The Campaign Builder's Guild

In the "Discourse of Fantasy" thread, much talk has been had of the influences that went into D&D.  As many will know, Gygax collected a list of his major influences in "Appendix N" of the DMG (Amazon also replicates the list with pretty cover pictures here).  This got me thinking about other creators' influences, and I was curious: what would your notional "Appendix N" be?  What works do you consider the most influential on your campaign creation?  What kind of stuff do you feel has had the biggest effect on the way you write, game, and build worlds?  Note that this isn't just a list of stuff you like, it's a list of things you actually feel have meaningfully impacted your campaign creation or that you actively channel, riff off, or borrow from.

I think mine would probably look like this:

Miéville, China.  The Bas-Lag series.
Peake, Mervyn.  The Gormenghast books.
Gibson, William.  The Sprawl trilogy.
Vance, Jack. The Dying Earth, Lyonesse.
Martin, George R.R. A Song of Ice and Fire.
Banks, Iain M.  The Culture novels.
Vandermeer, Jeff.  The Ambergris trilogy.
King, Stephen.  The Dark Tower series.
Ashton-Smith, Clark.  Zothique stories and others.
Milton, John.  Paradise Lost.
Lovecraft, H.P.
Poe, Edgar Allan.
James, M.R.
Wilde, Oscar.  The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Stoker, Bram.  Dracula
Warhammer 40000.
Thief: The Dark Project and Thief: The Metal Age.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
Planescape: Torment.
Fallout 1-3.
Firefly.
Norse mythology.

Pratchett, Terry Discworld, especially and particularly Guards! Guards, The Truth, Nightwatch, Going Postal, Thud!, and Making Money (Unseen Academicals and Snuff are deliberately omitted from that list; I read them; I enjoyed them; they don't have as much to do with the High Fantasy Urban thing I want to do with Terra Prima)
Campbell, Joseph The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Marv Wolfman, et al., Crisis on Infinite Earths
Bradley, Marion Zimmer The Firebrand (as I said somewhere in the research thread this novel helped inspire the direction I'm taking some parts of Terra)
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales (for these somehow their very existence has inspired me to put more effort into my world-building)
Black Sabbath "A National Acrobat"
Led Zeppelin "The Battle of Evermore"

A good question. It's difficult for me to answer specifically because each of my campaigns has a very specific set of influences, each of which are appropriate to that campaign and no other.

The campaign I currently run is a pregenerated adventure that I hack apart and splice in what I prefer, so one could say it is a bit aimless. (I would prefer that not be what is said about it, but since it is a pre-generated adventure, many of its influences are from its author's mind rather than my own).

e.g. this is a question I would like to answer, but I sadly cannot answer it in general terms.

Well, fair enough, although my list was a grab-bag from a bunch of my settings.  One could always do sub-appendices for different settings.

I draw from a lot of things that inspire me, but they vary from setting to setting. Artwork speaks louder to me than words, so most of my inspiration is drawn from pictures, but if there's anything that I pretty much universally look to, it would be the following:

Kidd, Tom. Kiddography, or any of his other art books
Gaiman, Neil. Stardust, Neverwhere, and the Sandman series all resonant pretty well with me, though I tend to love all his books.
Tan, Shaun. The Arrival
Jungian Psychology
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings is a classic.
Avatar, the Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra.
Myst 1 - 5
Final Fantasy VII - X
Magic: The Gathering, particularly the Zendikar and Ravnica sets.

I tend to like to mash things together, so I have a pretty diverse list.
Here's what I can think of as the main inspirations for Asura:

Vedic mythology
Greek mythology
Burroughs, Edgar Rice. A Princess of Mars (and some of the other Barsoom stuff)
Herbert, Frank. Dune
Resnick, Mike. Birthright: The Book of Man
Zelazny, Roger. Lord of Light
Norman, John. Tarnsman of Gor (the later books get really awful...)
Stargate - the movie; to a lesser extent SG-1 and Atlantis
Star Wars - Mostly the original trilogy
Phantasy Star - Especially 2 and 4
Final Fantasy - Especially IV, V, and VI
Warhammer 40000
Art Deco and Raygun Gothic architecture

And, of course, White Wolf's World of Darkness and Exalted, if other RPG influences count.

