# RPG A DAY 2025: Day 09 - Inspire tags: #thoughts #thoughts/RPGaDay/2025 ![[RPG a Day 2025 (illo).png]] I think we'll do something very predictable today. No, I'm not going to write about games that inspire me. No, I'm not going to write about a bard character who is inspirational to his compatriots. I'm going to go with a lightweight, Appendix N sort of experience, where I suggest and briefly discuss various media which have inspired my games and my work. I *am* going to divide it between fantasy and sci-fi because trying to keep those separate makes for easier reading. ## Fantasy I have to start with one of the two greatest, right? ### DragonLance ![[DragonLance Chronicles - Individual (cover).jpg]] **[DragonLance](https://dragonlance.fandom.com/wiki/Dragonlance)**. Notable in particular for the character on the far right up there because *Raistlin Majere is my spirit animal*. 50% of my personality traits evolved directly from that literary stimulation. Believe me, we'll get to the other part here shortly. ![[DragonLance - Legends (cover).webp]] Arguably more important to my inspiration was not the original **DragonLance** series, but instead **[DragonLance Legends](https://dragonlance.fandom.com/wiki/Dragonlance_Legends_(series))**, which focused particularly on Raistlin and his brother. Here you get into the meat of the mage's character development, his quirks, the actual working of the setting in a lot of ways.[^1] And I was all in. Now, what you might be asking yourself is whether or not I ever played the actual **D&D** campaign. And the answer to that is hell no. Again, I'm not really that fond of **D&D**. I never really wanted to. Eventually, [the *SAGA* version](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/186462/dragonlance-fifth-age-dramatic-adventure-game-saga) came out, and I was mildly interested, but fantasy was never my hook. I was much more interested in other narratives. But **DragonLance** will always have a place in my black heart, because of its influence on me as a person. ### Elric / Young Kingdoms Well, we've already started with arrogance and power, mood swings, and a taste for wandering the world and possibly accidentally conquering it. We might as well go to the prime mover in that particular field, right? ![[Elric (illo).jpg]] **[Elric of Melniboné](https://stormbringer.fandom.com/wiki/Elric_of_Melnibon%C3%A9)**, pale, physically weak, intellectually accomplished, a binder of spirits, a killer of men, a reaver and a wanderer, originally conceived to be effectively the antithesis of Conan and his archetype,[^2] but establishing that both of them are necessary in their individual worlds. He is moody, and half of the stories he's in, he just wants to be left alone to mope and deal with his soul-sucking sword. People just keep making him get involved, which generally ends tragically for all involved. Man, I really love this character, and I love Michael Moorcock's[^3] work in building the Young Kingdoms. If you wondered where a good chunk of the rest of my personality prototype came from, it's Elric of Melniboné. I do exert a little more emotional control than he tends to, but I definitely understand where he's coming from. My taste for dark fantasy, which somewhat focuses on the seedy and unpleasant underbelly of society, very likely originates here. Were there RPGs already extant that allowed you to play in the world of the Young Kingdoms? Absolutely. Pretty decent overall, despite their choice of mechanics. The original **[Stormbringer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormbringer_(role-playing_game))**[^4] led to **[Elric!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elric!)**), both of which were BRP games. Are there [non-BRP Elric games](https://stormbringerrpg.com/catalogue/chaosium-editions/)? Absolutely. The most interesting part to take from them were the demonic summoning and binding rituals, because pacts with otherworldly entities are part and parcel of the Elric milieu, and it wouldn't do not to have that as a very prominent section of gameplay. Sadly, the magic was revised to be somewhat more mainstream fantasy and less demonic summoning and binding in **Elric!