Ye Olde School Non-fiction

[Admin Pete]

krusader74 posted this at ODD' 1974 and I am posting it here with his permission.

May 26, 2017 17:53:45 GMT -5 @krusader74 said:

Ye Olde School Non-fiction

I am glad anytime people read any history, having written a little myself. I've always been more of a fan of non-fiction.



-- Rick Krebs, Jan 12, 2013 at 11:08am, quoted from the thread Re: GangBusters News

I too am more of a non-fiction fan. Don't get me wrong: I love fiction -- especially HPL, PKD and comic books -- but I'd rather get stranded on a desert island with the non-fiction books that Gary Gygax lists in Appendix C of Master of the Game than the fiction listed in Appendix N of the DMG. This may sound odd coming from someone who enjoys fantasy roleplaying games. But I've always tried to inject my games (and my posts here) with a healthy dose of history, science and math, i.e., non-fiction.



And since there are already oodles of threads here devoted to the fiction of Appendix N and its influence on the game (such as the recent Appendix N: The Literary History of D&D by Jeffro Johnson), I wanted to create a new resource here to list and discuss:

1. Non-fiction books cited in any official rule book, supplement or adventure.
2. Non-fiction books referenced by the game creators and original players.
3. Non-fiction books you use in your campaigns.

Exalts to The Perilous Dreamer for starting "Ye Olde School" threads! And exalts to all who contribute!!



Appendix C: The Master's Library



In another discussion thread, I talked about Gary Gygax's book Master of the Game (1989). In a blog post about this book, Zenopus wrote:

Master of the Game is a 1989 book of advice for Dungeon Masters by Gary Gygax. The last section of the book, Appendix C: The Master's Library, contains lists of inspirational works similar to Appendix N in the original Dungeon Masters Guide, but with greater focus on non-fiction.

Zenopus then transcribes Gary's General List of Essential Books, all of which are non-fiction:

• Unabridged Dictionary
• Historical Atlas (large)
• World Atlas
• Encyclopedia (best possible edition)
• Historical Timetables
• Encyclopedia of Costume
• Dictionary of Battles
• Thesaurus
• Atlas of the Universe
• Weapons Books

Then Gary continues:

From this core expand in whatever direction you wish. Some examples

(I've annotated Gary's list with hyperlinks and noted whenever the books are free and public domain.)

• Boissonade, Prosper. Life and Work in Medieval France.
• Braun and Scheider. Historical Costume in Pictures.
• Broadbent, Michael. The Great Vintage Wine Book.
• Byrne, Mrs. Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary.
• Cavendish, Richard, editor. Mythology: An Illustrated Encyclopedia.
• 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bibliophile Books. By Francis Grose (1731-1791). There were many editions of Grose's dictionary, originally published in 1795. These are free, public domain books! Here is the 1811 edition cited by Gary Gygax, hosted on Project Gutenberg. Here it is on Google Books. And here are the 1823 edition and the 1796 edition hosted on Google Books.
• Donnelly, Ignatius. Altlantis, the Antediluvian World. Published 1882. Free, public domain.
• Friedman, Col. Richard et al. Advanced Technology Warfare.
• Glut, Donald. The Dinosaur Dictionary.
• Gordsmith-Carter, George. Sailing Ships (and Sailing Craft).
• Grun, Bernard. Timetables of History.
• Harbottle, Thomas. The Dictionary of Battles. Published 1904. Free, public domain.
• Keightley, Thomas. The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves (And Other Little People). Published 1878. Thomas Keightley's 1828 The Fairy Mythology is free and online at Google Books: Vol 1 and Vol 2.
• Kunz, George Frederick. Curious Lore of the Precious Stones. Published 1913. Free, public domain. The full title is The Curious Lore of Precious Stones: Being a Description of Their Sentiments and Folk Lore, Superstitions, Symbolism, Mysticism, Use in Medicine, Protection, Prevention, Religion, and Divination, Crystal Gazing, Birthstones, Lucky Stones and Talismans, Astral, Zodiacal and Planetary.
• Macaulay, David.
  
  
  • Castle
  • Cathedral
  • City
  • Pyramid
  • Underground
• Moore, Patrick. New Concise Atlas of the Universe.
• Newmark, Maxim. Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases.
• Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology.
• Schumann, Walter. Gemstones of the World.
• Shepard, Leslie. Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. The full title is Encyclopedia of occultism & parapsychology: a compendium of information on the occult sciences, magic, demonology, superstitions, spiritism, mysticism, metaphysics, physical science, and parapsychology, with biographical and bibliographical notes and comprehensive indexes.
• Stratton, Arthuz. The Orders of Architecture.
• Sykes, Christopher Simon. Private Palaces.
• Turnbull, Stephen. The Book of the Medeival Knight.
• Weapons and Warfare (24 Volumes). Phoebus/BPC.
• Wilkinson, Frederick. Arms and Armor.