Quote from: WeaveMyst 1 - 5

Very interesting, Weave.  I've only played Myst and Riven, but I loved them to bits (I should really get around to playing the others).  How do you feel the games most affect your writing/world-building?  Is it the adventure game puzzle stuff?  The "books-as-magic" thing (you've got a setting with magical ink, right?)?  The island imagery?  Or something more intangible?

Quote from: Steerpike

Quote from: WeaveMyst 1 - 5

Very interesting, Weave.  I've only played Myst and Riven, but I loved them to bits (I should really get around to playing the others).

Myst and Riven are definitely the best two of the series, with Riven taking the top spot for me out of all of them. Exile, or Myst 3, is also really excellent, though honestly Myst IV and V are a little bit of a let down by comparison (I'd rank them Riven, Myst I, Exile, Myst V, and Myst IV). The stories in the last two aren't nearly as compelling and the ages aren't as cohesive.

QuoteHow do you feel the games most affect your writing/world-building?  Is it the adventure game puzzle stuff?  The "books-as-magic" thing (you've got a setting with magical ink, right?)?  The island imagery?  Or something more intangible?

Myst is something I've tried to emulate in settings, but the very nature of playing a group of adventurers (or whatever) in such settings seems to undermine the atmosphere Myst creates. The feeling of being alone, exploration, the eerie music, the fantastic landscape and puzzles are all things that might characterize implications or features in the Stranger's journey, but are things that PCs will generally overlook, not care about, or find alternative means of solving (the Stranger can't make a "jump check" to reach the other landing, he must first solve the clock spinning puzzle to extend the short bridge so he can cross). I think successfully conveying the atmosphere of the Myst games is most difficult, so I usually try to emulate other things, like the imagery of ancient, woefully silent ruins of abandoned civilizations, the strange, fantastic architecture of other worlds, and the cohesion of old technologies and life before the PCs got there. The little details in Riven: the frog catching mechanism, the short cutscenes of the fauna, the book burning furnace, the boiler that illustrates how they boil their heat-phobic water - basically anything in Gehn's office or the school in Riven, are all small details that ultimately (with the exception of the frog trap) do nothing to help the player beat the game, but show them in small instances the intricacies of the world they're exploring and that the places they're visiting are or once were living, functional, and cohesive places.

I do have a setting called Opus that has magical ink and some minor thematic similarities to Myst, but even then when I tried to capture the books-as-magic thing I stumbled upon something more interesting and ended up moving away from Myst-themed things into, well, different stuff. I see that as a good thing, because I started seeing my setting less as a "Myst-like setting" and more like an "Opus-like setting." I still appreciate that Myst and my other inspirations allowed me to use them as a springboard into others, even if now the two look nothing alike.

Slightly similar to Sparkle's list, I guess:

Hindu/Buddhist mythology
Greek Mythology
Norse Mythology
Chinese Mythology
Celtic/Arthurian Mythology
Persian Mythology
Gnosticism
Frank Herbert (Dune)
Brent Weeks (Night Angel, Black Prism)
Daniel Abraham (Long Price)
Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn)
Babylon 5
The Legacy of Kain (video games), and probably other dark fantasy video games I'm forgetting
Magic: The Gathering
The Riddle of Steel

Plus history, music, and architecture

Quote from: khyron1144
Pratchett, Terry Discworld, especially and particularly Guards! Guards, The Truth, Nightwatch, Going Postal, Thud!, and Making Money (Unseen Academicals and Snuff are deliberately omitted from that list; I read them; I enjoyed them; they don't have as much to do with the High Fantasy Urban thing I want to do with Terra Prima)
Campbell, Joseph The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Marv Wolfman, et al., Crisis on Infinite Earths
Bradley, Marion Zimmer The Firebrand (as I said somewhere in the research thread this novel helped inspire the direction I'm taking some parts of Terra)
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales (for these somehow their very existence has inspired me to put more effort into my world-building)
Black Sabbath "A National Acrobat"
Led Zeppelin "The Battle of Evermore"

I've decided to separate this out a little by setting and expand it.

