Literature came first for me. Before starting D&D in the late 70's, I had read many fantasy/sci-fi novels and short stories. That allowed me to develop a sense of genre which is still the foundation of any campaign I run. When recruiting for an online campaign, I ask applicants to recommend to me a novel they have read, preferably something which has never been made into a movie. A fair number admit that they have never read anything. It makes me sad to think their conception of a fantasy world might be defined by the official D&D settings, most of which are a vanilla-flavored gray paste compared to the individual worlds of Appendix N.

Literature first, but it was more than that.  I had various interests as a little kid -- knights and castles, pirates, dinosaurs, ghosts and monsters.  All of these things naturally fit into D&D, as I would later learn.  Also loved Greek mythology and what little Norse mythology I could find, and fairy tales.  So of course, old monster movies and Ray Harryhausen films were my favorite things to watch.  I had noticed a book called The Hobbit at my school library and it looked intriguing, but before I could read it the Rankin/Bass cartoon of it came out and I really loved that so I read the book, then LOTR.  I think I had read three or so Conan stories and couple of the comics before I discovered D&D.  A  cousin gave me the magenta Moldvay set for Christmas in 1981 (I believe) and I've been a fan of RPGs ever since.  D&D is probably what led me to certain fiction though, like Leiber and Moorcock, and to explore mythology and folk tales of other cultures.

Oh, and while it didn't lead to my gaming but was rather a result of it, I'd also like to recommend the excellent AD&D coloring book.  That thing is a marvel and a treasure.  If you can look at that and not immediately want to GAME, you're already dead!

I grew up in the 60s, so literature first. From fairy tales to adventure to mysteries to horror to mythology to science fiction and fantasy. I was an advanced reader from an early age. I read The Hobbit while I was still in grade school. Absolutely no one knew what I was talking about. I came to love maps. I could draw the map from The Hobbit from memory, and made up my own.

I read a few comics, mostly horror and science fiction. I watched Star Trek's original broadcasts. I followed the space program, collected weekly photos from my local grocery store and put them into my collector's album. I also built models and flew Estes model rockets.

I used to stare at the Avalon Hill games in the store, imagining they had little tanks and planes inside. I discovered Strategy and Tactics magazine and began playing hex-and-chit. I lived just outside New York City and attended conventions in the 70s. I was in Trek and SF&F fandom. I got Peter Cushing and (Vampirella) Barbara Leigh's autographs at a Creation con. I sat and observed a D&D game at a convention in '75. I ordered 25mm Middle Earth minis. I bought the Dungeon board game, then my younger brother bought Holmes D&D. I got in a regular gaming group and played a bit of OD&D before we migrated to 1e AD&D as it came out. Bought and played Star Fleet Battles in '79. Started my own 1e AD&D campaign with JG Wilderlands in 1980, bought and ran Gamma World and Classic Traveller in '81. Set for life. I've blogged about my whole journey through fandom and gaming here: https://themichlinguide.wordpress.com/2021/03/01/a-historical-overview-of-role-playing-from-the-trenches-my-life-with-rpgs/

Definitely literature (fantasy and horror), comics and movies.

A comic book store I used to go to had the original 'white box' and I asked the owner about it. He gave some lame description that really didn't explain what it was, so at first I thought it was a board game. They also carried a few Avalon Hill board games and Empire of the Petal Throne. I remember when they got the Holmes box in, and I got that and introduced my friends to it.

Quote from: Mishihari on January 04, 2024, 01:41:31 PM
I'm surprised by the diversity of directions people came into the hobby from.  I started with fantasy books and kind of assumed most folks did the same.

Now I'm wondering if this has any effect on how we play the games.  I play primarily to go sightseeing in the fantasy worlds I read about.  If someone else is playing to reenact the combats from their video game in a more flexible form, frex, we're going to have very different goals and approaches to play.

I love the sightseeing aspects of RPGs but rarely get enough of it. I think HP Lovecraft was a part of that ideal as several of his stories had some very evocative travelogues of the lands.

Fantasy and Sci-fi Liturature and playing D&D were pretty much a parallel entry for me that derived from He-Man and the D&D and Dragon's Lair cartoons (along with memories of Thundarr the Barbarian from just a bit before) when I was about 10 years old... with a small bit of further parallel entry in discovering the existence of Battletech that one of my older second cousins played coinciding with my at the time love of both Transformers and Mighty Orbots.

My first major fantasy lit was a pair of boxed sets of the first six Xanth novels (three per set) which came to me the same year at Christmas (whereas I got the Red Box and the first of the Dragonlance modules that prior May on a birthday shopping trip to Children's Palace).

Reading books didn't really lead me to RPGs. I was/am heavily into reading before RPGs though.
But I didn't really even know about RPGs wway back in the late 70s/early 80s.
No internet to find out about it.
I wasn't involved in the RPG community.
I discovered RPGs, when a gaming store, specialising in RPGs and boardgames opened up near where I lived.
My first RPG was DnD that the shop were ruinning sessions of.

I'm old enough that I had already read a fair amount of fantasy before I encountered D&D.

I was an early reader, and started out with the Narnia books in grade school, and then read The Hobbit, and then Lord of the Rings. The latter was a challenging read for me at the time, and it took me a couple tries over a couple years before I made it through The Two Towers. Basically, I read through Fellowship, and ground to a halt somewhere in The Two Towers, and gave up until the next summer when I was really bored, and got a little farther, maybe to Shelob, and then the next time, I finally made it through The Two Towers and devoured Return of the King in a single day. I also read a bunch of the Prydain books around the same time.

