Appendix V
Prismatic Wasteland rebroadcast Traverse Fantasy's call for "a bandwagon where it's appendix [initial] for oneself." Well, here's mine. Or at least a fragment of one.
As I sat down to write this post, I considered two approaches. One option would be to write about the media that had shaped my RPG practices across my entire life. Another would be to focus on the media that was shaping my practice the most right now. I drafted both and found that I had more to say about the latter. From there, due to time constraints and a desire to give due shrift to each recommendation, I narrowed my lists down to three entries each.
Books
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi (2023) by Shannon Chakraborty
A piratical tale of ocean voyages, swashbuckling swordfights, diabolic contracts, and creative theological interpretation. Some of the secondary characters feel a bit thinly sketched, but really we're here to follow Al-Sirafi's trials and tribulations. I run a lot of games that take voyaging as their heart and I think often of the chapter-to-chapter pacing of this book, how Chakraborty expertly baton passes the resolved conflict of the previous chapter forward into the inciting incident of the next. I also want to flag the generous bibliography here, which has a ton of source material for life on the medieval Indian Ocean, particularly tailored towards swords and sorcery.
The Forgery (2022) by Ave Barrera
Not just influential to my roleplaying practice, this is one of my favorite books of recent years. The protagonist is a down-on-his-luck painter turned to forgery, hired to replicate a painting hidden in the basement of a (somewhat suspect) businessman's villa. He finds himself a prisoner, trapped in a historical house dripping with (stealable) architectural detail until he completes a painting that constantly eludes him. The novel uses this plot to frame and reframe a series of relationships: art versus life, original versus imitation, accessibility versus inaccessibility. All of these conversations feel alive to me as an artist, game designer, and educator. I'll also tease that the difficulty in executing the painting here is one of the most practical, "old school" problems I have seen in print.
Illuminations (1955) by Walter Benjamin
One of the "old dead white men" that academia won't leave in his grave, Benjamin has been a constant companion since the earliest days of my education. Illuminations posthumously collects a series of his essays on literary criticism. Some of the classics are here - "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" or "Theses on the Philosophy of History" - but I strongly recommend some of the less commonly regarded works. I've written previously (and juvenilely, I think) about "The Storyteller," which I think is one of the best academic texts on the narrative stakes of gamemastering. "Unpacking My Library" is a bit dated, but feels like an uncanny reflection of how I relate to RPG modules and rulebooks. This is a book that I keep returning to, and every time I reread it, I find that I glean something new from it.
Movies / Television
Legend of the Galactic Heroes (1989 - 1997)
Over the last few months, I have slowly been wading my way through this grandiose piece of military science fiction. This is a show that is as deeply concerned with space battles featuring thousands of ships in intricate formations as it is with boyish generals staring wet-eyed into the stars as they think of their sisters and "close friends." It helps that in both modes, the show often catches me off guard with a beautiful gem of a shot. The political theory here is often a little one note, but the thing that keeps me coming back is the following structure - a major event happens, then it echoes through the "faction turn" of all the other characters in the fiction. Whenever one admiral makes a move, we find out what their rival thinks of it, how their allies think it changes their relative prestige, what concerns high command has about it. If nothing else, the show is a never ending font of NPC archetypes to throw at the player characters.
Lonely Are the Brave (1962)
I think Lonely Are the Brave thinks of itself as this libertarian masterpiece. The main character, Jack Burns (played by Kirk Douglas) is this man-out-of-time Western character in a world of helicopters, jet fighters, and an increasingly staked out American West. He's a low talking, fist fighting so-and-so who refuses to take the easy way. In practice though, he constantly finds himself aligned against people who have principles, who have people that they care about and who they can't let down. It's fascinating watching him work through that (or fail to?) across the film. There's a lot of joy here to in practical action - navigating a horse through difficulty terrain or fending off a helicopter - and I think Walter Matthau's performance as a semi-sympathetic antagonist comes up frequently in play. More than anything though, this is a film that I am unresolved about it, and that feels like something worth holding onto.
Stalker (1979)
My impression is that this one is a cult classic, that I won't be surprising anyone by including this on the list. For me, this mostly stands out as a movie about traversal. Characters spend almost all of their time just walking intently, whether that's through a field strewn with rusted out APCs, a flooded hospital, or a big metal pipe. The back and forth between the characters and the different philosophies on art and the merit of human endeavors are interesting, but its the cinematography and the sense of movement that have informed my RPG writing.
Video Games
Darkest Dungeon (2015)
I have been thinking a lot about Darkest Dungeon lately since I have been running Heart: The City Beneath - a game that imitates the aesthetic of but I think fundamentally fails to bottle the lightning of its inspiration. There is a genre move going on here that is subtle and I think often unremarked upon. The game plays in the space of Lovecraft and other pulp horror authors, but its also engaged with early modernism. The characters are all post-apocalyptic survivors where the "apocalypse" was the Middle Ages with its castles and crusades, but they are adventuring into this ruin that is full of the advent and failure of Enlightenment scholarship. I think this narrative, expressed through the expert voice over and worldbuilding is what breathes life into the game for me.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002) with the Tamriel Rebuilt mod (ongoing)
At some point I will write a longer form post about Morrowind and the impact it has had on my writing and general life trajectory. This is the game that got me into fantasy and (through its modding community) curious about computers. For now though, I just want to highlight how fresh Morrowind's world still feels even in 2025. Vvardenfell is a world with centuries of factional intrigue and a trio of living gods that (sometimes) speak directly to their people. It is also occupied, actively in the process of being resettled by the Empire. You are thrust into that mix as both a contender for the messianic hero of the world and a planted agent of the Imperial secret service. I can (and will) pester anyone who likes with endless thoughts about Morrowind's lore, but for now I will say that this kind of layered setting writing is the guiding star for almost all of my setting work.
Tamriel Rebuilt deserves special mention. The base game is already polyvocal - different authors were given the reins for different factions, regions, and suites of in-game books. Tamriel Rebuilt turns that up to 11 with hundreds of contributors building out elaborate fan-fiction to the original game. I really like some of the interpretive moves the TR team have made, like reading the Empire more like medieval Russia than Rome. More than that though, I just like wandering into all the different enthusiastic interpretations of factions and ideas from the base game.
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (2003)
More media about going on a journey. Crystal Chronicles is a deeply flawed game with an unwieldy control scheme and a bunch of barely functional systems that imagined you would play with four (four!) connected GBAs. It's also a great distillation of the classic fantasy formula - a small group of young adventurers who come from a small village and must venture forth to save their home.
There are a couple elements of this that stand out to me enough to list this game here. First, the fact that you keep getting to go home again. Seeing all your characters' family and friends dancing in the end of year celebration connects you to the world and sets the stakes for all the combats and encounters that come in between. Second, the first time you enter any level the game plays a semi-poetic voice over as the camera sweeps through the space. The information given isn't useful or often even historically relevant; its a previous traveler's letter home or a bedtime story. They feel like they elevate the action. The locations often speak to their own (former) use - decaying mines and old abandoned river causeways - but the narration gives a lofty, fairytale feeling to those spaces.