10 my lesser known Appendix N notations

Everybody knows Appendix N from the 1979 DMG. Its the seminal list of D&D inspirations penned by the late, great Gary Gygax himself. You can see the list here .

Now for those of us who started gaming later, there are often very different inspirations. Here are some of my oddball ones

#1 Smurfs.

Yes Smurfs particularly the Johan and Peewit material. Its basically a straight across the board D&D world set in kinda sorta, Europe with a Fighter (Johan) a Rogue (Peewit) with a goat animal companion and plenty of NPC spell casters. Even Gargamel is very D&D, an obsessed low charisma alchemist with a cat familiar.

#2 Gor.

You know John Norman's Sword and Planet BDSM misogyny epic. Once you dig past the rubbish, there is quite a bit of useful material there and parts of Gorean slavery (influencing the bad guys) and city states showed up in my game much as Tarn (riding rocs) did in Dave Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign.

#3 Starcraft

A misunderstood phrase from the game helped create two major cultures. That a rather long story for another time though.

#4 Dune.

Face Dancers, Ghola and Prana/Bindu show up under other names in various
places as does the Freman warrior ethos.

#5 Pirates of Dark Water

This phenomenal animation series inspired the Shan people and other things.

#6 Earthsea

A decently well known series that inspired some of the world layout and the Shan peoples as well.

#7 Thundarr

Technically post apocalypse science fantasy the kinetic energy of the show, its monsters and an occasional call of Lords of Light or Demon Dogs might be heard.

#8 Terminator

There is one Marv Stu, in this case a very good friends character back from when were very young that has a connection.

#9 Swashbuckler

The 1976 movie. It has much of everything a movie needs including swordplay and true love

and last but not least

#10 Paradoxes of Defense

This is the famous book on weapons by George Silver and long before the Internet days I had a hard copy reprint. Its information on actual swordplay lifted much of my ignorance and gave me tools to run combat. As time went on, the desire for realism (hey it was the 80's everyone was doing it) lifted but I still understood how things really worked. This just made fantasy better.

So there you have 10 Appendix N notations. How about sharing yours ...