Your roleplaying influences ?

[soltakss]

I couldn't even try and point to a single influence of even a group of them.

I've always loved fantasy, even as a small child, reading Fairytales, then Narnia and so on. We read the Hobbit in Junior School, when I was about 8, and I loved it. Then I read all the fantasy books in the school library at the next school. I loved Moorcock and bought everything I could find of his, read a lot of Tolkein, went through series after series of fantasy and Science Fiction and so on. There were two series of books I read that really gripped me, one was about a Mongolian boy who kept to the old faith rather than the new Islamic one, the other was about a Viking warrior which was very moving in parts (He was attacked by a berserker at some docks, the berserker threw off his shirt and charged him, but recognised him as one of his closest friends at the last minute, he came out of the berserk rage to greet his friend when his friend went into a berserk rage and cut him down. )

As for films and TV series, I've watched so many it's unbelievable. Robin of Sherwood was important becasue it had a mystical/magical element and was more thoughtful than most. There was a very gritty Arthurian series in the 70s that influenced me and I prefer grittier settings. But, things like Xena, Hercules, the the Ivanhoe series (Dark Knight?) and even the moderen Robin Hood series are all good fun and show that you needn't be serious all the time. The Water Margin, and later Princess Wu, were fantastic and opened up a whole avenue of historical fantasy. Jason and the Argonauts was really good, there were also a host of Italian swords-and-sandals movies that were very gritty. Princess Bride was a RQ scenario written as a movie, in my opinion, and I still watch it when it comes on TV.

So, too many influences, all merged into one.

[Jason Durall]

Greek and Norse myth

Comic books, particularly early Marvel and DC Comics

A decades-strong collection of National Geographic and many of their hardcover books

A huge hardcover edition of Little Nemo in Slumberland

Creature Feature, Kung-Fu Theater, etc.

Novels and stories by REH, ERB, JRRT, CS Lewis, Karl Edward Wagner, Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, CJ Cherryh, etc.

The Worm Oroboros, by ER Eddison

Extensive travels across the US, and six years living in Japan and exploring SE Asia, northern Europe, etc. during that time.

[Nightshade]

My gaming influences run very broadly, but probably the strongest are the Hero System (which I had a roundabout influence on the design of) and Runequest; in recent years I've developed an appreciation of some aspects of less gamist/simulationist designs in some areas, but those two are still pretty much the core in terms of defining what I want out of a system.

In terms of non-gaming material, I was an STTOS fan and a big fan of 50's and 60's SF/monster movies (I still can enjoy rewatching the better ones like Forbidden Planet, Them, The Day the Earth Stood Still or The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms). In books, I was a classic era SF reader (your Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov and the like), and my fantasy tastes were probably shaped by Andre Norton more than any other writer. I was also a Silver Age DC and (later) Marvel fan.

[Kloster]

Books:
Jules Vernes
Conan Doyle (Holmes and Pr Carpenter)
HG Wells
REH (Especially Solomon Kane and Conan)
Moorcock
Jack Vance
Poul Anderson
John Brunner
Roger Zelazny
Philip K. Dick
Tolkien
Doc Savage
Lot of Alan Moore comics
Some classical SF authors (Van Vogt, EE Doc Smith, Asimov, Heinlein)

Movies:
Apocalypse Now
Excalibur
Jason and the Argonauts
Soylent Green
The 1st 3 movies by Ridley Scott
Almost everything by John Carpenter
Monty Python


Games:
Hero
RQ
Shadowrun

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[punc_e]

I don't play in other peoples' games as much as I run my own, but in D&D I tend to play melee specialists and thus Robert E. Howard is one of the biggest influences on how my characters act.

As a GM, I try to watch other GMs at work as much as possible, study their methods and assimilate what I like into my own style. Thus my GMing style is primarily based on my friends Rob and Jeff, which is funny because they're complete opposites. Jeff plays fast and loose with the rules, preferring to tell a good story, while Rob was somewhat slavish to the rules.