**, which is a little bit of a disappointment for some of us. You don't need to ask how many of the books that came out for those games I have on the shelf. You know, this suggests that I should sit down and maybe do a hack of the Young Kingdoms for **Ironsworn** at some point. That feels like it's a project for another day. ### Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever I have the funny feeling that if you knew fantasy literature and you knew me, there was a 90% chance that you would figure that I was all about this particular series, and you would be absolutely completely right with no questions at all. ![[Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (cover).jpg]] **[The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever](https://www.amazon.com/Chronicles-Covenant-Illearth-Preserves-Wounded/dp/B004KTG5U6)**, was, is, and will always be my jam when people talk about representation in media. What they really want is to not have to stretch to imagine themselves in a heroic position within a piece of fiction. They want the laziest possible approach to seeing themselves represented, with no challenge, no consideration, and nothing amiss. Well, here's a surprise, kids. Obviously, I like to see myself in an entirely different light, and Thomas Covenant is the man for that. He starts the series as a self-involved, narcissistic, actively depressive leper, missing half his hand, who gets washed away into a magical fantasy setting in which he's considered to be the Chosen One and is immediately healed of his leprosy. And what does he do? That's right, he rapes a woman—because he doesn't believe what's happening is real and he wants to affirm his disbelief in it. He is not, shockingly enough, your classic good guy. He's not even really a good person. But he is our protagonist, and everything he does along the way is going to come back and haunt him, or help him, at some later point in the story. Given that this is essentially an isekai story, what is his superpower, you might ask? Well, he continues to wear the white gold wedding ring of even after his wife has left him (for relatively good reasons), and white gold is a focus of power in this world. It is capable of destroying the arch of time. Needless to say, the bad guy really wants this thing, but Thomas himself has no idea how to actually wield it, and things go sideways very aggressively. Man, I really love it. Seriously, this is a great series, and I don't reread it nearly enough. Also, when I say this is an isekai story, the term to describe that didn't really exist when it was written, but it's a perfect description of what's going on, including being hit by a bus. Stare in amazement, clap in joy. ### Forgotten Ruin You know, I'm not really sure where to put this, because it straddles two or three different genres, and ultimately it's just full of madness. But I'm going to put it here, because the setting itself is literal **D&D**-like fantasy. It's a complicated one. ![[Forgotten Ruin - book (cover).jpg]] **[Forgotten Ruin](https://forgottenruin.com)**. Now I know what you're thinking. That's a dude in full special operator gear. How is this possibly a fantasy setting? And telling you exactly how it is a fantasy setting would require spoiling the plot. But take it from me, this is very clearly and very literally a strongly **D&D**-inspired world. And yes, an entire operating force of Army Rangers are dropped in the middle of this and have to do some real work. You want a hardcore, solid inspiration for my current thoughts about fantasy? This is it. Here you go. It's playing to all of my really enjoyable quirks. Bad things happen to good people. Guns go off with great regularity. Giants take Carl Gustaf rounds because Carl Gustaf don't care. This is awesome. Now, you would think that I would have to do some really significant hacking on an already excellent fantasy setting in order to make it work with this, but they've even saved me the trouble. There exists both **[[Forgotten Ruin - The Adventure Wargame|Forgotten Ruin: the Adventure Wargame]]**, and **[[Forgotten Ruin - the RPG|Forgotten Ruin: the RPG]]**, already put together and assembled. The first one uses Ivan Sorensen's 5X system, which is really quite nice, and the second one uses a mechanical architecture that I've never heard of,[^5] though there is a D20 version if you wanted to make yourself suffer. It's amazing. If you ever wanted to see a new take on fantasy, go for it. Now, is Nick Cole as good a writer as Michael Moorcock? No. This leans much more to the modern pulp style, rather than the 60s pulp style. Is he as good a writer as Stephen Donaldson? No. He doesn't use the word "clinch" nearly as often, but he does go on at ridiculous length about coffee and does have a tendency to repeat particular phrases several times before moving on to something else. You know what? I don't care either way. A writer's quirks are their signature on everything that they do. It's good stuff, and I am ready for the next book to come out in the series. No, the series is not done yet. You've got an excuse to jump on the train and travel along with all of us. ### Dragonslayer  Possibly one of the greatest influences on me for an understanding of traditional fantasy. It achieves it by subverting half of it—not visually, but structurally—and by its presentation of the real everyman hero. Sure, he's the apprentice of a mighty wizard who legitimately has great power, but he just looks like an everyday schlub and he's got trouble getting along in the day-to-day. It's that slice across the fantasy tropes that makes **Dragonslayer** so