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I think it made *many* fantasy readers, which boosted the genre.

I often say I majored in journalism and minored in D&D at university, but it didn’t influence my fantasy writing: in fact, what I found was that I preferred being the DM (Dungeon Master)to playing the game because I kept trying to massage the campaign into some kind of coherent story.

I quit playing partly because I had no one to play with (*sniff*) but also because one day I looked at the several hundred pages of background material I had created for the game (we never played published modules; modules were for sissies!) and thought, “You know, I could have used all that creative effort on writing a couple of books.”

So, loved the game, but major influence on fantasy? I seriously doubt it. Tolkien still rules the roost there.

Hmm. I think you are a role-playing girl. It’s just that, like most writers, you do your role-playing on the page when you’re writing a story. Or at least, that’s how I feel some days.

I gotta agree, Tolkien has influenced much more than D&D, and I have a close friend whose whole family agree with me. And you know what? Some of my favorite books are so obviously based off of Tolkein, but that doesn’t matter, cuz Tolkein RULES!

Oh, and I just found a rweally funny title: The Agony and the Ecstasy…In Your Pants. Tell me that does not make you giggle!

I think it needs to be clarified that D&D had a profound influence on HIGH fantasy/EPIC fantasy. That whole Tolkienesque subgenre. Which you, Justine, don’t write. I haven’t really encountered too many people saying “all fantasy owes tons to D&D.”

(Granted, I haven’t been reading every single piece on Gycax’s death. I was a high-fantasy-novel geek, and never heard of him before last week. I do think he has achieved the best kind of influence, though — profound, but private. And, uh, lucrative. And this adorable tribute.)

Perhaps it’s that a lot of the media at large don’t quite realize that fantasy has subgenres, or that fantasy equals fantastic/non-mimetic elements of all kinds, which would include practitioners like Poe and Twain and Mary Shelly and Alexander Pope, and is not the exclusive domain of bands of multispecies medieval adventurers on a Quest for a Talisman to Save The World.

oh, thank goodness. i was starting to worry that i would have my fantasy/sf/geekiness card removed for not even having *heard* of d&d when i was the appropriate age to start doing that. too busy reading tolkien, i imagine.

I’d say that D&D brought more readers to fantasy, considering how it brought a lot more men into reading books (perhaps even making it a bit more socially acceptable[though mostly for the geeky subcultures in high school]), but I agree that Tolkien is the man of high fantasy, not Gygax.

The few campaigns I played were never novel worthy, anyway. No matter how cool it was that my husband set an entire village of evil frog/bears on fire, it’s not that easy to throw it into a book, and have wholescale destruction be completely funny.

Gina has it exactly right–sure, Tolkien made high fantasy, but D&D surely did create a ton of fantasy readers–people who might have have picked up those Tolkien books if not for D&D. (And of course, Tolkien obviously greatly influenced D&D.)

And I would disagree that some SF/fantasy writers you know are not geeks. I think that being an SF/fantasy writer automatically makes you a geek–an Alpha geek, in fact, if that flowchart floating around the intarwebs is to be believed. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a geek–I’m one and proud of it–it’s just that I think writing an SF/fantasy novel is just a pretty geeky thing to do, no matter how cool you are. I mean, China Mieville? He’s pretty cool, right? But he’s certainly a geek (he’d even tell you so himself).

Hmm. Never played D&D either. I guess I’d try it, I just haven’t had a chance, and I don’t really know anyone who plays. I’ve also never read *gasp* Lord of the Rings. Eh. I guess I don’t like High Fantasy as much as… mild fantasy? Whatever you call it.

Gina Black: I think it made *many* fantasy readers, which boosted the genre.

That I can agree with, especially boys.

Karen: I think you are a role-playing girl. It’s just that, like most writers, you do your role-playing on the page when you’re writing a story.

I disagree. Role-playing implies that you are playing the role of your characters. Which I do not do. I never feel like I am any of my characters. Writing—for me anyway—is very distant from acting.

John Joseph Adams: I think that being an SF/fantasy writer automatically makes you a geek–an Alpha geek, in fact, if that flowchart floating around the intarwebs is to be believed.

And I think that definition of geek makes the word meaningless. I’ve seen that chart and I don’t share any of its preoccupation and haven’t done any of those activities except writing fantasy.

Many of my friends are geeks. Hell, I even married one. But I am not a geek.

We can all agree that you are not a geek, Justine. Certainly not with those boots!

But Patrick that implies that geeks don’t know great boots when they seem them. I know many well-dressed geeks.

I wonder how many fantasy readers who started in D&D ever realize to what extend Gygax was stealing with both hands from pre-existing literature.

I don’t mean just Tolkien (and Moorcock, and Lovecraft), but things like Vance’s Dying Earth, which shows up all over the place in the first-edition books.

How do you define a geek, then? (Don’t mean to be quarrelsome, just curious.)

