#rpg reboot

[prokopetz]

Indvisable tabletop RPG premise #137: solo journaling game where.. okay, you know that serialised boys' adventure schlock from the 1930s and 1940s where the writers needed the otherwise intensely homosocial male leads to be seen hanging out with girls in order to prove that they're not gay, but they didn't want to include more than one female character, so they'd have just the one girl and sort of imply-without-ever-directly-stating that she's dating all of them at once? Solo journaling game where you take on the role of that girl.

[rubberhosetoons]

Animaniacs RPG anyone?

If y’all are interested what should I make next?

[lifextime]

Tomb Raider | 400x640 |

[greywardenmonkey]

which, when you consider that, actually completely disregards every worldstate in which zevran is killed upon meeting the warden. dead zevran means no going crazy on the crows later, so then that means there is no reason for nice crows anywhere, unless some other random freedom fighter rose up sometime and started wiping them out

me: i sure hope the crows are not gonna be solely depicted in veilguard as a brave force who 'fight for all' when they are at their core a criminal organization who is known to buy children to indoctrinate them and turn them into assassins, by putting them in overcrowded warehouses and making them fight for scrapes in order not to starve, to later torture those who reach adulthood to finish their initiations and kill them anyways if they dare to try getting out

bioware: i cooka da pizza

[mzcain27]

GAMEBOY DONKEY KONG REBOOT. ORIGINAL TOMB RAIDERS. GAMEBOY DONKEY KONG REBOOT

[300iqprower]

I miss Shiowaka so much

That i wouldnt know about since I wasnt around for much of-

"Creative director of Dissidia FInal Fantasy"

...Well shit I miss him too I guess.

[rookinthecrownest]

I think the thing that Gets Me about Veilguard is just how much of an impossible task it had heaped on it from EA from the start of its inception.

It’s arguably supposed to be a soft reboot for the series while ALSO being a follow up to Inquisition. These are two fundamentally incompatible goals in my opinion. This game had to walk the most insane line of any video game in recent memory. I guess EA wanted to have their cake and eat it too.

And the more I think about it the sadder I become for the original team who worked on Joplin. From what I’ve seen of the art book, Joplin was going to be about as firm a sequel to DAI as you could get - with references to rescuing whoever was left in the Fade, having Calpernia and Imshael as companions, having to fight Solas’ agents, etc.

Then EA makes them scrap it for live service. Fine. But wait - now we’re scrapping it again. Back to single person RPG but you also kind of need to distance yourself from the previous games as much as possible while still somehow being a follow up to the previous game.

New setting, few returning companions, and new Big Bads in the form of Elgarnan and Ghilanain to get a clean slate. Any mention of what’s happening in the South (where we spent 3 whole games!) needs to be relegated to letters and codex. ** I dont have the art book yet, so I dont know if these two were supposed to appear in Joplin beside Solas - or if Solas was supposed to be the sole antagonist in that iteration of the game.

But.. I hope you see what I mean when I say this game had a monumentally, borderline impossible task ahead of it. And when I think of it that way, I think it did as good a job as it possibly could. Especially since the actual development time was closer to 3ish yrs to get what we know of as datv today even though it’s been 10 whole years since DAI.

I hope it’s successful enough to get DA5, but who know’s what’ll happen.

I wish everyone except the EA execs who meddled with this game’s development and are seemingly trying to kill dragon age a pleasant day. I have a cynical detective I need to romance 😔

[hardcoded-gaming]

OMG, has anyone made a Reboot-based RPG?!

Each round lasts six nanoseconds.

Keep complaining and it'll be six attoseconds.

[felassan]

Article from Bloomberg by Jason Schreier, under a cut due to length.

