What's Your Appendix N?

I have recently been thinking about my “history” of interactions with the fantasy genre.

I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because September is a reflective time, or because the stresses of the present have me feeling nostalgic.

Regardless of the reasons why, ruminations on my own influences led me to Appendix N, the list of influences Gary Gygax provided at the end of the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide.

I’ll admit that I’m woefully unfamiliar with most literature from Gygax’s Appendix N. Of the works listed there, I’ve only read Tolkien. I’m interested in reading more, though – especially after Web DM’s recent video on Pulp Fiction. I’ve added several Appendix N authors to my “wish-list” of books.

So of course, when acknowledging that many of the works in Appendix N didn’t introduce me to the fantasy genre, I have to ask myself... what did?

This post is an answer to that question.

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It is hard for me to establish exactly when I got "into" the fantasy genre. I don’t remember interacting with it much in elementary school. From what I recall, my first dips into fantasy came from middle school.

In middle school, I remember reading books like A Knight’s Wyrd, Sabriel, and The Inheritance Cycle. There’s Crispin and the Cross of Lead, though that might be more “historical fiction” than “fantasy.” And the “ology” series of books, including Dragonology and Wizardology. I loved these books as a kid, and they sparked my imagination.

I also purchased this poster of dragon species to hang on my wall. I didn’t even know what Dungeons & Dragons was, at the time. I just liked dragons.

My first exposure to D&D came from purchasing a poster for a game I'd never played... because I liked dragons.

Interestingly, I didn’t read Tolkien or see The Lord of the Rings movies until much later, as an upperclassman in high school. This was after I’d already been introduced to fantasy tabletop RPGs. Therefore, Tolkien had a peculiarly “late” influence on my inculcation in the fantasy genre. I feel like that’s different from what most people experience.

I also missed the boat on the Harry Potter series. Somehow, as a nerd coming of age during their surge in popularity, I completely sidestepped the Hogwarts groundswell. Oddly enough, I remember reading Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in elementary school. I hadn’t read Harry Potter at the time, but loved the encyclopedic catalog of fantasy creatures and checked it out of the library several times.

I also remember playing several fantasy-themed video games in middle school. Lionhead Studio’s original Fable was perhaps the first one. I can’t count the number of times I played that game through to completion; I even bought Fable: The Lost Chapters with saved allowance money to play the additional content, meaning I effectively owned the game twice.

(I realize it might seem strange to have played Fable as a young kid, considering it was rated “M for mature.” But really I think it was pretty tame for an M-rated game. And my parents trusted me as a pretty mature young person, which I’m grateful for).

Now that I’m older, I can see the flaws of the original Fable. I now know the hype and disappointment that came with its release. However, all of that went over my head as a young person in the early 2000s. I bought it "used" at a discount. It was one of the first RPGs I ever played, and I loved it for what it was.

I also played The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. Because I played it at such a young age, its open world and difficulty kept me from making it far. I still enjoyed just wandering around, however. Even today, I’ve never “beaten” the main questline of Morrowind. It’s on my list of games to revisit, at some point.

I spent much more time playing the next game, Oblivion, and actually saw it through to completion (several times). I distinctly remember one character I made in Oblivion named Rivel. He was a paladin type who used heavy armor and Restoration magic. And I truly “role-played” him in a way I never did before. I haven’t really done the same with any game since, either.

With Rivel, I played the game in a simulationist way. Rivel ate three times a day and slept each night, though the game didn’t require you to. Rivel never fast-traveled. And in my mind, I kind of created the “character” of Rivel as a separate entity from myself. Rather than playing the game as a “player” – doing quests and such because it’s what I wanted to do – I reacted to the situations that arose in the game and responded as what I thought Rivel would do.

When playing Rivel, there would be “days” spent in the game where I simply “role-played” Rivel – walking around the castle, visiting Chorrol to talk to villagers, and scouting the nearby forest for monsters and deer. As an adult looking back, I can see now that playing the game this way was basically me channeling my imaginative play as a kid (“playing pretend”) through a video game.

