but particularly "Hamlet", "MacBeth" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Anything by W.B. Yeats, but particularly, his anthologies: "Fairy & Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry", "Irish Fairy Tales" and "The Celtic Twilight."
Stoker's "Dracula"

Plus The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer
The poems of Chretien de Troyes
The Nibelungenlied
Le Chanson de Roland

I would put all these in the Appendix and leave out most of the derivative modern stuff. Especially leave out all the hack in-house TSR/WotC books.

 

[steeldragons]

Ok, last ones I forgot...I swear...

Raymond E. Feist's "Riftwar Saga" trilogy ("Magician", "Silverthorn" and "A Darkness at Sethanon")

Ok, I'm done now.

 

[thedungeondelver]

I say: take the original list, add everything that's been added to it since in whatever form "inspirational reading" lists took. Why take anything away?

 

[Kaodi]

I think the thing to do would be to split Appendix N into two parts. The first part would be from the historical Appendix N, and would include a word about Gygax himself. The second would be an expanded list. I think the films listed in the original Eberron Campaign Setting should probably all make it in to this latter part of the Appendix. A lot of the stuff from Paizo's Planet Stories should probably also make it in.

A caveat about the second list though: it should not include anything that it would be terribly difficult to find.

 

[mkill]

* World of Warcraft
* Harry Potter
* Pokemon
* Buffy the Vampire Slayer
* Naruto
* Skyrim

No really, I'm dead serious. If you're a teenager now and pick up a D&D PHB, these will be popculture references you'll use in your game, among tons of other stuff.

Don't turn D&D into some ivory tower "true fantasy" game that can only create stories from a selected and approved canon that perfectly represents the artists vision. Because that's not what Appendix N is about. It's about what you think is the good stuff. It's about shared popculture knowledge.

In 2012, millions of people will know what you talk about when you say "Expelliarmus", or "For the Horde!". Only a few people will know who August Derleth is without googling.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I'm glad Raymond E. Fiest got mentioned. Also:

• Brandon Sanderson — Elantris, Mistborn
• Neal Stephenson — The Baroque Cycle
• Terry Goodkind — Wizard's First Rule

 

[Libramarian]

* World of Warcraft
* Harry Potter
* Pokemon
* Buffy the Vampire Slayer
* Naruto
* Skyrim

No really, I'm dead serious. If you're a teenager now and pick up a D&D PHB, these will be popculture references you'll use in your game, among tons of other stuff.

Don't turn D&D into some ivory tower "true fantasy" game that can only create stories from a selected and approved canon that perfectly represents the artists vision. Because that's not what Appendix N is about. It's about what you think is the good stuff. It's about shared popculture knowledge.

In 2012, millions of people will know what you talk about when you say "Expelliarmus", or "For the Horde!". Only a few people will know who August Derleth is without googling.

You appear to be confused about the purpose of an appendix N. The purpose is to introduce people to good stuff that they probably don't know about. Not to list the stuff they already know.

 

[Scribble]

You appear to be confused about the purpose of an appendix N. The purpose is to introduce people to good stuff that they probably don't know about. Not to list the stuff they already know.

I disagree.

The purpose, from my reading, was simply to cite works that he found inspirational when cobbling together the rules, and a campaign.

To that end Appendix N(ew) should contain stuff that people actually have found inspirational towards writing the rules or building a campaign.