What novels have most influenced your game?

[Grazzt]

My influences would come from the following sources:

Andre Norton's Witch World series.

Michael Moorcock's Elric saga.

A dash of Lieber, and a pinch of R.E. Howard.

Tanith Lee's Unicorn series and her Blood Opera series as well.

 

[EricNoah]

Cliche to say, but works like LotR and Chronicles of Narnia and Sword of Shannara -- they all have journey plots, and the protagonists start relatively young and innocent of the world around them.

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

I like The Gift by Patrick O' Leary and Wizard War by Hugh Cook. Lots of character developement.

 

[Olive]

Pielorinho, I just wanted to say that you have very good taste. Good as defined by very similar to mine to course...

 

[danzig138]

The biggest novel-based influences IMG come from REH Conan, the Destroyer, Lovecraft, and F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack and Adversary Cycle.

 

[ForceUser]

I thought about this when I recently picked up my copy of Zelazny's Dilvish, the Damned. Suddenly I realized that my entire campaign feel was trying to emulate this book. Sure, I've nabbed a lot of stuff from other sources (including the "country = personality type" from the Belgariad), but a tremendous amount of flavor has seeped into my game from this one set of short stories.

How about you folks?

Yep. My current campaign is a mix of George R. R. Martin's Songs of Ice and Fire, the Harry Potter books, the Jhereg series, the Preacher comic book series, and a smattering of lots of other stuff. Generally speaking, I take an element or two from each of my favorite fantasy books and turn that element into a region, a people, or a plot device. Quite frankly, if my players had read everything I've read, they'd understand my foreshadowing a lot better.

 

[Skade]

Dune for me, and everything Conan, oddly enough. While my setting is this grand epic place of fallen, but still quite respectable glory, filled with entertwining subterfuge, guile, intellectual dishonesty, religious fantatcism and hypocricy my heros are very often big, strog, dumb, direct behemoths that could care less about the sytem, or even doing what's right.

 

[barsoomcore]

Steven Brust's Dragaera novels
Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser tales
Glen Cook's Black Company saga
ERB's Barsoom tales (gee, THERE'S a surprise)
Lovecraft
Steven Erikson's Malazan novels

NEW BOOKS ALERT!!!

Americans, keep your eyes peeled. Steven Erikson has made a deal with Tor to publish his Malazan Books of the Fallen series. These are jaw-dropping books. Erikson is writing a fantasy series that so broad in scope, so precise in its details, that it beggars comparision with anything else I've read since I was a kid. They've been available in Britain and Canada for a few years now, but will just be getting released in the US this year I think.

Keep your eyes peeled. These books will generate all sorts of campaigns, that's for sure. Your whole idea of what it means to be undead is about to change...

 

[Pielorinho]

Pielorinho, I just wanted to say that you have very good taste. Good as defined by very similar to mine to course...

In that case, you have great taste, too!

Daniel

 

[Kesh]

Can't say I've really got a specific 'source' for the D&D world I want to create.

However, the d20 Modern campaign I'm planning is heavily influeced by The Mothman Prophecies by John Keel.