Ye Olde School Free PD Non-fiction Links

expand in whatever direction you wish

Here are some of my personal favorite non-fiction picks for FRPG inspiration. I've restricted the list to books I believe will have wide appeal here. And I've made sure that all these books are free (public domain) online books, so that you may start enjoying them immediately!



Mazes and Labyrinths: A General Account of Their History and Development (1922) by WH Matthews, 360 pp. Project Gutenberg, Google Books, Archive.org



The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study In Anthropology (1921) by Margaret Alice Murray. Project Gutenberg, Sacred Texts, Archive.org



The art of war in the Middle Ages, A.D. 378-1515 (1885) by Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman. Project Gutenberg, Google Books, Archive.org



Armour & weapons in the middle ages (1925) by Charles Henry Ashdown. Project Gutenberg, Google Books, Archive.org



Armour & Weapons (1909) by Charles Ffoulkes. Project Gutenberg, Archive.org



The Book of the Sword (1884) by Sir Richard Francis Burton, 346 pp. Burtoniana.org, Google Books, Archive.org



British Castles (1911) by Charles Henry Ashdown. Project Gutenberg



The Art of Heraldry: An Encyclopaedia of Armory (1904) by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies. Google Books, Archive.org



Beitrag zum Kriegsspiel (1876) by Julius Adrian Friedrich Wilhelm von Verdy. The original text on Free Kriegsspiel. There are two free English translations:

• The tactical war game--A translation of Beitrag zum Kriegsspiel (1884) by J. R. MacDonnell
• A Simplified War Game--Translated from the French and arranged for American students (1897) by Captain Eben Swift, Fifth Cavalry

Little Wars: A Game for Boys from 12 Years of Age to 150 and for that More Intelligent Sort of Girls who Like Boy's Games and Books. With an Appendix on Kriegspiel. With Marginal Drawings by J. R. Sinclair (1913) by Herbert George Wells. Project Gutenberg. Google Books. A recent discussion here. The 2004 edition of Little Wars published by Skirmisher Publishing LLC includes a foreword by Gary Gygax, in which he wrote:

Little Wars influenced my development of both the Chainmail miniatures rules and the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. For example, it established the concept of a burst radius for cannon rounds, an idea that was translated into both the Chainmail catapult missile diameters and the areas of effect for Fireballs in D&D.

Ye Olde School Non-fiction Threads



Here are a few existing threads on these boards that discuss non-fiction titles.



In Oswald Whiteblade - The Original Aragorn, @relic wrote:

Just a nod to a non-fiction book I've been leafing through in the local bookshop - The King in the North: The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria. Tolkien allegedly drew on the tale of the return of the exiled King to claim his birthright (mentioning him in his Beowulf essay). The book's a hefty expensive tome but what a story.

In The Reference Bookshelf, @bexley wrote:

What non-fiction or reference books do you routinely use? Do you use any and if not, why? What kinds of reference books do you consider essential in aiding your games?

In Appendix N for Post-Apocalyptic Science-Fantasy?, @pat wrote:

On the non-fiction side, The Boy Scout Handbook, The Zombie Survival Guide, and The U.S. Army Survival Manual might all be useful. However, the best single resource on the topic is available in its entirety online: Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction by Paul Brian.

In Awesome Book Find, xerxez talked about Ireland: A Sacred Journey (2000) by Michael Dames.

[ripx187]

Wow! That is one epic post. A cup of gold for sharing that one, PD!

My influences have always been Myth and Legend, the more years I get under my belt, the more I find that this is true. I read fantasy fiction now and again, but places like Camelot and Sherwood Forest are greater influences. History offers a wealth of options; I've learned more from studying history than I ever did from Lord of the Rings. History is a passion and an obsession of mine. I prefer historical games mixed with legends to color a game. The further I pull back from Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, the more pleased I am with the results that I get.

To this day, as a player, my favorite game of all time was a home-brewed setting based on The Three Musketeers era France. D&D is the closest thing that we have to a time machine, and while it is always a layman's version of the world, if done well we can almost feel the history around us.

My current game is set in 1890,  my version of Europe is the one that I acquired as a child that was filtered through the Cold War. Very dark, mysterious, and foreign. I am able to channel these thoughts and feelings into a physical place that probably only existed in my head but make them real for the players. We enjoy this much more than playing in traditional fantasy found in Appendix N. It has definitely taught me more about geography, social studies, and the power of myth than I could ever have learned on my own.

