NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DrunkonDuty" data-source="post: 4867190" data-attributes="member: 54364">My early (pre-DnD) literary influences include: Tolkien; Greek, Norse, Chinese and Japanese mythology; King Arthur (in many forms from T.H. White to Disney to the musical Camelot to Exalibur to the old King (?) Cartoons cartoons.) There were kiddies books as well although I have trouble remembering anything specific now. (Have this vague recollection, from about age 6, of a series of stories with characters with names like The Blue Pirate and The Golden Gryphon.) Oh and let's not forget Grimms Fairytales and Hans Christian Anderson. Also a lot of Sci-fi. Star Wars and Star Trek, Asimov and Bradbury. Oodles of TV shows, movies and super hero cartoons (TV shows, rarely able to get the books, they cost money.) The suggested reading list in the back of the DMG was a great thing. Really helped expand my geek reading list. Moorcock, Howard and Lovecraft were my introduction to pulp. Loved them then, love them now. Ursula Le Guin and the Prydain books too. Can't think what else was on that list but I know I read as many as I could find.  And I continue to read sf&f. Because it's great.  Just read Perdido Street Station. Excellent. (Although I can't help saying the plotting was a bit clunky in places. But more than made up for by great characterisation, a beautifully imagined setting and a real gift for language.) Stephen Hunt and his Jackals books are brilliant: another really beautiful world with great characters and rip roaring adventure. Naomi Novik and JV Jones also excellent authors who create very enjoyable characters. Harry Potter, great kids books and Pullman's His Dark Materials stuff are the best kids books I've ever read. I'd just like to say at this point that "kids books" is by no means a derogatory term. A lot of literature aimed at younger audiences deals with much more difficult topics in more thoughtful ways than a lot of adult literature. Formative Gaming: my earliest RPG experience, at age 12, was the Tomb of Horrors. Despite this I continued to game and, 27 and a bit years later, still am.  How has all this effected my gaming style? No idea. Well, I hate 'trick/trap' dungeons and monsters. That's Tomb of Horrors (and many other similar experiences) speaking. I like more role playing in my games but certainly want some combat and dice rolling and such. I prefer games set in cities with lots of NPC interaction and social encounters. But I hate to think I'd never go down into a dungeon again. I do have a preference for 'Down and Dirty' over 'Wahoo,' certainly in the fantasy genre. But I love the Supers genre and am all for extra wahoo there.  One thing I note that sets me apart from many of the younger gamers round here: I can't say video games have influenced me much. I haven't played the RPG ones much (although my Mum and Dad are big fans of them) and the games I did play obsessively as a boy were things like Space Invaders (back when it first came out.) Not really the thing to inspire great adventures. Mmmm, now trying to think of a way to create an encounter like a Space Invaders game. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/ponder.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":hmm:" title="Hmmm    :hmm:" data-shortname=":hmm:" /> About that 15 types of polearms thing: you've got to remember (or hear for the first time, which ever is applicable) that back in the day there was a paucity of stats and stuff. So new stats/stuff was good, even if it was rather niche and a tad, er, exhaustive/OCD/train spotter. But you must admit, the cliche of a bunch of 14 year old gamers sitting around a table arguing about whose character is cooler takes on a new level of hilarious when it's "I've got a Fauchard-Guisarme!" "Oh yeah? Well I've got a Bohemian Ear Spoon!"  Now this makes me cry.</blockquote>

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