amazing. Plus, the visuals are incredible and well-composed. **Dragonslayer** is a top movie for fantasy inspiration for me. I make no excuses. ### Krull  This thing I have about mashing up fantasy and science fiction is not new. While you can't exactly date it back in my life to the first time that I watched **Krull**, it certainly wasn't hurt that it's an amazing movie with incredible visuals and a setting which does not follow the traditional fantasy tropes. It's clearly a science fiction story bolted on to the side of a fantasy world with a little bit of heist mixed into the entire thing. While there were things that obviously went before and helped inspire it, what it is transcends its influences, and I still think about it a lot today. ## Modern Well, while we're here and verging over into this space anyway, I might as well touch on some things that fall into the modern era. Now, this may not actually be quite as tight a list as the above, because there are a vast number of things set in the modern era of interesting stories. In fact, one could reasonably argue that most of them are. However, one of the most critical parts of modern influences on me has been horror, and much of this material is going to be horror-related. ### Lovecraftia  I feel as if it's not even worth bringing up [H.P. Lovecraft](https://www.hplovecraft.com) as a serious inspiration, but he's such a magnificently huge part of the way I think about media and the way I think about stories in general that it would be a vast disservice not to talk about him, plus the entire constellation of writers which touched on the Cthulhu Mythos at one point or another. They are many and varied as the stars, and cast as much light. There's no one thing to pick in this menagerie of nightmares because so much of it is interrelated, and so much of it is presented in the form of short stories or particularly poignant vignettes. It's a form of presentation I think we have fallen away from, much to our detriment. The obvious linkage is the classic RPG **[[Call of Cthulhu]]**, of course, but chunks of the Cthulhu Mythos influence wide swaths of the gaming universe. I am definitely not the greatest, nor the least, of the people, places, or things that Lovecraft's work has made a difference to. It would be a sad thing indeed, though, if I didn't point out that it's not all bleak, nightmarish, or failure being inevitable. Sometimes you get this.  **Re-Animator** is a fine reminder indeed that we don't need to be utterly serious all the time or completely po-faced within the field of modern horror. You can have fun with it, and it can still be horrific. If that's not an inspiration worth looking at, I don't know what is. ### Hunter S Thompson  I'm pretty sure that you are now looking at me more than slightly askance and wondering what the fuck does [Hunter S. Thompson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson) have to do with tabletop roleplaying games? And what kind of a sick mind would correlate **[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaving_Las_Vegas_(novel))** and modern gaming? Well, the answer to that is my kind of sick mind. There's a certain degree of authenticity that you need to play with in order to do gonzo journalism of the sort that Hunter S. Thompson enjoyed. You have to put yourself deeply into the moment, and you have to let the barriers between what is and what might be drop for that moment so that you can see what isn't real, but which is still true. You have to be able to play a character and understand that the character is not you, even though you're acting as it, and simultaneously take warning from Thompson in that you shouldn't let the character become you. Is this directly related to RPGs? No, but it is indicative of something that influences my mind when I'm thinking about modern gaming and modern setting RPGs. *What would Hunter S. Thompson say?* ### Naked Lunch We've gone Gonzo now, so there's no way for me not to hit the next landmark along the path in modern inspiration for me, and so we must, by necessity, talk about at least one work of [William S. Burroughs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs).  Naked Lunch was part of an oeuvre of movies, books, and other media which charted the ridiculous with the sublime, right next to the gonzo, the over-the-top, the truly mad, the surrealist. Threw it in a blender, hit purée, walked away for 30 minutes, and came back to the kitchen on fire. It was dark and moody and simultaneously charming and disarming while picking your pocket and leaving a syringe full of heroin. It also led to one of my favorite RPGs of all time, and a system whose mechanics I often refer to, even when not using them, **[[Over the Edge]]**.