"New ‘Dragon Age’ Game Faced Turbulent Development The studio head of EA’s BioWare says ‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’ received nothing but support from EA throughout its lengthy production cycle EA’s BioWare label hopes to find redemption with the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard Today we’re getting in-depth on the new Dragon Age game A new age for dragons In late 2020, when Gary McKay took over as studio head of BioWare, the Electronic Arts Inc. subsidiary best known for making big roleplaying games, the climate was dire. BioWare, which is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, had released two critically panned games and was facing turbulent development on a new one — while trying to cope with a worldwide pandemic. “We needed to shift how we were thinking about building our games,” McKay told me in a recent interview. BioWare, founded in 1995 and purchased by EA in 2007, had won over millions of fans with hit single-player RPG franchises such as Dragon Age and Mass Effect. But a 2017 entry called Mass Effect: Andromeda was widely panned, and the studio’s next game, the 2019 multiplayer shooter Anthem, flopped both critically and commercially. Both games had also gone through brutal development cycles that drove many BioWare veterans to exit the studio. At the end of 2020, studio boss Casey Hudson was planning to step down and called McKay to ask if he would take over. “We had a few conversations over the course of the next month around the people and the culture,” McKay said. BioWare’s next big project would be a new game in the popular fantasy Dragon Age franchise. But the game, which had been in development for years, was facing turmoil and had been rebooted from a single-player game into a live-service game with a heavy multiplayer component, which EA had been pushing across many of its subsidiaries in the late 2010s. Hudson, too, was interested in multiplayer games and had been the lead visionary on Anthem. Some employees jeeringly referred to the next Dragon Age as “Anthem with dragons,” which worried fans after I reported on the game at Kotaku. Enthusiasts of the series wanted another single-player game, not a repeat of BioWare’s biggest mistake. When he took over, McKay began to feel similarly. “We were thinking, ‘Does this make sense, does this play into our strengths, or is this going to be another challenge we have to face?’” McKay said. “No, we need to get back to what we’re really great at.” In the months that followed, McKay met with leadership across BioWare and EA and ultimately decided to reboot the next Dragon Age a second time, pivoting back to single-player."

The choice was obvious in many ways. Anthem had flopped while EA’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, a single-player action-adventure game, had sold more than 10 million copies, helping prove to the publisher that not all of its games needed to be online. BioWare games were popular because of their focus on character dialogue and player-driven narrative decisions, which did not mesh with multiplayer gaming. “Once we made that decision, a lot of things started to fall into place,” McKay said. In the years that followed, he would go on to consolidate more of the studio’s projects, shutting down an attempt to reboot Anthem and selling off the rights to the online game Star Wars: The Old Republic to a separate studio. The goal, McKay said, was “focus.” BioWare then spent the next three-and-a-half years developing what would become Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the fourth game in the franchise. Out this week, the game has received mostly positive reviews and so far topped charts, although EA has not yet revealed sales numbers. Some things went right during development. McKay said they “had the game end-to-end playable” earlier than any previous BioWare product, allowing them to spend extra time iterating. A reorganization at EA, which split the company into divisions called EA Games and EA Sports, allowed Dragon Age: The Veilguard to receive more support from internal teams that might otherwise be stretched thin, such as research and data insights groups. “That gave us an extra boost in terms of the support and focus from the company,” McKay said. But the development of Dragon Age: The Veilguard still faced plenty of obstacles. The pandemic led BioWare to shift to hiring remotely, which McKay said made for cultural challenges. The game slipped past its original target date, although McKay wouldn’t say how much extra time it needed. “I’m never going to call it a slip,” he said. And it went through significant scope changes over the course of development. Then, last summer, BioWare laid off 50 people, including veterans with decades of experience. McKay told me the reduction, which arrived during a period of widespread layoffs across the video-game industry, “was all about focus at that time.” “When you have a really large team, you’re always compelled to keep everybody busy all the time,” he said. “When you have a smaller team, you have the right people in the right roles at the right time, some incredible momentum is gained at that point.” The stakes are high for the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Fans and pundits have worried that a third failure in a row might have devastating results for BioWare. McKay wouldn’t comment on the specifics of what would make the game a hit in their eyes. But said he has felt supported by EA Entertainment & Technology President Laura Miele. The game is so important to BioWare’s future that the company brought in its second team, which has been incubating a new Mass Effect, to help out during the final stretch of development. The Mass Effect team played a major role in finishing and polishing Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Other companies across EA, such as its Motive studio in Montreal, also supported the game. Now, the company will look to see how players react to the next Dragon Age — and, McKay hopes, “bring BioWare back into the conversation as a top game studio.”

