I will recommend comics, books, film and television (or even videogames) that have influenced me, but I'd never require it.

In recent years, I've also found that my players are too busy to do much more than come to the game and be awesome. Its amazing if they can put in extra-effort, but to expect it is vanity on my part.

In general, I try to GM with the old "show, don't tell" maxim in mind. Basically, if I haven't brought an element of the game world to their attention in the process of play, then it isn't important.

I watched the pilot of Deadwood with my group as our Deadlands campaign got under way, and I'm hoping I can get the group through at least two more episodes... It does make me feel like a lazy High School teacher to have an hour of video, though I usually halt the game for almost that long for pizza anyway...

My preference when my campaign shows a strong influence is that either all of my players are in on the reference or none of them are.  Obviously, it's not something I can always control...

My players swing towards the "casual" end of the gamer spectre, so getting them to actually watch a movie, or read a book for the upcoming game is a lost cause.

I'm lucky when they read one-page blurbs.

I usually try to ground them in familiar "Geek Common" terms, e.g. "This Day After Ragnarok campaign is influenced by Hellboy, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Indiana Jones, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Six-String Samurai and Norse myth."

*looks at Darran's post*

HOLY SHIT. Embedded YouTube links on the RPG Site now! AWESOME!

I would if I thought the players would actually do it, but in my experience nobody will.

Quote from: The Butcher;444398My players swing towards the "casual" end of  the gamer spectre, so getting them to actually watch a movie, or read a  book for the upcoming game is a lost cause.

I'm lucky when they read one-page blurbs.(...)

Same here. I try to refer to things they're already familiar with or show them some pics or youtube videos to get the general idea across.

Quote from: Aos;444364(...)Back in the day, my wife actually boght me a dvd player for xmass- just so she could get me to watch The Matrix. I still haven't seen the sequels.

Don't bother. The sequels were more of the same overrated, pretentious, boring and pointless bullshit.

Quote from: Aos;444364Back in the day, my wife actually boght me a dvd player for xmass- just so she could get me to watch The Matrix. I still haven't seen the sequels.

You haven't missed a thing. The sequels blow.

I should point out that when I say "ask" I mean just that - ask.  Suggest.  I would never make it a barrier to play if a given player hadn't seen it.

I think what someone else pointed out, making a "presentation" of sorts though might be cool.  I think I'll do that with some appropriate music, maybe put it up on YT.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;444418I should point out that when I say "ask" I mean just that - ask.  Suggest.  I would never make it a barrier to play if a given player hadn't seen it.

Well sure, why wouldn't I suggest some reading/viewing that might be thematically relevant to the game? It's like watching "The Gamers" with your group, or having a session watching Excalibur before playing Pendragon, that kind of thing. I have nothing against that! Might be cool, especially if the watching's done together!

Quote from: Esgaldil;444390I watched the pilot of Deadwood with my group as our Deadlands campaign got under way, and I'm hoping I can get the group through at least two more episodes... It does make me feel like a lazy High School teacher to have an hour of video, though I usually halt the game for almost that long for pizza anyway...

My preference when my campaign shows a strong influence is that either all of my players are in on the reference or none of them are.  Obviously, it's not something I can always control...

I did something similar for my "Dragons of the Yellow Sea" campaign.  Prior to the campaign starting, I hosted a movie night where we all watched the movie "Blood Rain" (set in 19th century Korea).  

I think the key is to pitch it as a movie night that we do together for fun, with snacks and drinks and so forth.  Pitching it as a required chore can make anything a drag.

Quote from: jhkim;444425Pitching it as a required chore can make anything a drag.

This seems to be the case in general.

It feels like one is back in "school".

Quote from: Benoist;444423Well sure, why wouldn't I suggest some reading/viewing that might be thematically relevant to the game? It's like watching "The Gamers" with your group, or having a session watching Excalibur before playing Pendragon, that kind of thing. I have nothing against that! Might be cool, especially if the watching's done together!

You know, I think doing it together is the key -- assigning homework seems a bit silly to me, but doing it as part of the game session is much more palatable.

As I have mentioned previously, I play with old friends online. However, we got together this year for a long weekend of gaming and misdemeanors. Prior to starting up our Icons game we did watch just about every episode of The Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes and some of the Apokalypse focused episodes of the JLA/JLU shows.

I have never (and think I never would) ask people to do any course of reading or watching prior to playing in one of my games.  I've never found it necessary.  A GM should be able to give a sufficiently straightforward gist of a campaign that someone who is not familiar with background literature can play it, otherwise that GM has no business running it.

Now, what I have had is players who have ended up looking at the background sources because of my campaign, on their own initiative.  The majority of the (great deal of) Amber players I've had over the years had NOT read the books prior to playing, but the majority had read the books by the time they'd finished their first Amber campaign.
Only a couple of my players in the Legion campaign were more than passingly familiar with the LSH, but I know at least a couple have taken up reading some or a lot of the old volumes due to that game.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;444583A GM should be able to give a sufficiently straightforward gist of a campaign that someone who is not familiar with background literature can play it, otherwise that GM has no business running it.

Yes, but that doesn't make familiarity irrelevant.  If the game is MERP and one player has read the Silmarillion seven times and another has never heard of Lord of the Rings, nothing the GM does short of spending hours per session on background will fill that gap.  There are ways to make use of that, of course - the well read player could play an elf or a ranger, while the ignorant player could play an ignorant human/hobbit, and the knowledge gap could easily be made to work in the service of the role play.  However, there will always be a gap between playing a familiar setting and an unfamiliar one - not that an unfamiliar setting is unplayable, but it is a different experience.

Sometimes, unfamiliarity is desirable - it can make the GM's work in CoC much more satisfying - but again, I would rather have all the players at about the same level of knowledge in an ideal universe.