Quote from: Willie the Duck;968286Now we just need to figure out which of these appendix N author's graves is where Gary secretly buried the One True D&D, with which one could win all gaming debates if one ever read.

WTF is this, The Gygax Code?  Are we going to see some assassins chasing after us that deliberately walk on d4s to prove their faith or something?

Quote from: robiswrong;968306WTF is this, The Gygax Code?  Are we going to see some assassins chasing after us that deliberately walk on d4s to prove their faith or something?

Yes. Meanwhile you will be chasing around Podunks in the Midwest to piece together the clues of the D&D Codex.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;968252Jesus H. tapdaincing Christ on a surfboard, HOW FUCKING STUPID ARE YOU?

Appendix N is a list of books Gary liked that were more or less fantastic.  Reading anything more than that into them is utter bullshit.

That's my point actually, maybe try and keep up ol'man.

Quote from: Voros;968347That's my point actually, maybe try and keep up ol'man.

If you were being ironic, my apologies and I owe you a beer.

Okay, seriously, does anybody -- not just here, but anybody anywhere over the age of 14 -- actually think that Appendix N was anything other than "some of Gary's favorite fantasyish books"?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;968286Now we just need to figure out which of these appendix N author's graves is where Gary secretly buried the One True D&D, with which one could win all gaming debates if one ever read.

Got really drunk and tried to dig up HP Lovecraft, was tentacle-sodomized by a chthonian.


Hold on. might be mixing that up with a Halloween party in college.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;968372Okay, seriously, does anybody -- not just here, but anybody anywhere over the age of 14 -- actually think that Appendix N was anything other than "some of Gary's favorite fantasyish books"?

Fuck yes.  How do you think the Forge got created or that silly manifesto that's been passed around and promptly debunked.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;968372Okay, seriously, does anybody -- not just here, but anybody anywhere over the age of 14 -- actually think that Appendix N was anything other than "some of Gary's favorite fantasyish books"?

Apparently you do...

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;968244Which is my whole point, which I enumerate in one of the other damn OSR threads around here.  Old D&D looks different through the lens of different literature.

You think Appendix N is a lens you can use to see Old D&D differently.  Which is pretty much the reason these people accused of doing "talmudic" studies are looking at Appendix N in the first place.

It's exactly because they are "some of Gary's favorite fantasyish books" that they can be that lens, and that's why they are referenced.  I don't know what mystical textology process you think these people are doing with the books, or how reading books to understand Gary's frame of reference is considered "talmudic" but you really need to make up your fucking mind.

Will reading these books possibly let you see Old D&D in a different light, yes or no?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;968372Okay, seriously, does anybody -- not just here, but anybody anywhere over the age of 14 -- actually think that Appendix N was anything other than "some of Gary's favorite fantasyish books"?

I'm only vaguely aware of what Appendix N is so.... maybe?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;968372Okay, seriously, does anybody -- not just here, but anybody anywhere over the age of 14 -- actually think that Appendix N was anything other than "some of Gary's favorite fantasyish books"?

I think that CRKrueger has it right that people are looking to capture the mindset and framework Gary had going into creating the game to maybe understand a little more of the how and why it ended up as it did, rather than any other possible outcome. It's still navel gazing, but it's not people older than 14 thinking there's a sacred mystery tied up in it or anything (for the most part, I'm sure someone will come up with a counter-example).

Quote from: Baulderstone;968268You aren't fooling anyone, Gronan. You just want the secret grognard treasure that Gary hid in Appendix N all to yourself. I'm going to keep digging.

The hundred Gs are under the big W.

Quote from: CRKrueger;968433Apparently you do...

You think Appendix N is a lens you can use to see Old D&D differently.  Which is pretty much the reason these people accused of doing "talmudic" studies are looking at Appendix N in the first place.

It's exactly because they are "some of Gary's favorite fantasyish books" that they can be that lens, and that's why they are referenced.  I don't know what mystical textology process you think these people are doing with the books, or how reading books to understand Gary's frame of reference is considered "talmudic" but you really need to make up your fucking mind.

Will reading these books possibly let you see Old D&D in a different light, yes or no?

Saying "these books possibly will let you see Old D&D in a different light" is not the same as "each book in this list has been used to write the rules of D&D, and elements of the rules appear in each book," which, according to some in this thread, is a prevailing attitude somewhere.

And of course "Gary's favorite fantasyish books" are going to influence a fantasy game he writes.