I had also started reading the Heinlein juvenile SF novels, and had polished off most of them in the school library by that point.

I didn't encounter Dungeons and Dragons until I was in junior high school. This was around 1982, when the game had become a mainstream craze. (The original boxed set was used as a party game, similar to How to Host a Murder games later on.) Believe it or not, a bunch of the popular girls talked our English teacher into allowing them to run it as a special one-shot during class, because they were able to convince her it was educational! After that, my circle of friends played the game on and off for a year or two. (Alas, the popular girls had moved on to other pursuits.) I started playing again in college, and have continued on and off ever since.

Books came first (Howard, Tolkein, etc.) and then came the gaming after being properly primed. 

Given that my introduction to D&D was via the high school library (back when you could actually sign out a room during study hall or after hours), the two are intertwined with mainly lit coming before the games.

I read books first, but I don't think that I would actually view the two as connected in the slightest. Yeah, I read Tolkien and Lewis in middle school, but my bread and butter was actually classic science fiction, like Jules Vernes, Heinlein, and Pournelle, and I remember reading and re-reading Aldous Huxley's Brave New World several times through high school.

My first RPG experience was D&D 3e, and I hadn't read any novels in any of the D&D settings. Then I played Call of C'thulu. I did eventually read Lovecraft, but that was years after playing Call of C'thulu for the first time. By then I was already familiar with a half-dozen RPGs. Basically, my RPG experiences do not line up with my literature experiences. The RPG settings I like have nothing to do with the literature settings I enjoy, and I think the two--RPGs and literature--are sufficiently different that good worlds in one genre are probably mediocre worlds in the other.

Greetings!

Well, did literature lead me into RPG's?

No.

I had read books about Roman, Greek, Celtic, and Norse mythology and history, before I was in the 5th grade in gradeschool. My mother had also read the Bible to me often.

Somewhere in the 5th grade, I read The Hobbit. Shortly after that, my best friend at the time had discovered D&D somehow and introduced the game to me.

Of course, however, playing D&D certainly encouraged and promoted further reading and study of history and mythology. I quickly read Bulfinch's Mythology, the Arthurian Tales, and the Silmarillion. I had been raised to love books, reading, and literature, so such habits simply became even more embraced.

At least back in the day, there definitely seemed to be a synergistic feedback loop between RPG's and reading. All of my friends, likewise, were either already into literature like I was, or soon were drawn into becoming fans shortly after being introduced to D&D.

Back then, nearly everyone was reasonably well-read, and familiar with much of history, mythology, and literature in general.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on January 07, 2024, 05:11:56 PM
Back then, nearly everyone was reasonably well-read, and familiar with much of history, mythology, and literature in general.

And it certainly seems different now. To what do we attribute this?

Quote from: Baron on January 07, 2024, 05:14:22 PM

Quote from: SHARK on January 07, 2024, 05:11:56 PM
Back then, nearly everyone was reasonably well-read, and familiar with much of history, mythology, and literature in general.

And it certainly seems different now. To what do we attribute this?

Greetings!

Hey there, Baron!

Well, I certainly think that technology has had a significant impact. research has proven, that yes, the I-Phone, video games, and such *have* in fact, greatly reduced people's attention span, reading comprehension, literacy, and general mental health.

Another factor, huge, of course, is the following generations of permissive, weak parents that failed to discipline and teach their children properly.

A third factor, I would suggest, has been the contribution of an overall decline into poor quality and mediocrity of schools and education.

Add these three factors up, and you produce a general culture that is undisciplined, frivolous, unmotivated, and functionally illiterate.

This reality is also reflected and demonstrated through numerous research over the last 20 years, especially in colleges, which demonstrate that unprecedented numbers of incoming Freshmen college students must enroll in remedial everything, because they cannot do basic mathematics, they do not know essential history, have poor reading skills, and can barely write a paragraph.

Over 20 years ago, I remember in California, the State Chancellor of the entire UC college system announced similar findings and announced new policies placing incoming Freshmen on probation--requiring them to get up to college standards within a year, or they would be expelled. The Chancellor maintained that performing college students, and the college professors, were there to learn and pursue college education, not to coddle incoming students that had failed to learn a broad range of basic education to prepare them for college.

I remember that from back then. It seems that education and student's basic education has only declined even further in the years since then.

So, I think that is where we are at now, unfortunately.

I remember when I was a kid, my *peers* all prided themselves on our education, and knowledge, and reading. Strong literacy. Knowledge of history, literature, mythology. There was something wrong with you if you were not up to speed on Tolkien, King Arthur, Conan the Barbarian, the Crusades, Genghis Khan, the ancient Romans, Caesar, the Greeks, Achilles, and the Vikings. This was all well understood back then, by kids even.

Getting some fresh coffee now, and lighting up a good pipe.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Yes and no. Yes because of my older brother and his collection of classic fantasy lit with cool covers. But no, because he introduced D&D 1e to me early after I was taken with his 'Deities & Demigods' book -- so I got skipped to the front of the line as it were. I didn't like my first dingeon crawl with him.    Perhaps I was still too young then to handle loss and failure.

Later from Choose Your Own Adventure, Fighting Fantasy, Intergalactic Spy, etc I got more curious. And after video games like Miracle Warriors and Y's even moreso into the classic fantasy literature. But it took a few more years to get into D&D & rpgs in general, and for college to make it stick. (Then a long hiatus for school & nightlife, and finally a mature return appreciating what I didn't when I was younger.)