[robkuntz]

More people should have paid attention to this list as Gary did. Appendix N was only a recommended reading list. Period. Gary daily referenced encyclopedias in his writing and his library. like mine, was equally divided between non-fiction and fiction.

[Admin Pete]

May 30, 2017 10:23:01 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

More people should have paid attention to this list as Gary did. Appendix N was only a recommended reading list. Period. Gary daily referenced encyclopedias in his writing and his library. like mine, was equally divided between non-fiction and fiction.

I have a lot of non-fiction references, more books than my wife wants me to keep in fact  . I have probably 20 different atlases alone. My library is nothing to compare with yours I am sure, but I continually check books out at the library on a variety of subjects.

I hope that your next book with have an extensive list of non-fiction and fiction listed somewhere in the book along with examples of use/how to use resources to spur out of the box thinking.

[robkuntz]

May 30, 2017 10:39:53 GMT -5 Admin Pete said:

May 30, 2017 10:23:01 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

More people should have paid attention to this list as Gary did. Appendix N was only a recommended reading list. Period. Gary daily referenced encyclopedias in his writing and his library. like mine, was equally divided between non-fiction and fiction.

I have a lot of non-fiction references, more books than my wife wants me to keep in fact  . I have probably 20 different atlases alone. My library is nothing to compare with yours I am sure, but I continually check books out at the library on a variety of subjects.

I hope that your next book with have an extensive list of non-fiction and fiction listed somewhere in the book along with examples of use/how to use resources to spur out of the box thinking.

My library is not what it used to be.  I used to have a thousand books, mostly non-fiction (I really gave up fiction years ago and prefer crafting it via my own stories and screenplays, treatments, outlines, rpg story-lines, etc.).  Once you learn story you are set to go if you have an imagination.

Most of what I kept is still back in the USA and I have these shipped to me when needed for ongoing projects.  The Internet has heavily substituted (in the interim) for a large and present library. I only deal with primary texts or articles, lots of scientific dictionaries, anything to widen the knowledge bases and create more choices therefrom. 

My recommendations would be wholly general because of that as I fill out my library due to specific interests and needs--thus I own about 40 books on the Brontes, for instance.

[ripx187]

Google maps have kind of killed the Atlas. I'm in the market for one, calculating distances on Google maps is more difficult to me than just using a ruler. I do like that Google Maps is a lot more complete than an Atlas! I can zero in on very specific rural areas that wouldn't normally appear on any maps, and being able to see Satellite images allows some archeology to be done on my part. Distance and calculating Movement has to be fudged, and I can really get distracted during prep. When I prepped a game that was set in Nuremberg, I got totally caught up in the technology. That city is beautifully mapped and you can virtually walk around it for days! Well, weeks actually. I did. That game was a bloody mess! Had a lot of fun though.

IT'S THE FUTURE!!!!

Modern Atlases are weird now. Some of them don't even have maps of any kind, or leave out too much information but focus on some topic that has very little to do with Geography. I was shocked when I went to Wal-mart to pick up a cheap student atlas and got told that I was living in the past again. They didn't sell them. Nobody has any use for them anymore. I do! What are you going to do when you have to run out of the burning cities screaming while Internet controlled robots are taking over and you can't read a map? What then wise-ass?

[mormonyoyoman]

When that happens, Captain America will save us from Ultron.

[robkuntz]

May 30, 2017 19:42:08 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

When that happens, Captain America will save us from Ultron.

And Darci will save us from yoyos.  

[mormonyoyoman]

May 31, 2017 3:37:11 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

May 30, 2017 19:42:08 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

When that happens, Captain America will save us from Ultron.

And Darci will save us from yoyos.  

It was a Darcy who gave me my nickname. Youngest daughter, during a particularly boring workday (doctor's assistant) stopped by with a caricature of me as "Good Ol' Chet, the Mormon YoYoMan. These kids today...

[mormonyoyoman]

Since I'm an idiot, I didn't clarify: Darcy was a doctor's assistant; I was managing a wireless division of a telecom company. She's the artist and cosplayer of the family; I just collect toys and play games.

[Mighty Darci]

May 31, 2017 6:59:35 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

May 31, 2017 3:37:11 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

And Darci will save us from yoyos.  

It was a Darcy who gave me my nickname. Youngest daughter, during a particularly boring workday (doctor's assistant) stopped by with a caricature of me as "Good Ol' Chet, the Mormon YoYoMan. These kids today...

You have a daughter named Darcy! How wonderful!

[mormonyoyoman]

We rebelled at the idea of traditional names in the 1970s and 1980s - with the result that names such as Darcy Lee, Crystal Lavae, and Valerie Nicole are now traditional names.