And statements like "In fact you'd be hard pressed to turn Three Hearts and Three Lions or The Broken Sword into a D&D campaign" sounds a hell of a lot to me like expecting more from the books than just "this is the kind of fantasy Gary liked, of course it influenced how he thought about the game."

I less disagree with you than wonder if I'm reading a different thread.

Gary Gygax made a game that has been a lot of fun for a lot of people for 43+ years now. I'm not sure what else people are hoping to discover by parsing phrases with a fine-tooth comb.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;968528Saying "these books possibly will let you see Old D&D in a different light" is not the same as "each book in this list has been used to write the rules of D&D, and elements of the rules appear in each book," which, according to some in this thread, is a prevailing attitude somewhere.

And of course "Gary's favorite fantasyish books" are going to influence a fantasy game he writes.

And statements like "In fact you'd be hard pressed to turn Three Hearts and Three Lions or The Broken Sword into a D&D campaign" sounds a hell of a lot to me like expecting more from the books than just "this is the kind of fantasy Gary liked, of course it influenced how he thought about the game."

I less disagree with you than wonder if I'm reading a different thread.

See here's the problem...

You probably think something like "Of course having Gary's literary background would help you understand his frame of reference better and therefore understand his game better."  It's kind of obvious, right, almost axiomatic.

People who "study" Appendix N are doing that for that very reason.

Then there's the "Boy who cries Talmud" crowd.  They are saying that these people aren't looking into Appendix N.  They are doing some form of Talmudic Exegesis, {insert the most overblown, hyperbolic and idiotic academic word you can find here}.

So naturally you say "What a bunch of idiots."

The problem is NO ONE IS ACTUALLY DOING THAT.

Maybe Jmal got close, and sure, he had sycophants, he's been off the blog for 5 fucking years.

Yeah, Goodman's got an Appendix N vibe going, they also have guys with afros and bell bottoms, it's a gonzo retro marketing gag.

Is this Jeffro Johnson guy some pseudo-academic idiot?  Who knows?  People don't have to actually read his book to make accusations about the content, only if they want to factcheck themselves (yeah right).

Jmal - there's one.
Jeffro - someone actually reads his book, maybe we can call him two.
Anyone have an actual name of the rest of these Talmudic, colon-gazing Exegetic Textologists?  According to the way the name gets thrown around, you shouldn't be able to swing a dice bag without hitting 20 of them.

I'm probably going to be accused of being one of them because a dozen or so years ago on Dragonsfoot when people were wondering why D&D's elves weren't more like Tolkien's I recommended reading Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword, and probably made various other similar statements over the years.

When I started playing D&D as a kid in the early 80s, most of the popular fantasy books on the shelf at my local Waldenbooks was stuff like Terry Brooks and David Eddings and Stephen R. Donaldson and Katharine Kurtz, none of which felt very D&Dish. Because I really liked D&D and wanted to read books that had a similar vibe to it I was drawn to the list of books and authors in the back of the DMG. And sure enough, reading those felt much closer to D&D - they were faster-moving and had more action and "adventurer" heroes who felt more like D&D PCs, and so on. And every once in a while you'd come across something like the troll in Three Hearts and Three Lions or the magicians in The Dying Earth that felt like it had been ported over directly into D&D, which was fun and kind of cool. So I kept reading them (when I could find them - not too easy in the 80s when many of them were out-of-print, easier when ebay and amazon came along) and eventually I read almost all of them. Not because I felt like I needed to in order to fully grok Gygaxian D&D, or because I thought doing so would uncover hidden insights, but because I enjoyed reading them (most of them, at least), and they're generally pretty short and easy to read, and once I'd read a big chunk of them, the idea of first acquiring and then reading all of them became a fun personal goal - sort of like deciding to read all of the Hugo winners, or the entire Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, or whatever.

Do I think you need to read all, or any, of the books on the Appendix N list to "really understand" D&D? Nope. Do I think "real D&D" only draws from those influences and not from anything else? Absolutely not. That entire idea is totally stupid. But do I think most fans of Gygax-flavored D&D would enjoy reading stuff like Farmer's "World of Tiers" series and Fred Saberhagen's "Empire of the East" series and A. Merritt's books, and might get some good ideas for their games from them the same way Gary did, and that it made sense for Gary to recommend them to readers who might not otherwise have been aware of them and kept pestering him with letters about why D&D wasn't more accurate to Lord of the Rings? Absolutely.