One of the great things about Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is the re-emergence of recommending reading lists. The new lists (Appendix E in the Player’s Handbook, Appendix D in the Dungeon Master’s Guide) are patterned after Gary Gygax’s legendary Appendix N from the original 1st edition AD&D DMG.
It’s a welcome return to form, and it led me to search the web for people who’ve extended or reviewed the original Appendix N, or gone out and built one of their own. My goal is to write a “Summon Webscryer” column for Knights of the Dinner Table on this topic, but I’ve been coming up a few posts short.
Here’s what I have so far:
- The 100-book Appendix N Reading List: Martin Ralya’s fully built out version of Appendix N, which includes every book from every series that Gary Gygax mentioned. See also: Other Appendices N and Reading Appendix N and this GoodReads list inspired by Ralya’s work.
- Advanced Readings in Dungeons & Dragons: Tor’s impressive blogging series dedicated to reading every book on Gygax’s list (and they actually pulled it off).
- Grognardia: Appendix 2.0 A comparison of the original Appendix X with Gygax’s updated appendix from Mythus Magick.
- Listmania:
Gygax’s AD&D Appendix N: Inspirational and Educational Reading: An Amazon list of books taken from the DMG, for your shopping pleasure. - Modern Appendix N: A blog inspired by Appendix N that discusses a variety of sources for inspiring your game including games, movies, and miniatures.
Looking over these lists I realize I haven’t read nearly as many as I thought I had. I’ve read H.P. Lovecraft (Cthulhu Mythos) and J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings), Jack Vance (Tales of the Dying Earth), Michael Moorcock (Stormbringer), Robert E. Howard (Conan short stories and novellas), and Roger Zelazny (Amber), but I’ve still never read Fritz Lieber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series nor any of the fantasy books by Poul Anderson and Fred Saberhagen (though I have read multiple books from their science fiction series). I’ll also freely admit that some of these authors — like Leigh Brackett, August Derleth, and Gardner Fox — are unknown to me. I’m thinking that’s something I should start to remedy with 2015’s summer reading list.
Know of an Appendix N-inspired blog post, wiki entry, or podcast that fits the my list? Please email me at nuketown@gmail.com or post a comment.