John Joseph Adams: Geeks have a fanatic engagement with technology—especially computers. Also with science fiction in all its forms. There’s war gaming geeks and D&D geeks etc. etc. But basically it’s an intense engagement with a specific set of interests.

I have neither the intense engagement nor more than a passing interest in most of the particularly geeky subject areas.

I stand corrected. So many writers; so many processes.

Karen: You is not corrected. As you say there are many different processes. I can only speak for me. Especially as I just recently found out that many writers don’t wear hats when they write. How crazy is that? How on earth do they concentrate?

Hmm. The definitions I’m familiar with are broader than that I think.

“Geek” used to be more negative — in the 80s (U.S.), a geek was someone who severely lacked cool but wasn’t book-smart enough to be a “nerd.”

But now you can “geek out” over just about anything. I think it depends on the ability to recite long strings of esoteric facts that have nothing to do with your career. E.G.: I know many a “Buffy geek” who knows jack-all about computers. (I’d be a Buffy geek, I love it that much, but I don’t rewatch and I don’t know enough to refer to episodes by their titles, or what exact milestone took place in what episode or what other, later episode had a callback to aforesaid milestone. I’d need reference materials.)

I’m considered “geeky” by some because I’ll apply intensive lit-crit criticism to a comic book or to “Supernatural,” or to Small Gods by Terry Pratchett.

Okay, I reread Justine’s comment and there’s more overlap there than I thought. Sorry.

This part of your definition: “But basically it’s an intense engagement with a specific set of interests.” is 100% on point, I think, and is really the true definition of a geek. The sentence preceding that, however, I think is not–those are just types of geeks; not all geeks are enamored with technology, computers, etc.

You don’t have an “intense engagement” with fantasy literature? Your wrote a couple scholarly books on it. That seems pretty intense. Fantasy is “particularly geeky” subject area.

But, hey, if you don’t want to call yourself a geek, I’m fine with that. I was just trying to understand where you were coming from.

BTW, I didn’t mean to imply earlier that I drink that flowchart’s Kool Aid–it’s just a bit of silliness and most of it is just played for laughs. I guess I just agree with it that writing an SF/fantasy novel seems like the ultimate act of geekiness.

No, I really don’t have an intense engagement with science fiction. Probably because I wrote a book about it. I couldn’t even tell you the last sf book I read. Can’t stand the stuff.

If you start calling everyone a geek who likes something then the word becomes meaningless. It really has to be a passionate engagement to qualify. And “geek” in the way it gets used without a qualifier means technology and science fiction-y things. You don’t call someone obsessed with horses a geek, you call them a horse geek.

And calling a fantasy writer a geek because they write fantasy is absurd. It’s a professional engagement. It’s a job. Are lawyers therefore law geeks? I would some of them are, but many of them aren’t. A geeky engagement is different to a professional engagement. The two can co-exist but they are not the same.

Clearly you missed the memo that only Raymond Feist’s fiction actually counts as fantasy.

David: There appear to be a lot of memos I’ve missed.

Well-dressed geek is just a geek in diguise.

You said: “No, I really don’t have an intense engagement with science fiction. Probably because I wrote a book about it. I couldn’t even tell you the last sf book I read. Can’t stand the stuff.”

I didn’t say SF, I said “fantasy literature.” I thought that since you wrote fantasy, that would qualify as an intense engagement. I thought that if you did not have such an engagement with fantasy literature that you would probably write something else.

You said: “If you start calling everyone a geek who likes something then the word becomes meaningless. It really has to be a passionate engagement to qualify.” I agreed with you that it has to be a passionate engagement.

You said: “And “geek” in the way it gets used without a qualifier means technology and science fiction-y things. You don’t call someone obsessed with horses a geek, you call them a horse geek.” Sorry, I didn’t realize we were defining the standalone use of the word “geek.” I was thinking of it as something that you would pair up with a defining adjective. It sounded to me like you were denying any kind of “geekdom” not just that you were not a computer-loving, SF-loving type of geek.

You said: “And calling a fantasy writer a geek because they write fantasy is absurd. It’s a professional engagement. It’s a job.” So you’re saying, then, that you only write fantasy as a job? You don’t love it?

Are you calling Justine a geek?

John: I’ve never written any scholarly books about fantasy literature. I wrote one about the science fiction community. And edited another about feminist science fiction.

Well, anyway, I’ll leave you alone now. If there was any question as to my geekhood, I think I proved it with all this debating on this topic.

John: Nothing wrong with being a geek.

Though debating is not only a geek thing!

“But basically it’s an intense engagement with a specific set of interests.”

so a jock obsessed with football is a geek?
say what?

oh i guess thats already been addresed… fine then

I think D&D had a profound influence on fantastic fiction. Just not the sort of fantastic fiction that you and I read.

