I’ve been reading titles from Appendix N and other lists of inspirational fiction from different role-playing games this year. There’s been some really good and some stuff that wasn’t quite my cup of tea, but definitely got me thinking about what stories influence me when I start prepping situations to bring to the table for my own groups. I was also inspired by some lists from Traverse Fantasy, Binary Star Games, and Githyanki Diaspora.Dystopias and Resistance FictionOkay, so I’m a millennial and that means I was basically raised on a steady diet of dystopias and how it is good to resist the Evil Empire, especially when the Evil Empire is in the house with you.Star Wars. Probably the earliest of these for me. Luke Skywalker goes from farm boy to hero of the rebellion.1984. I read and re-read this one as a teenager so much that I had to replace my paperback copy by senior year. I may also have picked up “wrong answer Winston” as a go to quote for things that are correct but undesirable.Animorphs. These were my gateway into science fiction literature. Kids fighting off an alien invasion by turning into animals.Gattaca. Dude gets told he’ll be too sick to be anything and sets up an elaborate scheme to overcome the tyrannical eugenics system.Urban FantasyFaerie is best when it gets crossed with real life. Because that’s what the original stories were like when they were first told. They were about concerns people had about their real lives.Mage: The Awakening. This was one of the first non-D&D RPGs I came across. I loved the secret world and secret war aspects of the game, especially given the way I was binging Gaiman and Dresden Files books at the time.Shadowrun. I love Shadowrun. I love throwing fistfulls of d6s, I love the endlessly customizable character creation of the 4th Edition. It’s the first system I actually got into the setting’s metaplot with the Missions Season 4 plot about the Ork Underground gaining political autonomy and recognition. (See above about resistance fiction)The Dresden Files. One of the first urban fantasies I got into. Its view of fairy carries into most of my games.InCryptid. If the Price-Healy family isn’t an adventuring party, I don’t know who is. The treatment of cryptids has made me realize how much more interesting intelligent opposition with reasonable to them agendas can beOctober Daye. Like the Dresden books, the October Daye books have spurred me more into older fairy tales and changed what Fairy looks like in my games. The nameless Queen in the Mists would make a fantastic TTRPG villain.Space OperaI’m going to be completely honest, my favorite genre of science fiction is the space opera. Hard science fiction and the real physical limitations okay, but really I want stories about the people and what they do in intense situations.Star Trek: The Next Generation. This was my introduction to Sci Fi. I was allowed to stay up late on certain nights to watch TNG in syndication in the early 90s. The episode “The Offspring” is one of my earliest memories of watching anything on TV and uh set a high bar. “The Inner Light” has remained a favorite episode of anything for decades.The Star Trek Movies. Separate from TNG, a family member had the TOS crew movies on VHS and I would borrow one or two at a time and curl up on a bed at my grandparents’ to watch them. V’Ger and the Whales and Nuclear Wessels are references I still make to this day. And the brain bugs from Wrath of Khan scared the absolute shit out of me as like a six year old.Stargate SG-1. I watched the pilot episode maybe a little too early as a kid then rediscovered the series as a college student. I love the format of the storytelling doing planet of the week in Vancouver area forests.FantasyUrban fantasy probably catches my attention more than mainstream fantasy. But, I did grow up rereading the full Lord of the Rings each year as the movies came out and Discworld formed a major part of my college reading. Also, I do own a couple Wheel of Time reference shirts.The Wheel of Time. I like the far-future, post-multiple-apocalypses setting. I like the way artifacts play into the story. It was the first big epic fantasy I read at the end of college.Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Honestly, we wouldn’t have modern fantasy without it. And halflings in my games have always been equal parts Tolkien hobbits and Italy from Hetalia in their zest for food.Weird InfluencesMy high school history centered on the rise of the one-party state in Europe. So variations of Fascist Italy, Stalinist Russia, and Nazi Germany tend to show up in my games. Because sometimes we need a slightly, but not super, complex bad guy that it’s okay to hate but like maybe one or two could be redeemed. (I uh, may have used the term poor Snowball in reference to Leon Trotsky a lot in my edgy teenager days)Hetalia. I got really into Hetalia in late college and early law school. So I tend to think of nations or factions in my games in terms of what the Hetalia version would be. Which does help create a nice cohesive look/description across characters.