Terra
Pratchett, Terry Discworld, especially and particularly Guards! Guards, The Truth, Nightwatch, Going Postal, Thud!, and Making Money (Unseen Academicals and Snuff are deliberately omitted from that list; I read them; I enjoyed them; they don't have as much to do with the High Fantasy Urban thing I want to do with Terra Prima)
Bradley, Marion Zimmer The Firebrand (as I said somewhere in the research thread this novel helped inspire the direction I'm taking some parts of Terra)
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales (for these somehow their very existence has inspired me to put more effort into my world-building)

Blood of Tyrants
Marv Wolfman, et al., Crisis on Infinite Earths
Knowles, Christopher: Our Gods Wear Spandex
Squadron Supreme
J. Michael Straczynski, Rising Stars

Island City
Black Sabbath "A National Acrobat"
Led Zeppelin "The Battle of Evermore"
Hamilton, Laurel K.  Obsidian Butterfly, Circus of the Damned, Burnt Offerings
Gaiman, Neil Coraline and also the film versions of Stardust and MirrorMask
Labyrinth
The Dark Crystal


Everything
Campbell, Joseph The Hero With a Thousand Faces

As far as fantasy games,  I like to think that history has a big part but that's not really true.  I do look to history as a crude guide when I build a world but beyond that, it is not a huge factor.  I don't list off a bunch of authors and books.  I do enjoy books, I just don't read as much as some.  As a dyslexic, I am very visual so naturally movies have the bigger influence on my work.  The ones from my youth more so. 

Here is a list of sword and sorcery movies that influenced my early fantasy gaming experience. 

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
The Beastmaster (1982)
The Blade Master (1984)
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Conan the Destroyer (1984)
The Dark Crystal (1982)
Deathstalker (1983)
Dragonslayer (1981)
Erik the Viking (1989)
Excalibur (1981)
Fire and Ice (1983)
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)
Hawk the Slayer (1980)
Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Krull (1983)
Labyrinth (1986)
Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Ladyhawke (1985)
Legend (1986)
The NeverEnding Story (1984)
Ninja Scroll (1996)
The Princess Bride (1987)
Red Sonja (1985)
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982)
Sword of the Valiant (1984)
Troll (1986)
Vampire Hunter D (1985)
Warlock (1989)
Willow (1989)


As for sci-fi gaming, here is a list for that.

A Boy and his Dog
Alien
Aliens
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Black Hole, The
Blade Runner
Blood of Heroes
Cyborg
Damnation Alley
Dune (1984)
Hardware
Hell Comes to Frogtown
Last Man on Earth, The
Last Starfighter, The
Logan's Run
Mad Max
Mad Max II – The Road Warrior
Omega Man, The
Outland
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Predator
Robocop
Soylent Green
Steel Dawn
Tank Girl
Thing, The
Threads
Trancers
Ultimate Warrior, The
Vampire Hunter D
Videodrome
Westworld
Wizards
Zardoz


Over the years I have ripped ideas from every movie listed above.  And no, I don't feel bad about it at all :P

All right! Somebody else has seen Trancers and Wizards

Quote from: khyron1144
All right! Somebody else has seen Trancers and Wizards

hehehehehe  Not only did I see them, I loved them and ripped off parts for games :)

I don't think I've chimed in here yet.  I'm only going to list major fantasy influences for now.

In no specific order . . .

Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit
The Silmarillion
The Dresden Files
A Song of Ice and Fire
Dark Souls
Diablo I, II & III
Titan Quest
Hexen
Willow
The Illiad
Paradise Lost
House of Flying Daggers
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Dungeons & Dragons
Forgotten Realms
Dragonlance
Ravenloft
Ringu
Ju On
Reincarnation
Warhammer
Mortal Kombat
The Forbidden Kingdom
Fearless
The Odyssey
Jason and the Argonauts
Norse Mythology in general