[source]

[hillbillyoracle]

How to Create Downtime Menus

As a lot of my posts are, this one was inspired by a conversation with my partner. She seemed to think some of my ideas were helpful so I thought I'd write them up and share them here.

I use a combination of these ideas to do two things - redirect myself when I get stuck doomscrolling/freezing/obsessing and redirect myself when I'm stuck on the "must be good, must be productive" hamster wheel and can't seem to stop doing chores until I'm fucking exhausted or have pushed/hurt myself. Knowing you need to stop is one thing - knowing what to do instead is another.

Not all of these will work for every person at every time. Pick one or two that seem interesting and give them a whirl.

Habit of the Month

This is a small habit I can do in about 5-10 minutes a day. These are sometimes habits that I want to audition for my lineup or just want to focus on as a way of rebooting a given area of my life. Physical habits have been things like stretching, a walk, putting on moisturizer, drinking water, making tea, etc. Emotional habits have been things like stream of consciousness journaling, bullet journaling, recording myself venting, etc. Spiritual habits have been things like meditating, altar work, reading sutras, tarot readings, etc.

If I'm stuck in a loop and I haven't done that task yet, it serves as an easy win that feels moderately meaningful to accomplish. This is easier to do than longer or less interesting tasks.

Side Quests

These are little challenges I'd like to accomplish that are 100% fun and completely optional. They are specific and can me completed within a given time frame - usually a month. They usually aren't the most meaningful to keep them more fun and so I'm not letting myself down if I don't opt to complete it.

They've been things like:

The Minor Expert Challenge - read three books in one subject

The Kanopy Critic Challenge - use up all of my Kanopy credits that month

The Regal Freegal Challenge - download all the albums/songs I can on Freegal that month

The Monthly Playlist Challenge - create a playlist of the month where each song represents something about each day of that month; like a playlist diary

The Reverse Tarot Draw Challenge - pick/list a tarot card you best think represents each day of a given month or other time period; like a tarot card diary

The 100 Words Challenge - learn 100 words in a foreign language

As you can see, I prefer things that are pretty low energy friendly so I can work on them on days I'm super tired. Just little chronic illness things.

Alphabet Lists

I use these for my cleaning routines actually but I also have been trying them with my downtime. The way it works is you list out the alphabet and choose one self care or hobby task you'd like to do for each. They don't have to start with the same letter, it just serves as an easy way to limit how many you pick and keep track of what you've done. It's satisfying to cross off the whole list.

Tasks I put on these are things like

A - paint my nails

B - crochet a charity hat

C - write 5 letters for Letters Against Isolation

D - send a letter to a friend

E - play a solo rpg

F - play a solo board game

G - complete a puzzle

etc

They're fun tasks I'm not currently doing as often as I'd like but chill enough that it doesn't matter when precisely I do them more often. I try to pick tasks that are roughly 30 minutes to an hour long though some definitely take longer. I like to complete these roughly monthly but I try to complete a whole list before I start it again. Anything I just did not feel like doing and kept skipping gets scratched out and I rewrite a new list with new item to replace those. And I start again.

Whenever I'm like ugh I don't know what to do with myself, I try to pick at least one thing on the list and give it a try for 5 minutes. If I don't like it after that I can just put it away and pick something else.

10x10

10x10 lists are a different take on a similar idea. It's a list of 10 things you'd like to do at least 10 times in a given time period. Mine tend to be on the seasonal or annual timescale but maybe you're intense and prefer a monthly one. If I don't complete them in a given time period, I just continue with it until I'm done. Better to complete it on an altered timeline than not at all.

For me these tend to be slightly bigger tasks that take a little more planning or energy. I'm not totally sure why I use them this way since you could definitely use them for smaller tasks but that's just the space they occupy for me.

