D&D General What are your media sources of inspiration

[Stormonu]

We've all seen the "Inspirational Reading" section of the DMGs, but what, specifically, are the books, movies and other media that influences how you play characters or run the game when it comes to D&D? Is there any media you try to specifically avoid?

For me it has been:

Dragonslayer
Elfquest (comics)
Conan (marvel comics & the movies)
Dragonlance chronicles (Dragons of Autumn, Winter, Spring)
Book of Swords (by Fred Saberhagen)
Hawk the Slayer
The Hobbit (primarily Rankin Bass version)
The Lord of the Rings movies
The Ring of the Nibelungen Cycle (the operas)
The Wiz / The Wizard of Oz series (books, comics and movies)
How to Train Your Dragon (the movie series, not the books)
Eragon series (the books)
Clash of the Titans (the original movie)
Sinbad movie series (7th voyage, golden voyage, eye of the tiger)
Jason & the Argonauts (the movie)
The Odessey
Various Greek/Roman/Egyptian/Norse myths (my favorite is three task contest with Thor and Loki vs. a very cunning giant)

 

[delphonso]

I'll try to avoid stuff if I know my players/fellow players are reading/consuming that stuff. So Game of Thrones/aSoIaF get booted from my watching/reading list. I find it hard to not take inspiration from whatever I'm currently consuming.

-Dune
-Helliconia
Both have helped a lot in imagining and conveying extreme weather and world building.

-Conan the Barbarian (Robert E. Howard and other authors in the Pulp age)
-The Princess of Mars and others (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
Generally the Pulp Fiction high adventure writers taught me a lot about narrating violence and bodily movement. Useful in DMing or describing character actions in a cool way.

Other books recently used for inspiration:
-Zimiamvian Trilogy & The Worm Ouroborus
-City in the Sand (an Athas novel)
-Man and His Symbols, Jung

Games:
Fire Emblem (especially 6,7,&8)
Prince of Persia
Dragon's Dogma
Morrowind or other Elder Scrolls.

For different reasons, but all take a pretty classic heroic narrative, and each offer character concepts to expand and invent upon.

Not much by way of comics for me lately, but I accidentally made Guts from Berserk when rolling up a Barbarian.

 

[Lanefan]

We've all seen the "Inspirational Reading" section of the DMGs, but what, specifically, are the books, movies and other media that influences how you play characters or run the game when it comes to D&D?

Here's a few key ones of mine...

Books and writings:

Tolkein
Martin
Eddings
Kurtz
Weis-Hickman
Lynch (more recently)
Lovecraft (but see below)

TV and movies:

Xena WP - Hercules TLJ
Lord of the Rings
Game of Thrones
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
[Black Sails, if I ever get to run a maritime campaign]

Other media:

a few metal bands whose works have inspired or informed some memorable adventures
various online artists whose character portraits have either inspired or augmented many a PC

Is there any media you try to specifically avoid?

Not consciously; and if I'm avoiding it unconsciously I obviously don't realize it.

That said, there's a whole bunch of stuff in Appendix N I've neither read nor ever really had much interest in reading - most notably Conan, who so many seem to want to point to as an example of something or other in different debates here.

And even though I use some Lovecraftian monsters and mythology in my game I find his actual written works - those I've read, anyway - very much lacking.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Weis & Hickman's Dragonlance Chronicles blew my creative head off back years ago; it was a feeling I can never replicate and it's impossible to overstate the impact those books had on me. I'm reading them to my 6yo now, and it's awesome to see the same awakening there.

Weis & Hickman's Rose of the Prophet and Darksword series have had more direct impact in my games, though, along with The Arabian Nights.

Other influences: the Sword and the Sorcerer, Krull, Star Wars, and the Schwarzenegger Conan movies. Gaiman's Sandman, as well as Doctor Strange and Silver Surfer, comics. Glen Cook's Garrett PI books and Robert Aspirin's Myth Inc books.