[^6] ## Sci-Fi Finally, we stumble into the place where I truly spend most of my time, and it's science fiction. The future is where I'm thinking and feeling every day, whether it be five minutes into the future so that we have near future elements, or 40,000 years down the way. It would be really easy to just link to my favorite RPGs that speak to the science fiction experience here, but I think that would actually be too easy. A lot of these are going to be movies, in part because it's easy to remind people of movies, and movies are easy to get to these days. But there are some seminal pieces of literature we probably ought to touch on first. ### Dune At a certain point, you just have to accept that one thing is really critical to your development as an aficionado of a genre and long-term as something deeply meaningful to you as a person. For me, that's [Frank Herbert's **Dune**](https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Dune_Wiki). ![[Dune - novels (cover).webp]] And yes, I do have all of those books with those covers on the shelf in my library. Mine are just about as worn and well-loved as the ones in that picture there. Come to think of it, they might be the books I have re-read the most times in a physical format. But why? And doesn't this really represent more of a science fantasy setting than science fiction? In my mind, no, even though there are definitely fantastic elements, including the evolutionary capabilities of man, the deeply retro-feudal imagery of the Empire, and the clash of houses. But ultimately, it's a story of man and his relationship to technology, even when that technology is not strictly mechanical. The technology of society. The technology of sociology. The technology of religion and belief. All of these are elements that are key and critical to understanding the story being told in **Dune**.  Yes, you're getting Kyle MacLachlan here because I think he's a superior Paul Atreides to Timothée Chalamet. Fight me. I also think this is a superior conversion of what is a vast and sprawling tale to a concise and consolidated movie than the massive three-part epic that's currently the namesake. Why, you might ask? Because you can't do this story without the Spacing Guild and understanding why it's important to the Spacing Guild. Plus, it has a far better Chani. Like the Spacing Guild, Chani is critical to the story, and if you can't get her or it right, you can't do the story. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules. That's just the way it happens. Can you tell I have strong feelings about this? That's how you know something's a massive influence. ### Bio of a Space Tyrant So we go from a massive, sprawling story about political intrigue and social impact on a galactic scale, and the next thing I want to talk about is some weird harem pulp from Piers Anthony. Who the hell loves **[Bio of a Space Tyrant](https://xanth.fandom.com/wiki/Bio_of_a_Space_Tyrant)**? Well, I do. ![[Bio of a Space Tyrant -Piers Anthony (covers).webp]] > The series is presented as a first-person autobiography of Hope Hubris, and the broad strokes of his life are painted from the earliest pages, including his status as a perceived tyrant and womanizer. It is clear from the introductions and epilogues that Hope died before the publication of his memoirs and that his career as military man, politician, executive and statesman was greatly misunderstood by the public, most notably his various affairs with women, which are a major focus of the series. I mean, the name of the character protagonist is *Hope Hubris*, so you can fully expect things to be both simultaneously on the nose and strangely off, because it's written by Piers Anthony, an author of no small talent. This might make more sense to know why I like it if you understand that it was originally given to me by one of my ex-girlfriends, who told me that I would find some really compelling parallels with my own life in that of Hope Hubris. No, she didn't mean that insultingly—that was flattery. I think it was flattery. Maybe it was an attempt to be comforting. Regardless, sort of like Raistlin and Elric, Hope is a character that deeply resonated with who I am. He collects people, though in his case it does tend to be almost overwhelmingly women. He's highly motivated. He doesn't let societal expectations of him choose his path forward. The world is large and complicated and political, and Anthony doesn't shy away from showing any of that, even within the context of what is explicitly a very pulp story. If you haven't read it, and odds are good that you probably haven't, see if you can get your hands on it. When I think about science fiction, I always have pulp in the back of my mind because pulp as a mechanism of story delivery has been so influential from the 30s and 40s forward. This series is one that really simply speaks to me and influences not just who I am but what I want out of my fiction. One element of the construction of **Bio of a Space Tyrant** is that it is truly solar science fiction, not inter-solar science