So examples of what would be on my list would be things like:

Grab a hot chocolate from the coffee shop (x10)

Complete a PokemonGo event (x10)

Have a spa night and watch a movie (x10)

Do something extra nice for my partner (x10)

Try a new game (x10)

Find a geocache (x10)

etc

Filing up a little 10x10 grid is pretty satisfying. Much more so than anxietying myself into my bed for the equivalent amount of time.

Seasonal Bucket Lists

I really enjoy making these though I really struggle with the current season (Spring) given my allergies. There's this idea my partner has told me about in DBT where you try to recall positive moments to help "build a life worth living". I think seasonal bucket lists are really good at helping with this for me. I look back on the seasons I made these lists way more fondly than the ones I didn't.

They generally center on seasonal activities I don't want to miss out on. So for summer that's stuff like going for a night swim/skinny dip, getting 5-10 good cloud photos, playing a yard game (like cornhole), seeing a street concert, etc. I also try to take pictures of those (if they don't already involve them) so I can reflect on them later and enjoy the residual happiness.

Conclusion

The point of these isn't to overwhelm you with options. It's just to have enough ideas prepped that you can find something no matter your energy level or time you're working with.

Remember - rest and enjoying yourself is necessary for human health. Folks how get good rest and experience flow states more regularly tend to heal better. People who spend time on what they enjoy are often more enjoyable to be around.

It's never a waste of time to make yourself happy.

[alucarddaily]

I really wanna get into Castlevania. Only one I ever played but haven’t finished is the one on the psp playing as Richard. Should I play the other ones?

Admittedly, this is a loaded question because the short answer is: yes. Do play the other games. But here's the longer answer since getting into this series can be confusing especially for newcomers.

First off, if you’re interested in the overall narrative and need a more concrete starting point into the universe/story, Lament of Innocence is technically the first entry in the timeline as it reveals the beginning of the Belmonts and Dracula and how their centuries long feud started. It’s pretty a straightforward action/adventure game with some platforming and has fixed camera angles like most PS2 games did at the time. It’s also one of my personal faves in terms of the games~

However if you want something that’s more accessible to new players and will help ease you into the gameplay, definitely check out Symphony of the Night if you can since it’s the most popular (and arguably best) entry in the game series. There are 3 main ways to describe a Castlevania game (classicvania, metroidvania, 3Dvania) and SOTN basically started the metroidvania subgenre where there’s more emphasis on 2D exploration and RPG elements.

Also in terms of other metroidvanias in the series worth playing, I HIGHLY recommend Aria of Sorrow and Harmony of Dissonance which both take what SOTN previously established and expands on those gameplay/story elements.

A lot of these games are on modern consoles, especially the Anniversary Collection which includes the classicvania games (if you're looking for more of a challenge), the Advance Collection which includes AOS/HOD, and most recently the Dominus Collection which includes a lot of the other great metroidvania games. Honestly these collections are the probably best ways to experience these games for the first time since you get at least 15 different titles in 3 bundles. Unfortunately, SOTN is only on mobile and PS4 along with Rondo of Blood atm :’(

And if you want something different, I actually would also recommend checking out the Lords of Shadow games which sort of reboot the series with different characters and lore. It's a separate canon and they're very flawed but they introduced some interesting ideas and have some great dramatic moments.

I know it can feel overwhelming (I definitely felt that way when I was first getting into Castlevania and I still sometimes get overwhelmed by everything) but there’s no right or wrong way to start! Just pick the game that appeals to you the most and go from there <3

[the-cactus-taco]

Yes!! YES!! I must have them all-/j

Are there any more characters of this breed that I am unaware of?

[thydungeongal]

I think that 5E having fanbase that mostly doesn't want to play it is good, actually.

If they really outnumber people who want dungeon combat game, wotc can allow themselves to do a total reboot - make 6E a basically different game, keeping only six stats and foundational systems like d20+stat modifier and AC and HP and classes, but otherwise make a very lite-weight game suited for recreating actual play experience with found family or whatever 5E players want (I don't play 5E).

