D&D General Is Appendix N Still Relevant to D&D?

[Cordwainer Fish]

Young men, high school or just after. Haven't changed all that much in the last 100 years. Other than that age group being much more highly educated now, I suppose.

Far less educated now. Even forty years ago, my high school (best in the city) had no electronics lab (and I would bet cash money none of my classmates had a ham license), did not offer Greek...

Check a high school curriculum of the 1930s - better yet, 1910s - out sometime. You may not like what you see.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

Far less educated now. Even forty years ago, my high school (best in the city) had no electronics lab (and I would bet cash money none of my classmates had a ham license), did not offer Greek...

Check a high school curriculum of the 1930s - better yet, 1910s - out sometime. You may not like what you see.

Considering the average 25 year old today has likely attendended post secondary education in rates that someone in 1930 could only dream of, I'm going to stand by my point. Let's see that student in 1930 try to use a computer. Or, hell, a calculator.

I went to high school forty years ago too. We had a computer lab with IBM computers. In my pokey little high school in bunny fart Canada.

Never minding anyone who wasn`t a white dude.

I'm from a country where almost 2/3rds of the population now has post secondary education. Compared to about 3% in 1930.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Let's see that student in 1930 try to use a computer. Or, hell, a calculator.

They would have used slipsticks - and that requires you really grok the math. It's not like punching buttons.

Heinlein wrote enough in his letters to let me know that he left high school with much more knowledge than I did. (And his college? Well... can you locate your ship with a sextant and partial visibility of the Moon?)

 

[JLowder]

no idea who you talk to, but the trilogy has sold plenty of copies, enough to make the NYT bestseller list. I doubt that were just D&D players

You are correct. The TSR fiction sold to a lot of people who had never played the game, including a lot of women.

The first couple Ravenloft novels sold well over 150,000 copies in just their first year or so of release, for example, just in print, just in English, and continue to sell in ebook and audiobook to this day. Circa 1990, the average new Dragonlance book would sell at least 125,000 copies in English in its first year or two, the average Realms book at least 100,000 copies. (Those numbers eventually flipped, as the Realms overtook DL.) All the fiction releases had longer "tails" than the game products--they would continue to sell through in the market for months and years, diminishing over time, but still selling okay. Individual books and certain series would sell really well and then continue at that high level for a long time, without trailing off as much as other titles: the original six DL novels, the early Drizzt books, and so on. Many of the books were also translated into several languages.

For the early RL novels and the first Dark Sun quintet, series for which I was series editor, I know they sold many times what the core game products tied to the same setting were selling. The same was true of all the fiction, at least through around 1994. Ben Riggs has released some of the comparison numbers. Those numbers are incomplete, but still a fair metric for the difference in sales between fiction and games at the time.

In all, the fiction was, through the 80s and the first half of the 1990s, a very effective gateway to the TTRPG.

 

[JLowder]

If you're really interested in examining the interplay of the D&D game rules with the fiction that inspired the early editions (such as the Appendix N books) and the official fiction spun off from the game and the game settings (which sometimes circle back to influence the game rules), I did a 3,000-word piece on that topic, “The Wyrm That Eats Its Tail: S&S and D&D,” for the zine New Edge Sword & Sorcery #5, Summer 2025.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

If you're really interested in examining the interplay of the D&D game rules with the fiction that inspired the early editions (such as the Appendix N books) and the official fiction spun off from the game and the game settings (which sometimes circle back to influence the game rules), I did a 3,000-word piece on that topic, “The Wyrm That Eats Its Tail: S&S and D&D,” for the zine New Edge Sword & Sorcery #5, Summer 2025.

Linkie please?

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

They would have used slipsticks - and that requires you really grok the math. It's not like punching buttons.

Heinlein wrote enough in his letters to let me know that he left high school with much more knowledge than I did. (And his college? Well... can you locate your ship with a sextant and partial visibility of the Moon?)

And let's see him, after graduating high school, program a computer using machine language. Heck, hand him a GPS and see if he could use it. Even in the 1980's, I had basic computing programing knowledge. That wouldn't have even existed 10 years previously.

You want to see something shocking, compare math textbooks for the same grade for the given dates - 1910, 1930 and 2024. The math that a high school student was doing in 1930 is done in middle school now.

Heck, half of the science that students learn today didn't even EXIST in 1930. I know that people want to pretend that we're getting stupider as time goes on, but, it's a myth. As I said, we went from 3% of the population having a post secondary education to nearly 2/3rds today.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

And let's see him, after graduating high school, program a computer using machine language.

He would have programmed a computer in the machine shop. His classmates and their kids invented machine language. And they left high school with far more rounded educations than anyone does today.

Seriously, the ability to press buttons on a box one does not understand is not impressive. I do not care one whit about it.

And as for the value of a college degree... he wrote an essay about its decline, too. Go argue with it.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

He would have programmed a computer in the machine shop. His classmates and their kids invented machine language. And they left high school with far more rounded educations than anyone does today.

Seriously, the ability to press buttons on a box one does not understand is not impressive. I do not care one whit about it.

And as for the value of a college degree... he wrote an essay about its decline, too. Go argue with it.

I was asked the difference between a young adult (16-25) in the 1930's (and earlier) and now. Being far more educated is the primary difference. Considering that Heinlein was born in 1907, he would have been in high school in the 1920's. Which would mean he couldn't possibly know the first thing about programing a computer by the end of high school.

But, at the end of the day, trying to roll this back around to the idea of YA fiction and something like Weird Tales being a prime example of YA fiction of the day, I'm still kinda flabbergasted that this is seen as somehow controversial. I mean, good grief, Heinlein IS a prime example of YA fiction of the day. As was Howard in his day.

I don't understand the push back in labeling Howard as YA fiction. Nor Weird Tales.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Even in the 1980's, I had basic computing programing knowledge. That wouldn't have even existed 10 years previously.

In the 80s you would have learned a lot more about programming and how computers actually work than you do these days. The kids take it for granted. Modern computers are a doddle to use, any reasonably intelligent time traveller from the 30s could pick it up in minutes.

There are a lot more skills you would have learned in the 1930s that have now been lost.

But that's not really the point. The conflict here is between what some people consider suitable for teens and what is actually marketed at teens.