I want to organise my thoughts on some things I want to read and write about as I go. I've been digging into the history of TTRPGs lately and I realised how out of the loop I am on material that inspired the games I love and play with. I'm very fond of old school tabletop games - I'm developing my own, even! - and, despite this, I haven't read most of the things that lead to their creation. I want to change that and report back here as I get reading and watching older fantasy. Some of this list are things I've experienced before (I read almost half of the discworld novels in highschool) but much of it will be for the first time. I'm open to suggestions, as well, as this list
Writing
A lot of the things here are going to be things that were swimming around the either at the dawn of TTRPGs thanks to the paperback boom of the 60s and 70s.
Current plans include:
Robert E Howard
JRR Tolkien
Jack Vance
Michael Moorcock
Terry Pratchett
Anne McCaffrey
Fritz Leiber
Films
I was surprised in my reading of early D&D to realise the vast majority of films that one might consider part of the canon of fantasy films came out after the 1974 release of the original whitebox. Somehow before I actually sat down with the 3LBB (the Little Brown Books of the core set), it just hadn't hit me that the boom came in the late 70s and into the 80s. It does make sense though. Someone pointed out to me that they were products of the same source - folks who read the paperbacks in highschool had grown up and were making art of their own.
The animated Middle Earth films
Conan
Hawk the Slayer
Ladyhawke
Dragon Slayer
Labyrinth and Dark Crystal
A dozen or so Sword & Sorcery Movies (Sword & the Sorcerer, Barbarians, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom, Ator, Beastmasters, etc.)
Uh...
You know, there are just not THAT many 70s-90s high fantasy films. I would very much appreciate suggestions. I've already watched and rewatched quite a few of these but I love movies and I'd do it all again.
Once the move goes through (just over 24 hours now...) I'll start reading and share my thoughts as I go!