And as incredibly nerdy and strange as this may seem, it was totally fun. Probably the most fun I’ve ever had with a video game, and maybe ever will. I’m ashamed to say that my imagination isn’t the same as an adult. I can’t lose myself in a game like that anymore; I get distracted by thoughts about changing the oil in the car or repairing the water heater. It’s sad.

Moving on from the loss of innocence…

Thief: Deadly Shadows was another big influence on me. I was too young to enjoy the original Thief game or The Dark Project, but Garrett epitomized what it meant to be a fantasy RPG “rogue” in my mind. The Pagans and the Hammerites eventually influenced my ideas of Druids and Clerics, respectively. And of course, there’s also the guards from Thief, who profoundly influenced my conception of a fantasy “city watch.”

Of all these influences, some elements that stand out as directly influencing on my idea of “fantasy:”

·         The encounter on the bridge with Snowy Granius. For some reason, this single moment in Morrowind seems to encapsulate everything I remember about the game. As a young player, it was difficult, scary, and exciting. And just so wonderfully weird. To this day, my “default” scenario for introducing a new player to an RPG system is this: you come to a bridge crossing a deep chasm. You see a poorly-dressed man on the other side. He looks angry. What do you do?

This moment will forever live in my mind.

·         The general sense of playfulness and innocence. I realize Fable was overtly violent (I mean, you can decapitate enemies and blood comes spurting out of their neck) and the game contains sexual innuendo. But the “fairy tale” setting of Albion (and the humor that accompanied it) has stuck with me throughout my time gaming. My taste for this sort of “light-hearted” fantasy might be why I have yet to “get into” the gritty and dour settings like A Song of Ice and Fire. My taste of fantasy lies somewhere between the “low” fantasy of Game of Thrones and the “high” fantasy of The Lord of the Rings. Both of these are slightly too serious for me; I prefer The Hobbit and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

·         The music. To this day, the soundtracks of Fable, Morrowind, and Oblivion have a permanent place on my playlists at the gaming table. When I hear Oakvale by Russell Shaw or Wings of Kynareth by Jeremy Soule, I am moved.

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Why write all of this?

Well, it’s been on my mind lately. That’s one reason.

But another reason is recognition of the fact that role-playing is a generative exercise that draws from source material. In other words, every fantasy tabletop RPG session creates a new narrative from the events that transpire at the table. However, that new narrative originates from references and touchstones rooted in prior experience.

Expressed in a different way, you can imagine each RPG session as an original song. Each song is unique and new. However, each song is composed from notes that existed before the song. Each composer (players and referee) uses the notes they know when composing.

In the case of fantasy tabletop RPGs, the “notes” from which a composer chooses are their prior experiences. Any experience is subject to be reproduced (such as knowledge from history or their own personal lives), but ideas and inspiration from media in the fantasy genre is especially relevant.

And looking back to the early games I ran, especially in high school, I can see how I reproduced those experiences I had in the fantasy genre. I now draw a lot more inspiration from tabletop RPG texts themselves, such as early TSR modules. But before I steeped myself in those, the tabletop RPG games I played were heavily influenced by Fable and The Elder Scrolls.

And in closing, I also think it’s also helpful to recognize how the influences of the fantasy genre are changing. Whereas folks in the 1980s and 90s likely came with primarily literary influences, I would say that visual media (ex. video games, movies, television series) have become more influential in the 21^st century, for better or worse.

I can definitely see this in the younger players I game with, who list video games and movies foremost among the fantasy-genre things they like. And when I introduce the game to kids, their touchstones are often things like How to Train Your Dragon and Frozen. I’m not sure what to make of this, but it is a trend that’s happening.

So: what are the fantasy influences you bring to your games? And what parts of them have stuck with you?