My "Appendix N"
I've started playing and running Joseph Goodman's excellent Dungeon Crawl Classic Role-playing Game (DCC RPG for short). Its a wonderful mix of old school rpgs, modern (ie functional) game mechanics, and a weird fantasy fiction feel.
I recommend it - for what that is worth.
An interesting item in DCC, other than fantastic artwork, is the listing of Appendix N - an inspirational reading list originally from Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson's First Edition Dungeon Master's Guide.
An admission; I've always been a fan of reading lists, and miss the one's that Amazon used to have. You can tell a lot from the book content and Appendix N is no different. The list is by the main fantasy novels from the 1970s and earlier - written before most of the stereotypes of modern fantasy were set. As a result, drawing from these inspirations, adventures, characters and creatures have a different feel than later fantasy.
They also formed many of the games played in the early days of roleplaying.
But there is a gap in Appendix N. The list stops at the end of the 1970's and did not really hit the time that my gaming wa in full stride - my late Middle School and High School years - the Eighties.
Soooo...my Appendix N is a wee bit different.
Maybe because we lived in a small city on the Gulf Coast that had more national flags flown over it than any other in the United States, and always had a seamy side to it, my gaming group drew more than our share of inspiration from Lynn Asprin's Thieves World series...
Thieves World was a collection of short stories written by a collection of authors in a shared universe, some good, some bad, some just weird. Characters ranged from common thieves, gypsy fortune tellers, fishermen, storytellers, artists, nobility, wild mages, to an immortal warrior making deals with the Gawds.
And thieves...lots of thieves.
We loved it. We would heavy thief class parties, and none seemed to live very long (past third level was an exceptional fellow). What a blast.
If I remain inspired, I'll follow up with some other of my own Appendix N books.
I recommend it - for what that is worth.
An interesting item in DCC, other than fantastic artwork, is the listing of Appendix N - an inspirational reading list originally from Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson's First Edition Dungeon Master's Guide.
An admission; I've always been a fan of reading lists, and miss the one's that Amazon used to have. You can tell a lot from the book content and Appendix N is no different. The list is by the main fantasy novels from the 1970s and earlier - written before most of the stereotypes of modern fantasy were set. As a result, drawing from these inspirations, adventures, characters and creatures have a different feel than later fantasy.
They also formed many of the games played in the early days of roleplaying.
But there is a gap in Appendix N. The list stops at the end of the 1970's and did not really hit the time that my gaming wa in full stride - my late Middle School and High School years - the Eighties.
Soooo...my Appendix N is a wee bit different.
Maybe because we lived in a small city on the Gulf Coast that had more national flags flown over it than any other in the United States, and always had a seamy side to it, my gaming group drew more than our share of inspiration from Lynn Asprin's Thieves World series...
Thieves World was a collection of short stories written by a collection of authors in a shared universe, some good, some bad, some just weird. Characters ranged from common thieves, gypsy fortune tellers, fishermen, storytellers, artists, nobility, wild mages, to an immortal warrior making deals with the Gawds.
And thieves...lots of thieves.
We loved it. We would heavy thief class parties, and none seemed to live very long (past third level was an exceptional fellow). What a blast.
If I remain inspired, I'll follow up with some other of my own Appendix N books.
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