[camazotz]

When I was ten, I was gifted basic D&D by my parents, but failed to "get" it until a month later when I found Gamma World 1st. It was all down hill from there. During that time, I had just discovered Robert E. Howard, Tolkien, Lovecraft and Piers Anthony's Xanth. Subsequent influences at that young age included Robert Aspirin's Myth Adventures and Philip Jose Farmer.

Now, the overall influences on my gaming habit are too numerous to count, but I can look back and see trends in my "younger" days. When I went to college in 1989, for example, I studied anthropology and archaeology. My games and campaigns were suddenly much more tightly defined, and I ran adventures where the ancient past was more involving, or where historical elements became very important.

I also had a new round of "profoundly influencing" authors, who contributed to a more surreal and darker approach to many games, including Hunter Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Tim Powers and Neal Stephenson. These guys still influence me as much as Howard, Farmer and Lovecraft do.

These days, I'm probably most influenced by the new-wave science fiction of Ian Banks, Jack McDevitt, and Charles Stross. I'm also very happy with the state of modern horror fiction as defined by Brian Keene, Simon Clark, and others. Of course, now I've reached the point where I really can't tell you if my taste in fiction is inspired by my gaming habits or vice versa....it all seems to have melded just a bit to much!

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by camazotz

When I was ten, I was gifted basic D&D by my parents, but failed to "get" it until a month later when I found Gamma World 1st....

Metamorphosis Alpha?

Sorry, had to ask.

[Triff]

Biggest influence was probably my mother who works as a librarian and brought home countless books she read for me, and which I continued to read as I grew up. I particularily read a lot of viking books, but also fondly remember a norwegian sci-fi book series about a great library ship that travelled from planet to planet and traded in information.

SGL.

[Shaira]

Influences? Now that IS tricky - it's a pretty wide field!

I'd say the things that primed me for getting into RPGs in the first place (I was 12 when I started) were, in no particular order:

- Lord of the Rings
- The Narnia books
- The King Arthur stories
- "A Wizard of Earthsea", Ursula Le Guin
- Beowulf (the Rosemary Sutcliffe version)
- Star Wars
- Star Trek
- The Time Machine
- Marvel Comics (esp Hulk, Fantastic Four)
- Doctor Who
- Enid Blyton (I know - incredible to cite, but I'm sure her "Adventure" series gave me a yen to go charging off into the blue in search of danger and adventure, and her "Enchanted Wood / Faraway Tree" books gave me a liking for elves, fairies, and Things That Live At The Bottom Of The Garden!)

Since starting RPGs, my influences have been (and this works two ways - my reading & movie-going influences my RPGs, and vice versa):

- Tolkien in general
- Conan
- Moorcock
- Cthulhu
- HG Wells
- Joseph Campbell
- Dune
- Gene Wolfe
- Larry Niven
- Blade Runner (the movie)
- history of ancient world, roman empire, mediaeval europe, Japan
- more Star Trek
- readings around religion, occult, etc
- interest in astrophysics
- interest in languages

That's all kind of weird when you try to write it down . I would definitely say though that RPGs themselves - and the inquisitive approach to world culture that they inspire - have been a very large influence in themselves in my life. Those funny little dice have a lot to answer for!

[PK Games]

Movies: Beastmaster, Excalibur, Conan, Clash of the Titans, Legend, Lady Hawk, Universal Soldier.

Books: JRRT, ERB, REH, HPL, some early Dragonlance, Avatar Trilogy.

College: Minored in medieval history, Im sure thats been a big influence.

My biggest influence as far as games go is my long quest to get into super hero games. First experience was adapting various palladium games (TMNT, Ninjas & Superspies, After The Bomb Series, Palladium Fantasy) into my own Supers setting. That was ruined when I got Heroes Unlimited. Then I got Marvel Heroes, Champions, Heroes & Heroines, Superworld and finally hit Jack Pot with DC Heroes.

As far as super hero game styles go, Im highly influenced by the multipart long cross over super events of the 90s. Knightfall, Doomsday, Clone Saga, Operation Galactic Storm. Basically I like to set up future plots well in advance, and run more then one gaming group and occassionally do cross over adventures.