fiction. The focus is very squarely on multiple cultural groups within the solar system itself. In many ways, I find that a more compelling choice on certain levels than something wider and more galactic. I won't say it's cozy and intimate, but I will say that it brings a certain familiarity to the topology of the narrative that you don't get elsewhere. ### Neuromancer I'm going to use a singular novel as a sort of proxy for an entire genre, which is not unusual. We do this all the time when we talk about the equivalent of Appendix N. It's one of the things that make it a useful concept. So let's talk about some William Gibson. ![[Neuromancer (cover).jpg|300]] While the cyberpunk genre is not solely dependent upon William Gibson to be its father, he certainly was one of the major influences which solidified it in the public consciousness. The novel **[Neuromancer](https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441007465)** was the sharp tip of the spear that made that happen. In it, you have Case, who is an ex-hacker just trying to get by in a world which is on permanent fast-forward. You have political machinations which involve artificial intelligences on both sides of the equation, manipulating the situation to their own advantage alongside a host of individuals doing exactly the same thing. You have a virtual world where vast amounts of commerce and entertainment come to play. You have private military companies out enforcing the corporate will alongside political forces. You have the beginning of a series of books which explore some of the darkest resources and highest aspirations of the human condition. Case was influential on me when I read it, not because he was a person to which I wanted to aspire to be like, but because I thought he was a character who I was already like. Not just representing a hero, but an explicit warning. Sometimes we need characters like that in our lives. The cyberpunk genre reflects my obsession with technology and how it can be applied, not just to erode lives, but to construct them. It serves as a reminder that you don't have to be the thing that you were made as—you can aspire to more. You can graft on things that expand your ability, both physically and intellectually. You can always change your mind about who you are today. Sometimes you can even change who you are—but that's less frequent, and less likely. A lot of it starts with **Neuromancer**. ### Robotech There was going to be anime on this list. You knew it. Just resign yourself to the fact and sit back to enjoy the ride.  There's probably going to be some more anime on this list after this one. You're just going to have to get over it. While I can't say that **[Robotech](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotech)** was the first anime that I ever saw, it is one of the first that I set aside time in my oh-so-busy young life to catch every single episode whenever it aired, whether I'd seen that episode or not. You kids who grew up during the modern era where you can watch anything you want, anytime you want, really have it cushy. You don't have to make appointment TV. **Robotech** is particularly important here because it is a set of coherent (mostly) narrative arcs which are assembled from original Japanese series that have nothing to do with one another. Why is that inspirational, you might ask? Because we do that all the time with RPGs. We take inspiration from a dozen different places and then we mash it together in our heads and turn it into something coherent—something that plays well with one another. Sometimes there are rough edges and places where the joins don't quite meet up. And when the whole thing gets moving, you can hear it rattling, shaking, and rubbing. But that's part of the charm, just like with Robotech. It also doesn't hurt that **Robotech** was one of the first RPGs I ever ran, for good or ill. Speaking of ill, there have been a lot of rundowns on how **Robotech** came to be, how it played out, and the complete mess on the back end that ensued, but I think this is a pretty solid explanation. It's only going to take you an hour and a half.  (For the record, the *Invid Invasion* is my favorite arc of the series, and I believe that the Cyclone is the best mech in the entire thing. Though I would also pilot a Beta in a heartbeat.) ### Star Blazers There are some shows that from the first notes of the theme, you are fully immersed in the memory of sitting down and watching that show. I think this probably qualifies very well for that list.  **[Star Blazers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Blazers)**, man. ***Star Blazers***. I was there when it started. I was there when the deep lore was written. I was there when it started airing in the U.S. And by God, I was there when that first series was done. If ever you were looking for the absolute perfect description of how to run an epic quest in science fiction, **Star Blazers** is that example. You start with a magnificent problem. You then figure out how you can even begin to tackle it. There's a ticking clock deadline. You head off and run into various problems along the way, some of which require you to divert from your original plan. Eventually, you get to the thing that will save the Earth, take care of it, and then head home. And along the way home, some more shenanigans ensue. Then you get home and the Earth is saved, and rebuilding can begin, both among the heroes and the world they left behind and returned to as saviors. That's it. That's the story. Now you know exactly why it's related to RPGs, because it is, in a sense, *every major quest story ever written*. It's not surprising that **[Space Battleship Yamato](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Battleship_Yamato)** has tons of retellings, spinoffs, and you name it. It is one of the most well-known and most beloved of science fiction stories. So it is here. ### Armored Trooper VOTOMS No Appendix N of mine would be complete without a reference to yet another giant robot classic (though giant may be somewhat debatable in this context). And yes, it's more anime.  **[Armored Trooper Votoms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_Trooper_Votoms)** brought some incredible visual styling and awesome mechanical design. Sure, it also brought a protagonist that is hot-headed, probably out of his depth half the time, and often succeeds due to sheer gumption and bullheadedness. On top of that, it layers in political machinations, moral grayness, and a cast of supporting characters who are simultaneously challenging and yet established tropes that will be played on for decades to come. You also get one of the early influencers for hard science in mecha anime. The designs are grounded, the technology feels as if it's possible, and beyond the obvious element to which you must drive your suspension of disbelief. Because of that emphasis on scientific plausibility, the rest of the story is pulled tighter together. Applicability to RPGs? Well, if you're not interested in the overarching quest plot structure and are looking for something that is more open-world, though not entirely so, the structure of Votoms is worth studying. Is it a perfect match? Absolutely not. But will you experience some awesome mecha combat, intricate storylines, and the occasional shocking twist along the way? You better believe it. Besides, without AT VOTOMS, we wouldn't have **Armor Hunter Mellowlink**, and the world would be worse off for it. If you haven't seen VOTOMS and Mellowlink, you should take time out of your busy schedule and work them in, because that is something else.  No, I don't think you understand how *badass* Mellowlink is.  ## Exunt I could have kept writing here for many more hours to come. My shelves are full of books, my folders are full of movies, and my history is full of influences which have made a difference to how I see tabletop roleplaying gaming and what it could be—what those stories could be driven by and what those characters could do. But at a certain point, you have to fold it up. Besides, I keep getting sucked into the rabbit holes associated with each of these pieces of media. And at some point, even I would like to make some dinner and have something to eat. Yes, I could have put the old standbys in here. **Star Wars**. **Star Trek**. I could have put **[Hammer's Slammers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer%27s_Slammers_series)** in, which is a property that some people might not recognize. There's the **[Night Watch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Watch_(Lukyanenko_novel))** series for modern horror. I didn't even scratch the surface of comic books or zombie films. Either one of those could be a 5,000-word article on their own. So sure, maybe it's not complete. But can any Appendix N ever truly be complete? As long as you live, as long as you keep finding things that you like, things that inspire you to create, the appendix is never full. There's always more to add. Hopefully, one or two things here have been added to yours. And if not, that's fine too. Just keep putting things in your own. Keep being inspired by others' work, and take every opportunity to inspire others. Make that inspire them in turn. [^1]: Plus, man, *the evil mage gets the girl!* How often do you get to say that? It's *glorious!* A triumph! [^2]: We'll get back to him later. [^3]: I've actually had dinner with him one year at DragonCon. The man takes his steak well done. If ever there was a reminder why the US split from the Brits, it's that one. [^4]: And that cover artwork is absolutely stunning. [^5]: **Super6** is pretty niche, even for me. [^6]: First or second edition only. Third edition you can take, turn sideways, and shove up your ovipositor. I have no interest in it.