It's a decision that would benefit everyone. Wotc will profit off new players because they are already trapped in their ecosystem, and even if already avid 5E players don't want to buy new books, newcomers will. 5E players will get a game they actually want. Oldies who don't like it can just move to Pathfinder or OSR, so they won't be deprived of games. Hell, wotc may even start their official line of OSR with new settings and adventures and easily get a share of that market as well!

Like, D&D as it is already suffers from incompatible legacy that can't be thrown out without enraging fans, and if this continues for too long it will collapse. But this way it can survive by transforming into a game that 2020s fandom wants.

Games Workshop pulled way riskier move with Warhammer and ultimately succeeded, I think hasbro can do this as well

Thing is, I don't think WotC will ever do it, because they have pretty much managed to cultivate an audience that is so incurious about game design that they think D&D not supporting the type of gameplay they want isn't a bug, it's a feature.

Ultimately, as I have said before, D&D held hostage to nostalgia because it has to adhere to a certain shape of what D&D "has to be," and even though it's actually one of the worst games for supporting plucky found family heroic narratives people will insist it's good for that because the people in question don't think of D&D's rules in terms of incentive structures and genre emulation, but instead as just "stuff" that the game has which means that the game can do the "stuff." Basically, many of these people think of RPG rules in terms of the shape of dice being rolled, instead of the behaviors that RPG mechanics can actually incentivise and how rules actually shape narrative.

I do agree that D&D not being the game most of its players want it to be is good in some way, but not because I think WotC is ever going to address that contradiction: it means that the aforementioned incurious players who genuinely don't care about game design are kept captured within WotC's walled garden, but at the same time those people who do genuinely care about games producing specific narratives will have to look to reconcile that contradiction elsewhere. We just have to keep throwing Molotov cocktails inside of WotC's walled garden to make people aware of the fact that they live in a false paradise.

[bogleech]

Mortasheen

Given that I think your Mortasheen page has over 700 monsters while the latest Kickstarter update said you'd have 100 included, what should we think of those not included? Are they still 'canon' to the setting? Will the whole website page need to be revamped?

The book was never meant to be a one-off project but was always planned as the introduction to an entire tabletop gaming brand meant to keep adding content every year, at least in smaller batches. Like Pokemon the goal is to release playable monsters as "generations," and they'll always be a mix of old, new, or reinvented concepts, though @gutsygills who took over a lot of essential work doesn't want to leave a single one behind and stops me from completely scrapping any unless they truly just won't work. The Mortasheen archive on bogleech.com is just there for posterity now and might never be modified again, except to add links to where people will eventually be able to buy the books or visit a more dedicated official website. I guess you could say the release of the RPG will be a "reboot," especially since a lot of aspects of its world had to evolve a little to make more cohesive sense as a game setting. I'll still share my own new monster art and concepts as I go along but some will be book exclusives while some might get released with their gameplay stats for free, it'll vary with the monster. This is supposed to be basically my new job from here on out, it may be an independent project but it's being run as a serious business endeavor in partnership with the gameplay devs.

Here's one new monster I did for this first book though, its name is Pestode and it was designed to be the most basic common Wormbrain class monster, the Rattata of Wormbrains, just a large deadly parasitic worm whose "host" is reduced to barely more than a second skin it can contract into. Every monster also has a "retro sprite" from an imaginary nonexistent gameboy game and in many cases I'm using that to show a monster's other possible poses or configurations; Pestode can scrunch up like a frog if it wants

[riseoftheclansrpg]

Welcome to Rise of the Clans!

RISE OF THE CLANS | 18+ DISCORD-BASED WARRIOR CATS RPG

SKILL LEVEL - CONTENT / TRIGGER WARNING

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:

Welcome to Rise of the Clans (RotC), a fantasy discord-based RPG directly inspired by the warrior cats series created by Erin Hunter.  You are not expected, nor required, to have read any official canon material released to be a part of this group! All lore developed is original, based on the worldbuilding from the canon series.

This group originally started over on deviantart several years ago, as a deviantart and skype hosted RP. Over the years, the group has changed with the times, and was formally rebooted and opened to the group it is today, on August 19th, 2019! With deviantart's recent forced changes, RotC has left deviantart for good, and is now hosted on Discord, with a google website (coming soon!) in tandem.

