Appendix A
Hopping on this little bandwagon put forward by Marcia B to talk about the things that inspire our RPG campaigns. When it comes to taking inspiration from media, I tend to look at approaches to world or game elements, themes or certain expressions of them, and motifs that appear throughout. Occasionally I'll pull on certain structures of events or in-fiction cultures, religions, factions etc, but it's rare that I just put something in wholesale and reskin it (though this is a valid approach in my opinion).
Literature
Malazan: Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson - This is a big one for me, it's my favourite book series and informs a lot of my approach to settings and tone. On the surface, it appears to be harsh and cruel world - and to an extent it very much is - but there's always a through-line of hope. Erikson's approach to theme throughout the series is something I find very inspiring, as he sort of writes around themes but rarely references them directly. Compassion, rebellion, the pursuit of power, and grief are major themes I pull from the series.
Also, the series is what started to get me interested in Science-Fantasy as a genre of Fantasy. The world of Malazan initially seems like it's a fairly "standard" Fantasy setting with a few interesting takes on old tropes, but there's some really cool elements to it like magic-techno dinosaurs with spaceship cities shaped like dragons that seem to come out of nowhere but are deeply rooted in the world's history.
The Zothique Cycle by Clark Ashton Smith - A recent discovery but one that has grabbed my brain wholesale and refuses to let go. Smith's stories and world are absolutely fascinating to me and really nail the kind of Science-Fantasy that I love. They are full of gameable hooks, 'The Dark Eidolon', 'The Weaver in the Vault', and 'The Voyage of King Euvoran' being great examples. That Smith wasn't included in the original Appendix N is baffling to me, since it seems to encapsulate a lot of what I understand early D&D to be drawing on.
The Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb - In stark contrast to Malazan's maximalist approach to setting, Hobb is a reminder that less is more and that's really what I take from her work more than any particular element. Cutting the fluff and laser focusing on the characters and the conflicts they're involved in pays off big.
Video Games
Dishonored - I fucking love this game, and I think it provides so much that you can steal for RPGs or learn from. The setup of the game is a perfect setup for an RPG campaign: the players are protectors of an important figure in the world who have failed in their task and been framed for it, get revenge and retrieve the important thing the bad guys stole. Even just the framing of it without the goal is a great setup if you don't want the campaign to have such a specific goal.
I learned a lot from this game about level design, what makes an interesting villain, and giving the players lots of options for completing tasks with no expectation or intent for how they might use it. Great stuff.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - While I also love Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask will forever have my heart and be a big source of inspiration for my RPGs. It's got the classic fantasy feel but it's also dark and weird. Another thing I love about it and carry forward into my games is that time is constantly moving, you can't just rest on your laurels, you need to act. I've been told before that my dungeon design feels a bit Zelda-esque and honestly, I take that as a compliment.
The Souls-borne Games - I know, I know, it's low-hanging fruit and everyone's kind of tired of it but bear with me. I was introduced to this series of games by Demon's Souls shortly after it released and I found it incredibly compelling, this has been true of many of the entries in the series since. However I'm not really interested in emulating its mechanics in tabletop nor do I try and make something "Souls-esque" in my games.
For me these games present incredible level design that serve as great inspiration for dungeons, and the way that narrative is layered through context and art direction has informed a lot of how I describe things. Establishing motifs in architecture, decoration, arms & armour, or even cultural mannerisms can do a huge amount of heavy lifting in conveying information without long exposition dumps. For a great example of this, take a look at how art history informs the architectural choices made in Elden Ring and how iteration gives a sense of history. These are very much small details my players rarely pick up on, but it helps me to make things consistent and believable.