Oh, and I really dig Lovecraft's slow-building tension and not-really-a-resolution climaxes and denouments, too. Even on top of the weird critters and anti-gods.

 

[GlassJaw]

I'm running an intro adventure before CoS so been getting into gothic/Victorian horror lately:

Netflix:
Penny Dreadful
Frankenstein Chronicles
Ripper Street
Dracula mini-series (episodes 1&2 at least, ep3 was...interesting)
Castlevania animated series (which is amazing)

Finally getting around to reading Bram Stoker's Dracula too!

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I love the idea of a personal Appendix N.

Books:

The Myth series by Robert Asprin
Thieves World anthologies
Tolkien's Middle-Earth volumes of work
Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen
Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards series
LeGuin's Earthsea Cycle
Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy
Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series
Dragonlance (heck, I'm still cooking recipes from Leaves From the Inn of the Last Home)

Movies/TV:

Dragonslayer
The Dark Crystal
Labyrinth
Legend
Conan the Barbarian/Destroyer
Lord of the Rings trilogy
The Hobbit (animated)
Bakshi's Wizards
Everything by Studio Ghibli

 

[Grazzt]

• Elric books
• Conan books
• Witchworld books
• The Witcher
• Prince of Thorns books
• The Blade Itself book

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

-The Prydain Chronicals, obviously
-LotR
-Weis & Hickman stuff: Dragonlance series and the Death Gate Cycle (I too read the Dragonlance books to my kids)
-Thief, the video game has cool ideas for steampunk and cool ideas on various types of magical arrows. And I love calling people 'taffer'.
-lots of classic books: The Italian; Dracula; Mythology from various cultures; Frankenstein; The Goblin & the Princess (exactly how I see kobolds)

 

[Voadam]

Off the top of my head

Comics:
Conan
Thor
Lone Wolf and Cub
Usagi Yojimbo

Books:
Conan series
Elric series
Fafhrd & Gray Mouser series
Hobbit/LotR
Chronicles of Prydain
Belgariad series and the Elenium
Wheel of Time
Dune
Amber series and other Zelazny novels.
Lovecraft
Lois McMaster Bujold paladin ones.
Dragonlance novels, Ravenloft novels, Forgotten Realms novels
Thomas Covenant series
Myth Adventures
Memory [something I can't remember] Thorn
Star Wars novels
The Witcher series
Percy Jackson series and other Rick Riordan series
Daulaire books of Greek and Norse myths
Red Branch
Some King Arthur and Robin Hood stuff.
Redwall series.
Warhammer 40K novels.

Movies:
Star Wars
Indiana Jones
Conan
Lots of bad 80s sword and sorcery movies.
Ladyhawk
Princess Bride
Neverending Story
Highlander
Vampire Hunter D

 

[toucanbuzz]

Movies: the Mummy, Indiana Jones. Anything high adventure mixed with seriousness, camaraderie, and humor as we attempt the absurd and somehow pull it off as a team.

Literature: Dune & Expanse books (political intrigue), Nevernight trilogy by Kristoff (creative use of foul language and twists), The Blade Itself and the rest by Abercrombie (a grittier version of adventuring and because Logan Nine Fingers is my example for players when describing their character in a sentence or two), Wheel of Time (inspired imagery), Dragonlance Chronicles/Time of the Twins (my first high fantasy novels, epic to journey around the world), Verdant Passage (book 1 of Dark Sun Prism Pentad, brought a brand new world to life and created that visual for psionic battle, which makes mental saves a lot more fun than simply "you fail"), and I'll openly admit Harry Potter series (because it's a masterpiece of foreshadowing; if done right, when those pieces finally come together, weeks and even months later, there's that "oh" and "aha!" moments).

Video Games: the Witcher series (darker adult elements, things aren't always what they seem and sometimes it's between a bad or worse choice), Gold box DOS games (wonders of exploration, what awaits around the next corner, hexploration), Dragon Age Origins (excellent sandbox dynamic).