Rise of the Clans is set in a fictional region in the United States, generally assumed to be located around the Pacific Northwest! As a result, there are a variety of naturally occurring phenomena, such as mountain ranges, lakes, marshes, the ocean, as well as more urban lifestyle, with a city located far away, along the ocean's coast. Weather can be extreme being so close to the ocean, as well as closer to the United State's northern border.

Communities of feral felines have come to dwell in several places across the region. From the city to the mountains, felines live all different walks of life.

There are four Clans that reside besides a lake with territories filled with diverse terrain and foliage, known as WoodClan, ValleyClan, RockClan, and StreamClan. Up within the mountains are a feline community known as Fjell'Byr, who organize themselves into factions to support a united, large population. Outside of these populations are rogues, loners, and kittypets.

This roleplay is plot-driven, both by an overarching groupwide plot, as well as both indirect and direct influences by personal character plots. As a result, roleplay mechanics are always updating and expanding, as members contribute and introduce new canon.  Through group participation to earn group currency, simply called "points", your character can unlock potential plots that can result in permanent, canonizing changes to the roleplay.

We are LGBTQ+ friendly, and encourage character creation from all walks of LGBTQ+ life!

A discord account is required to participate as an active member of this roleplay. All roleplay happens in the official Rise of the Clans discord server.

Rise of the Clans is OPEN FOR NEW MEMBERS! Click here to learn how to join!

[aaronsrpgs]

"Ancient World Fantasy" Reading List

(A little context to start. If you just want book recs, scroll on down to the first image.)

As I’ve been getting into RuneQuest (Wikipedia link), one striking component of the culture and community surrounding the game is that they’re very into the lore of its fictional world, Glorantha. I’m saying this as a comparison to a game like D&D, where the game is spread across tons of settings with no real sense of obligation to keep things in line with earlier editions.

Glorantha’s canon and worldbuilding has been going on since it was published in 1978 without, as far as I can tell, any big reboots. Which means that, unlike D&D, where people are bringing in all kinds of influences and doing direct adaptions of Jane Austen books and whatever, the RuneQuest game remains pretty tightly tied to the original setting. (There have been some exceptions. But not many!)

But since I run games for people who have ADHD or aren’t interested in studying up, I’ve been looking at all kinds of inspiration to drop into the game. Here are 20 novels that are roughly “ancient world” or “Bronze Age” like RuneQuest and deal with people interacting with strange gods, tight communities, and a world without fast overland travel or transferal of information.

I’m presenting them alphabetically by author’s last name.

The Brazen Gambit, Cinnabar Shadows, The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King by Lynn Abbey

I'm sorry for starting this post off with licensed RPG novels, but these are good! And I don't mean "good for licensed RPG novels." I've read tons of them, and most are so bad! But these are actually fun. Good character development in a sword-and-sorcery world. It's also an ecological apocalypse world, with godlike beings oppressing common folks, leading to a lack of technological advancement and knowledge of the past.

The Long Ships by Frans G. Bentsson

Written in the 1940s as a series of novellas, these stories take you on a tour of the Viking-era world, from Europe to the Middle East and beyond. Like a bunch of books on this list, this places them post-Bronze Age, so they're not officially "ancient world." But it gives a big spread of cultures, from the more clan-based Vikings to the bustling metropolises of Turkey. And it doesn't place any of them on any kind of linear advancement scale or whatever other gross way people "rate" cultures.

Tales of Nevèrÿon and Neveryóna by Samuel R. Delany

The master of weird sci-fi and gay historical novels, Chip Delany also wrote a fantasy epic. And it rules! Set on pre-historical(ish) Earth, these books describe the stories that maybe inform the myths we tell today? Dragons and slave revolts! A sort of "What if Game of Thrones was good?" series. Lots of good stuff about how people learn and how understanding expands.

I'm not listing the third book only because it's also a historical look at New York during the AIDS epidemic. It's an amazing book! But it strays from the "ancient world" aesthetic.

