Who are Howard and Leiber?

[tetsujin28]

They're very much patterned after the young Leiber during his theatre days. He was quite a charmer.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, now I'm really intrigued. I just saw that they've reprinted a number of the Leiber stories. Next paycheck, I'm going to get my butt around to reading them. Sword and Sorcery HO! Heh.

But, seriously, thanks for the nudge to go find some excellent fantasy.

 

[Turjan]

It's funny that it needed this thread to grow to page nine in order to get the question from the title literally answered . Well, at least half of it .

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Speaking of authors who have played D&D, what about Raymond Feist? Or David Brin? Or even Steven Brust? There's a lot more too, but those are some "big" names.

 

[barsoomcore]

Speaking of authors who have played D&D, what about Raymond Feist? Or David Brin? Or even Steven Brust? There's a lot more too, but those are some "big" names.

?

I'm not sure what the question is.

Steven Brust is one of the finest living writers in the English language. Seriously, he's a genius. He has written more brilliant books than most writers have mediocre books. He honestly took fantasy adventure places it had never been before. He is a great, great, great writer. His books are grown-up, funny, painful and thrilling. He has characters you can recognize by their dialogue alone (heck, he has NARRATORS you can recognize by their voice alone). He has one of the best-realised high-magic worlds you'll ever come across. He has a dizzying grasp of meta-textual issues (some of his novels are WRITTEN (and read) by people who live in his OTHER novels).

And he has the sharpest, cleanest prose anywhere. AND he has the best-structured books you'll ever come across. Seriously, his books are like Swiss watch mechanisms, they're so finely constructed. I remember finally realising that EVERY Vlad book has seventeen chapters. What the heck? The man's a fiend.

What can I say? Brust slays me.

Fiest I've never had any interest in, Brin's got some really good ideas but his books seem to get steadily worse (I still think Sundiver is his best book) -- and I don't think he's ever been a great stylist. So can't help you there.

But Brust is the bomb.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Just pointing out that these are "name" authors who do D&D. Brust's fiction is based on his Hungarian past, but he ran for years a D&D game set in Adrilankha. Many of the characters come from the games. He is indeed the bomb.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Of course, Howard's original stories have recently been republished by Ballantine (so far: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Soloman Kane, The Bloody Crown of Conan, andBran Mak Morn: The Last king -- with more to come!).

Apparently they've been selling extremely well in North America. (I'm not sure if they're available in the U.K. and Ireland yet.)

Howard's making a comeback!

*tears of joy*

 

[Gentlegamer]

Okay, okay. Calm down already.

Howard, Tolkien and Vance should determine D&D above all else. The current stuff is largely rubbish -- and the great current stuff (e.g. Neil Gaiman, China Mielville, et al.) is too unlike standard D&D to be of any use.

Throw in Burroughs and you've got it!

 

[Gentlegamer]

Somewhat sexist?!?!?!?

Have you read Lieber?!?!?!?
From the conniving women of Fafhrd's tribe, to the slave girls in the bazar, and even in the way the heros sweetheatrs are killed off and used to motivate Fafhrd and the Mouser. Lieber treats women as objects.
I'm not saying his stories aren't great. They are, and II love them.
But I'd no sooner reccomend them to a sensitive reader than I would the Gor books.

As for using them as inspiration for gaming ... I think modern publishers would be wise to be a little more friendly with both halves of humanity.

Dude! Gor rox! I recommend the first 3 as a nice little trilogy.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Just addressing the "computer game reset" aspect of raise dead:

In earlier editions, I got around the lack of accessible raise dead by a simple method: I didn't kill PCs because I didn't want the game to end.

Especially in AD&D, where advancement was so slow. Being unable to continue with an established PC meant the death of all the role-playing and plot threads associated with that character. So, either I made a plotless campaign where such didn't matter, or I didn't kill the characters.

Occasionally, a PC death was significant enough that it gave birth to greater things, but this was extremely rare. Mostly, it derailed the campaign.

Your players didn't groom their henchmen to "replace" them in the event of a death?