Who are Howard and Leiber?

[FireLance]

The irony being, of course, that one of the three PCs in that group is a swanmay. I don't ever want to hear old-schoolers tell me weird PC races are out of the question again.

Not a strong argument, I'm afraid. The Swanmay is a PrC in the Book of Exalted Deeds. However, if they're real old-schoolers, they wouldn't be using the 3.5e rules, anyway.

 

[T. Foster]

Jack Vance's sf books are also very good, especially the "Demon Princes" series, which was arguably as influential on the Traveller rpg as the Dying Earth series was on D&D (heck, you can find "Smade's Planet" right there in the Solomani Rim sector!)

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Not a strong argument, I'm afraid. The Swanmay is a PrC in the Book of Exalted Deeds. However, if they're real old-schoolers, they wouldn't be using the 3.5e rules, anyway.

Well, having owned many Second Edition books, I know that swanmays were originally a creature. I'm not at all convinced that a prestige class is a good way of reproducing them - what's next? A selkie prestige class?

More to the point, the swanmay in Anderson's novel is clearly not some random chick who happens to have learned to be a swanmay.

(I'm sure swanmays appeared in First Edition; my point is that I know the Third Edition incarnation is a break with the past.)

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Well, about Howard, et. al. being an influence on younger readers, I remember when I was a teenager in the 90s I went all out to track down Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, and Lovecraft. I mean, heck, Leiber was reprinted by White Wolf's imprint not too long ago. I had to work at tracking down original Howard stories though, and at the time, it was all mixed with De Camp stories. At any rate, this stuff still has a much more profound influence on me and my D&D gaming than Tolkien or any modern writer has (though I love Guy Gavriel Kay's and Patricia McKillip's stories).

The point is, to make a blanket assumption that young gamers are going to lose these influences or not seek out these influences is bull. If the stuff is out there, and the word is out there, young people will seek these stories out. I did. Lots of my gaming friends did. To just throw up your hands and say "Well! Kids don't read this stuff! There's no point to referencing these stories at all!" just makes sure that these fundamental influences are flat-out lost. Talk. Young people do listen. Give them at least some credit. Sheesh.

 

[Patman21967]

Howabout some love for David Gemmell. I know it is bubblegum reading, but I really love a day at the beach, with a book whose characters I really like and root for, and can finish in a few hours.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I recently acquired the two volumes of Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories that Gollancz published in its Fantasy Masterworks line, myself, and I got the first of their Conan volumes and their first volume of The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe some time ago.

Those lines are a fantastic resource for the classics, and inexpensive (since they're paperbacks).

 

[Turjan]

I thought that many of the characters in the Lyonesse series were quite colourful, especially the villains. I also thought that the plots for the first two books in that series were rather strong. The conclusion to the entire series was rather satisfying as well, IMO.

There are a few exceptions. He has two or three other fleshed out characters. But in most books, the only distinguishing quality of the character is the name; everything else is pretty predictable if you know one of his other characters.

As far as conclusions go, they often come as some kind of afterthought. The book has to end somehow, and he writes one or two sentences to accomplish that. No big deal, though. I just wanted to add some small criticism to my general appreciation .

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Lotta good authors mentioned on this thread are in my collection- Tolkein, Moorcock, Lieber, Howard, Lewis, LeGuin, Donaldson, Vance- as are many more.

But personally, I got my intro to fantasy in the same place as many of the authors themselves: the various mythologies of the world and the epic poems and stories they produced. The Illiad, The Odyssey, The Divine Comedy, The Kalevala, The Faerie Queene, Arthurian legends (like Sir Gawain & the Green Knight), The Song of Roland, Beowulf, Grimm's & even the Bible...they were the door that opened my mind to fantasy, and IMHO, are the REAL bedrock upon which our hobby rests.

I'm not saying that the fantasy novelists haven't added to the lexicon. Moorcock gave us one of the first antiheroic protagonists (Elric), Vance gave us the basic structure of D&D magic and many items (IOUN Stones, anyone?), and of course, Tolkein's reworking of European folktales into his epic LoTR was so masterful that its has become a benchmark in fantasy liturature...but without the legends of gods and demons dating back from the dawn of the written word, the modern writers would have had to do a LOT more work.

 

[davidschwartznz]

How often did you see some criticism of "Vancian magic", culminating in the sentence "I really like to know why D&D chose such a stupid system like Vancian magic, a system that has never been used in any fantasy literature whatsoever!". Well, it's obvious that even the name isn't recognized anymore as a fantasy author, which is even more of a problem than when the books are not read anymore.

There is a modern fanatsy that uses the 'Vancian' magic system: Charmed. Ignoring her innate talents, if a witch wants to cast a spell, she gets it out of her spellbook. And if she has to leave the house, she has to memorize the spell beforehand (in poetry form, no less). Admittedly, they cheat occasionally, by writing the spell down, but I've long been of the opinion that this is a property that would be easy to convert to d20 (it's girl-friendly too).

 

[T. Foster]

The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs also uses a more-or-less Vancian magic system (and is referenced by name in the 1E DMG alongside the Vance books). It's also a tremendously entertaining book that I highly recommend.