Baudolino by Umberto Eco

Another novel expressly set after the Bronze Age (this one starts in the 12th century). BUT it's about Medieval people's interaction with the knowledge they inherited from the past, specifically the myth of Prester John and the works of Herodotus.

I think I keep putting books like this on the list because roleplaying in a fantastical ancient world is not too far off from how Medieval people might have worshipped and referenced works from ancient Rome and non-European places.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf and Moon Witch, Spider King by Marlon James

One of our best living writers! These are fantasy novels expressly set in a fantastical version of ancient/Medieval Africa. The books explore the same events from multiple points of view and are full of cool magic, awesome spirit combat, and a vast number of places and cultures that actively deconstructs most games's portrayal of fantasy Africa as a homogeneous place.

The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth

I think Kingsnorth has been outted as a sort of eco-fascist? I totally believe it, so feel free to skip this one. It's a historical novel set in England in 1066, as the Normans invade from France. It's written in a faux Middle English language and focuses on the lower classes and how they try to resist the invasion. A good reminder that "Medieval culture" (and especially the Renaissance as a time that "culture advanced") is often based on certain classes of society, such as rich people and/or men.

Iceland's Bell by Halldór Laxness

Speaking of how class intersects with technological advancement, this book is set in the 18th century, but it focuses on Iceland at a time when it was ruled by Denmark, and the lower classes there were under an enforced poverty. It's a book about how a rich Icelander was trying to recover the stories of his people in order to create a sense of national identity and resistance. But it's also a story about how a destitute man acts like a total weirdo when he's not allowed to fish in his own waters and is cut off from understanding his place in history.

The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie

A big part of RuneQuest is people interacting with and enacting their gods. That's what this book is about! And it's about the strange vertigo that comes to people when they try to interact with the impossible timelines that gods exist on. Very good stuff.

Night's Master and Death's Master by Tanith Lee

Ostensibly set on Earth back when it was flat and demons roamed the world, which is basically RuneQuest. Sort of like a series of hornier, gay bibles? With lots of gender fuckery, fun sex, and cool monsters.

Circe by Madeline Miller

The story of the witch from The Odyssey, told from her point of view. Beautiful prose, tragic and beautiful characters, and a great share of mythical strangeness. Perfect if you want to learn how to run NPCs that are adversaries without being shallowly evil.

Ronia, the Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren

Semi-Medieval again, but low class and vague enough that it could exist throughout ancient history. The daughter of a robber grows up in a tower full of robbers and generally has a wonderful time. Lots of weird monsters live in the woods, and there's a great starcrossed romance with someone from a rival robber gang. Perfect inspiration if you're running some cattle-raiding runs in RuneQuest; this is how to make robbers fun and sympathetic.

Read the book, watch the 1984 Swedish movie (which includes a great comedic scene of full-frontal dudity), and then watch the Studio Ghibli series.

A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar

Set in a world of pepper farmers and religious fanatics who worship a mysterious inscribed stone, these books do a great job of showing how people might interact with religion, rival cults, and mystery rites. It also portrays literacy and learning to read in places where it's gated behind social gatekeeping. And once again, the prose is beautiful.

The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola

The first African novel published in English outside of Africa, The Palm-Wine Drinkard is a funny, hallucinogenic story about getting drunk, stumbling through weird landscapes, and encountering fantastical spirits and people.

Tutuola also wrote My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the inspiration for the famous(?) David Byrne/Brian Eno album. I haven't read it yet, but I'm keeping an eye out!

The Green Pearl by Jack Vance

This is a sequel to Lyonesse, which I haven't read because I love staring in the middle of things. Set around a mythical British Isles when Atlantis was still above the sea and part of the group of islands. Some great wizard shit, warring clans, romance, and a wizard whose name is fucking Shimrod (in case you need more convincing).

Those are my 20 novel recommendations! I'm gonna come back to add some nonfiction, comics, and myth resources for running games in fantastical ancient worlds. You can read SpeedRune, my ancient fantasy game, here.