Who are Howard and Leiber?

[Turjan]

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.

This is actually a good post that illustrates how you can easily date science fiction or fantasy stories: today's works are most of the time incredibly "pc". The old works mirror the spirit of their time: women are either someone to adore or objectified, but hardly ever level with the male protagonists. This may also be one of the reasons why Leiber's or Vance's writings mostly vanished from the American book shelves: no bookseller wants his customers come back and complain like above . I wonder if that also happens to Hemingway's books .

 

[radferth]

I'd like to offend Merric by making the claim that all the authors I like are great, and all the ones I dislike are crap.

More seriously, just want to jump in with Paul Anderson: Three Hearts and Three Lions. This thing reads like an old D&D adventure, and serves as the direct source for many D&D conventions. (Paladins, trolls, gnomes, saving throws). Its one of the real finds I got from tracking down books mentions in Giants in the Earth from old issues of Dragon (the other being Shakespeare's The Tempest).

Edit: Looks like I scored second on the THTL thing.

 

[diaglo]

ANdre Norton's Quag Keep reads like many convention games...


also Rose Este's reads like....

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

There's a lot of food for thought in this thread.

I agree that D&D and its players should pay attention to the new works of fantasy as well as the classics. Blue Rose is a direct response to the works of Lackey and Pierce. Dragon magazine has printed articles on the Farseer and Spiderwick series, amongst others.

But are Leiber, Howard, Vance, and their ilk redundant? Not at all. I would argue that there's a certain purity to them, for having existed before D&D. I wonder, is it even possible for a fantasy writer to avoid being even slightly influenced by D&D these days?

But there is also the question, do most new players still define D&D by literary standards? The Eberron core sourcebook had a list of recommended films, not books. With LotR, Harry Potter, and even the revived popularity of Wuxia films, people can get their dose of fantasy without ever cracking open a book.

 

[Mark CMG]

More seriously, just want to jump in with Paul Anderson: Three Hearts and Three Lions.

While on the topic of good fantasy from Poul Anderson, add in The Broken Sword, Hrolf Kraki's Saga, and his "The Last Viking" series The Golden Horn, The Road of the Sea Horse, and The Sign of the Raven.

 

[Quasqueton]

Should the D&D3 PHB and/or DMG have a bibliography or "suggested reading" list like the AD&D1 and BD&D rule books had? If so, what should be in that list? Should some of the original items be removed from the list?

Of course, the list could well turn out to be just a list of D&D novels. That would be disappointing.

Quasqueton

 

[Reynard]

One point that I think has been missed is that today's D&D -- neither its fans nor its creators -- are especially influenced by fantasy literature, at least no more than film, television, comics and (mostly) games of other media. Not to mention previous versions of D&D. While it is all well and good to want to see more influence of Martin (we need a vassal subsystem!) or Hobb (stat me out a Liveship!), the fact is that World of Warcraft and Jacksn's LotR trilogy (which has a very different tone and style than the books) have a much greater impact on how people think about D&D. I don't know if this qualifies as a good or bad thing, but one would be hard pressed to convince me otherwise.

For my part, I really enjoy Howard's work and would love to be able to emulate it in game. However, Howard's work is almost exclusively about a singular protagonist and D&D -- or any rpg, really -- is about a group of protagonists. More modern fiction has the benefit of using larger casts generally, which means that it is 'better' from the perspective of trying to run a game using a group. Of Martin's work, for example, those cast members are almost never togather, and when they are they are suually trying to find a good moment to slip a knife between each others' ribs.

You know what EN World needs? A book discussion club with a dedicated forum for it.

 

[Desdichado]

Much as I'm an advocate of having some sensitivity there, that's just nuts. There's such a thing as being too thin-skinned and comparing Leiber to Gor is it.

Quite right. That post was ridiculous, IMO. Leiber's women had spunk and character. They were nothing like, say, Howard's women. Not that some of them didn't have spunk too. I despise forced and unnatural political correctness for its own sake.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Should the D&D3 PHB and/or DMG have a bibliography or "suggested reading" list like the AD&D1 and BD&D rule books had? If so, what should be in that list? Should some of the original items be removed from the list?

Of course, the list could well turn out to be just a list of D&D novels. That would be disappointing.

Quasqueton

For the D&D for Dummies books, they do have a list of "suggested reading" and yes, it is all D&D novels, but thankfully, they have another list of "influenential" books including Moorcock, Howard, Brooks, and others.

 

[Desdichado]

This is your only warning!

This thread is about the influence of fantasy fiction on D&D, past, present and future, and vice versa, not about comparisons between authors. Please keep that babble elsewhere.

No offense, MerricB, but what do you mean by warning? Are you a mod? Are you going to report posts just because you don't want to talk about spin-off (yet clearly related) asides in your thread?

Where are you going with this?