What literature influences your games?

[RangerWickett]

Interesting. I'm seeing a lot more classics -- or at least 'things that are over 20 years old' -- than I expected. I figured a lot of folks would mention WoW, or the LotR movies, or Game of Thrones and Wheel of Time.

I think I always preferred the light spirited, witty adventuring style of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, but I like big action, so I end up running games that feel like Joss Whedon was a consultant. I figure that's kind of normal in games, but maybe I'm wrong. But I mean, even if I wanted to run a serious, meaningful, mythic adventure, the odds are long that I'd find 4 players who are up for the same thing.

I long ago realized that as much as I want to be intellectual and artistic as a GM, I am after all running a game, so the main draw is to have fun. I dunno, maybe I should try to be fully serious for a change, to see how it goes.

 

[Stoat]

Any literary influences in my current game are indirect.

I had a long running homebrew world that was very very loosely based on LeGuin's Earthsea books in that it was a gigantic archipalogo. I had planned a campaign based around the Odyssey, with the PC's wandering around on boats, but it never quite took off. Instead, the most successful game I ran there started off as a Robin Hood knockoff.

I wrote an adventure one time structured after Coleridge's Kublai Khan. I had a pair of Shadar-Kai who talked mostly in quotes from Baudelaire and Plath. I almost always wind up sneaking some Lovecraft into my games.

 

[Desdichado]

In a lot of ways, of course, my fantasy tastes are a melange of everything I've read. Some guys very specifically get referenced or are specific influences.

• Edgar Rice Burroughs, for setting. Why are most fantasy settings pseudo-earth-like? Not always sure. I've lately been specifically borrowing a lot of influence from Barsoom, including an alien ecology.
• H. P. Lovecraft. I've got a weird love/hate relationship with Lovecraft; I don't think his writing craft is all that good, but I like a lot of his ideas an awful lot. I'm especially thinking of the secret history of the world vibe. I borrow that a lot.
• Robert Ludlum. Fantasy authors could often take a lesson from a good mainstream thriller writer when it comes to plots and writing craft.
• Sergio Leone. Not a literature guy, obviously, but my settings also borrow a lot from the spaghetti western vibe.
• Glen Cook. I love the idea of making patrons and villains indistinguishable, and nearly godlike in power. The Lady, Soultaker, and The Limper and some of the other characters here are the prototypes for a lot of my NPCs.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

A lot of the influence for the games I run comes from Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels, which are based off of the game itself. I also like to draw inspiration from Manga like Naruto and Bleach.

Should I get off your lawn now?

 

[rogueattorney]

I used to read the heck out of Edith Hamliton's Mythology...

I used to pour over that book, obsessively. One of the finest books of Mythology ever written for younger readers. It's not watered down, but still written in crisp, clear language... perfect for kids. It was a major influence on my gaming as a kid.

I think if I'm being honest with myself, comic books are probably my number one inspiration. In particular, Superman, Green Lantern, Dr. Strange, and the Fantastic Four.

Saturday Morning fair like Flash Gordon and Thundar certainly made a major impression on me.

The Hobbit is a seminal influence.

Over the last 9 or 10 years, I've been reading more and more of the "Appendix N" works and they have really enhanced my understanding of where the game is coming from.

All the Disney movies I've watched with my kids over the last 6 years has also certainly had an effect. Most of my campaign worlds have an area similar to the setting in Alladin.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Edgar Rice Burroughs, for setting. Why are most fantasy settings pseudo-earth-like? Not always sure. I've lately been specifically borrowing a lot of influence from Barsoom, including an alien ecology.

If you can get the Carson/Venus books or The Moon Maid, there's some material worth stealing there, too.

 

[ShaggySpellsword]

From time to time I go on thematic reading quests. This past summer, my quest was for the Grail, reading as many different iterations of the Arthurian Legend as I could get my hands on. This, combined with the release of 4ed Eberron, inspired the current PBP I just started elsewhere on these forums.

Specifically:

*The Once and Future King (where I decided I wanted an up-and-coming, idealistic king as one of my main protagonists: Prince Oargev of Cyre)

*Bernard Cornwell's Warlord trilogy (where I decided that as many of the PC's problems should come from their homeland politics as from abroad)

*The Mists of Avalon (where I decided that the King and Queen's religious affiliations would be a key factor)

*Bullfinch's Mythology (where I decided that this campaign should be a jumping-off point for a future set of stories, creating an interlocking mythology)

*Morte d'Arthur (where I decided that all adventures need not serve the main plot)

A year or two ago I ran a Mutants and Masterminds game where the PCs all made themselves (PL 5, 75 PP). At the first session, bad stuff happened which somehow gave them super-powers (PL 10, 150 PP, designed by me on top of their self-made low-level versions of themself). A number of different books and comics influenced this.

*Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card (The concept of your core identity having its own existence)

*Ultimate Marvel Comics (super-powers in a marginally more realistic world)

*The Dark Tower series (exploring themes of fate and group identity, looking at stories/mythology as a reflection of reality)

And somewhere along the way, I got the idea that your ancestry granted you powers...I am not sure from whence that came.

 

[Doug McCrae]

For my most recent game, superhero comics, both for specific ideas and for general ambience. I ripped off the J-Horror movies The Grudge and One Missed Call for one bad guy. I use myth and folklore quite a bit for specific ideas, mostly gotten from Wikipedia. One session, set in another dimension, was pretty much wholly derived from Celtic myth.

Because I want my superhero games to be more like a comic book than reality with superpowers I find I'm often fighting against the system. Mutants & Masterminds for example encourages the players to take lots of PL breaking stuff like Improved Critical or Power Attack/All-out Attack. The most damaging attacks in M&M are falling damage (maxes out at 20) and Slams, which leads to rather un-comic book behaviour if the players are trying their best to beat encounters.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

A lot of the influence for the games I run comes from Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels, which are based off of the game itself. I also like to draw inspiration from Manga like Naruto and Bleach.

Should I get off your lawn now?

From the sound of it, you're nowhere near my lawn. So no worries.

 

[Wombat]

Wow ... I guess it comes closer to what doesn't influence my games over time...

I have a deep-seeded love for the Arthurian legends in their many permutations, both medieval and modern. Classical mythology (and indeed a lot of "non-classical mythology") figures strongly, as do various folktales and fairy tales.

Of the more modern fare, I can swiftly point to my five favourite authors: Margaret Atwood, Italo Calvino, Robertson Davies, Ursula Le Guin, and Ray Bradbury. as well as a host of others (such as Neil Gaiman, Charles DeLint, Terry Pratchett, Bram Stoker, JRR Tolkein, Elizabeth Peters, Jules Verne, Jim Butcher, etc.).

Then there are all the history books that I read -- they are a massive influence.

And then children's literature, such as the Alice books, Harold & the Purple Crayon, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Island of the Blue Dolphins, and many, many others...

And, realistically, we can also head over into films, tv, radio plays, stage plays, and lots of other sources.

Just call me the GM with a Thousand Faces