D&D-influenced Fantasy Novels
- Thread starter ptolemy18
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Eternalknight
First Post
I'd qualify Feist being influenced by D&D only in his early books; the last few have gone right away from D&Disms.
Varianor Abroad
Explorer
Yeah, that's true about Feist. But he's admitted that his Midkemia books were inspired by his D&D game. Which David Brin was a player in. (This is alluded to in the The Practice Effect I think, which takes place in sort of version of Krondor.)
Steven Brust readily admits that his D&D world - heavily inspired by Hungarian myth - was the start of his excellent Vlad Taltos books. You can even see characters getting resurrected! (Since he was a guest of honor at a minor SF convention in the 80s, I got to meet him. He told us this over dinner at the con.) Vlad's life is modelled on Brust's - althought Brust isn't an assassin.
Steven Brust readily admits that his D&D world - heavily inspired by Hungarian myth - was the start of his excellent Vlad Taltos books. You can even see characters getting resurrected! (Since he was a guest of honor at a minor SF convention in the 80s, I got to meet him. He told us this over dinner at the con.) Vlad's life is modelled on Brust's - althought Brust isn't an assassin.
Tinker Gnome
Adventurer
Varianor Abroad said:
Woah, you mean David Brin the Sci-Fi author? From what I have read on his website it is hard to see him playing D&D. GURPs maybe, but not D&D.
Theron
Explorer
Galeros said:Woah, you mean David Brin the Sci-Fi author? From what I have read on his website it is hard to see him playing D&D. GURPs maybe, but not D&D.
Back then, there was no GURPS. D&D was one of the few games around, period at that point. It had quite a following amongst SF writers when it first came out (I've heard tales of Larry Niven playing regularly back then), but more of a fad than a continuing hobby.
Steel_Wind
Legend
D&D has been around for over 30 years now.
In all honesty, the point is not which fantasy novels have been influenced by D&D, but rather: which ones have not?
The number of modern fantasy authors who have not played D&D has got to be a pretty small number.
It's all a matter of degree and scale. The influences are pervasive throughout the entire genre. This is not always a good thing, as the genre's underlying assumptions tend to draw up D&D for much of its underpinnings.
A sameness and lack of originaility seeped through fantasy starting in the late 80s as a result.
In all honesty, the point is not which fantasy novels have been influenced by D&D, but rather: which ones have not?
The number of modern fantasy authors who have not played D&D has got to be a pretty small number.
It's all a matter of degree and scale. The influences are pervasive throughout the entire genre. This is not always a good thing, as the genre's underlying assumptions tend to draw up D&D for much of its underpinnings.
A sameness and lack of originaility seeped through fantasy starting in the late 80s as a result.
Steel_Wind said:
From what I gather, modern fantasy authors are actually a fairly small clique. Not only do they have ties through conferences, conventions, etc, but I hear tell that they belong to many of the same clubs and organizations (the much maligned SCA, for example, was begun by a slew of them in California in the 60's).
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