Dave Arneson's library

[Le Noir Faineant]

Hi all,

While Gary Gygax gave his fans a very clear idea of which novels were an inspiration for his view of fantasy/medievalist worlds.

But Dave Arneson?

I mean, we know for sure he liked the Arthurian myth, as well as Lord of the Rings and the Gor series.

But apart from that?

Ideas and comments, please!

Yours,

Rafe

[Thorkhammer]

I have no idea. I'd have to Wikki that for ya.

[havard]

I think Greg said they would read any fantasy/sci fi novel they could get their hands on. Dave said he was reading about 3 novels per week back then. Also, Dave was a major history buff so reading historical works would be a big inspiration. This is also quite apparent in Blackmoor.

Confirmed:
Robert Heinlein
Robert Adams (Horseclans Series)
Robert E. Howard (and DeCamp/Carter Conan pastiches)
JRR Tolkien
Poul Anderson (Dave really liked those regenerating Trolls)
John Norman (aka Dr. John Langue)
Star Trek TOS
Monster B-movies

Speculation:
Frank Herbert
Michael Moorcok
Edgar Rice Burroughs

Maybe others can also be gleamed from the Blackmoor products?


-Havard

Edit: Edited to include some names from the Mortality Radio interview.

[havard]

Another relevant quote from Dave:

"As far as books go, fantasy books, science fiction/fantasy books that inspired me, we’re talking about Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, and a lot of the other authors, like the author of the Horse Clans series. (Robert Adams) Gary Seems to have listed every book he’s ever read in his bibliography, and I’ll be blunt, I don’t think I’ve read a lot of those books. Although, after having read a few thousand books, I really can’t remember which ones I’ve read anymore... So a lot of it is, Yes, I was inspired by...; but where does the inspiration stop and the game design begin? I mean, you’ve got to make changes. You’ve got to do variations. You can be influenced by something you read and don’t even remember reading, because you want to include "oh here is something neat I can incorporate into my world."

Source:
http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?bo ... hread=3567" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Havard

[Scalydemon]

On a (hopefully somewhat) related topic, I recently picked up a copy of the novel 'The Moon Pool' by A. Merritt written in 1919. It was supposedly a favorite of Gygax and perhaps others. Anyways not sure if Arneson liked it or not also, looking fwd to giving it a read.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Another relevant quote from Dave:

"As far as books go, fantasy books, science fiction/fantasy books that inspired me, we’re talking about Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, and a lot of the other authors, like the author of the Horse Clans series. (Robert Adams) Gary Seems to have listed every book he’s ever read in his bibliography, and I’ll be blunt, I don’t think I’ve read a lot of those books. Although, after having read a few thousand books, I really can’t remember which ones I’ve read anymore... So a lot of it is, Yes, I was inspired by...; but where does the inspiration stop and the game design begin? I mean, you’ve got to make changes. You’ve got to do variations. You can be influenced by something you read and don’t even remember reading, because you want to include "oh here is something neat I can incorporate into my world."

Source:
http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?bo ... hread=3567" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Havard

Cooooooooooooooooooooooooool. Words from the master himself!

Keep them suggestions comin', folks! Nice stuff in great part, and also stuff I didn't exactly know about!

[Tav_Behemoth]

At a Gen Con seminar in '08 I asked Dave what the literary inspirations for the dungeon, and his reply was very much in the spirit of the quote above, that they served a useful function in play (restricting the directions the players might go to a manageable handful) rather than trying to reproduce something from a book.

I once heard David Hartwell, an editor at Tor, reminisce that 1970 was the first year that enough science fiction/fantasy (since the latter category hardly existed at all) was published that most fans couldn't read it all. After that people started becoming hard SF fans or fantasy fans or whatever: before you might have one thing you liked best, but you read it all to feed your jones.

The essays in the Heroic Fantasy and Offut's Swords anthologies give a good picture of the late-60s/early-70s scene for people who knew they liked Conan best. The Sorcerer & Sword supplement for the Sorcerer RPG has a great bibiliography that is more focused & reaches later into the '70s, plus some interesting gaming ideas (like running a campaign out of chronological order the way the Conan stories were written).

[John S]

I'd laugh if 97% of it was playboy magazines. That reminds me to clean out my library before I croak.

[Bochi]

Did Playboy ever write about D&D?

[John S]

I don't know, I never read the text.

[havard]

Homer's Illiad and Odyssey should also be on the list. The FFC is filled with references to them.

And Lovecraft, for the Frogmen (Deep Ones)...

It might be worthwile to investigate what kind of literature was popular among Napoleonics gamers, which was where Arneson started out.

Havard

[ScottyG]

Dave was also known to enjoy Godzilla/monster movies, and kung fu movies.

[D.J.]

Did Playboy ever write about D&D?

I don't remember any, but they have published an excerpt of a sf novel. Don't remember the author's name though. I think the excerpt was back in the 1980s. Something about a character named Praxis, who was on a starship passenger liner. A distress call goes out about another ship's reactor going wild, and the ships that tried to get to them to rescue the passengers and crew.

[havard]

Dave was also known to enjoy Godzilla/monster movies, and kung fu movies.

Interesting Scotty!

The monster movie marathon Arneson watched the weekend before creating Blackmoor is legendary. It would be interesting to find out exactly which movies were part of that marathon...

Havard