D&D was a mashup of fantasy tropes: it had stuff from Tolkien, a magic system adapted from Jack Vance, elements of mythology and epic, and character types largely drawn from sword & sorcery.

There followed a sort of mashup fantasy fiction. Chiefly the Dragonlance books, of course, which were explicitly based on D&D, but plenty of others as well.

Weis & Hickman’s sales figures could probably knock us all into a cocked hat, assuming of course that you could find a cocked hat at Wizards of the Coast.

Dragonlance, based on one set of games, even spawned games of its own, plus video games and at least one feature film.

Before D&D, sword & sorcery was a viable genre. Now it’s all been sucked into the mashup game-fiction genre.

So D&D did, in fact, have a massive influence on fantastic fiction, though since it generated its own audience outside of the traditional F&SF audience, we haven’t noticed it quite so much. It’s an enormous revenue-generating machine in the middle of the room, creating an enormous amount of noise and light, but we polite bystanders are trying to pretend that it doesn’t exist.

Ah, this debate. I remember it well. Justine is not a geek. She is more… an anthropologist of geekdom that has soaked up some native customs, married into the tribe, etc. I think that’s what we decided, three mojitos in.

I am a well-dressed geek, but I’ve never played D&D and don’t really understand it. Also, my only interaction with “High Fantasy” outside of Tolkien’s LOTR and The Hobbit (Does Pullman and Lewis count?) is in the movies, which are always tolkien rip offs. that, and Tairen Soul, which I love.

I read more high fantasy masquerading as science fiction (or vice versa — how would one classify Dune?)

Also, I think that saying all fantasy writers owe a debt to Gygax is valid, because his creation helped the fantasy market, just like all YA writers owe a debt to Rowling, whether or not they write fantasy. However, just as I don’t think that “to be a YA writer is to consider writing a vampire novel” as one journo recently put it, I don’t think being a fantasy writer is being deeply influenced by Gygax. I am a Ya fantasy writer who is neither influenced by D&D or has ever considered writing about vampires.

Diana = WoW player = Geek

i would not marry a D&D player…

but I could marry a geek..

One other thought on this. D&D did have an influence on much the field, it’s just at some multiple number of removes. Without the success of D&D the whole role-playing game world would have been very different and possibly it would not have happened at all or happened much later.

That in turn would have changed the online and computer gaming world significantly. An awful lot of readers and writers have come to speculative fiction through the many games that owe a powerful debt to Gygax and D&D. To ignore that secondary influence on the genre is to miss much if not most of the impact of D&D.

Never claimed not to be, Pat. Though I only play with my husband, and I don’t play very often. I think it’s more like the wives who watch football b/c their husbands do.

Late to the party so just a few thoughts:

Justine: Instead of mean and cranky henchmen to cause bodily harm, you should really invest in henchment who enjoy the henching - makes them so much more effective…

On Geekdoms: I always felt the defnition of Geek requires both a devotion to some thing or interest that requires a practiced or acquired skill or knowledge, coupled with a nonconformity that places the person at least somewhat or in some way outside the mainstream social acceptance.
Therefore, anyone can really be a geek if they devote significant energies toward something the mainstream would find not worthy of the kind of energies or devotion the geek chooses to devote.

On D&D: Coming from sleepy suburban America in the late 1980s through very early 1990s, we weren’t allowed to play D&D (or hang with those who did) becuase it was satan’s board game ;}

Final Thought: being devoted to a geek-like undertsanding of Buffy is not, by definition, geeky, becuase the devotion is well-deserved and ethereal. :}

Emily

Gina Black hit the nail on the head. D&D and the whole RPG underground was/is a very synergystic meme, which via the Mensa and PC-boom vectors helped expand a multi-media Fantasy market through the 1980s and early ’90s. That market not only included/generated books, comics,and games,but also cult films, and tv-shows, which in turn inspired writers and fans-to-become writers alike.
Without an increasing readership, publishers buy fewer books. So the literary fantasy boom of the 80s and 90s (featuring a preponderance of newer female writers and fan-fic vets) fed off the fandoms created by fantasy gaming and the books which alternately inspire or were inspired by such games.
Laurell Hamilton (whose books contain plot elements and pacing reminiscent of both RPGs and video gaming) admits to her early D&D addiction as a useful precursor to writing novels. So do many of the script writers for various Star Trek spin-off series.

That's a fun idea. I always feel bad just throwing them out, so they sit around and clutter my counter and kitchen table forever...

Shena (=

that is a great idea! i did something like this for our wedding cards, but forgot about it for all niks's stuff!!

thank you!!

melanie

This is SOO cute! We aren't real good at the junk-a-doodles, ours usually look funny. Maybe I'll let Riley try a snow man and see what we come up with. (=

You should print this on your thank you cards - it's very cute!!
Shena (=

this is CUTE! We are planning a pirate for ours, we'll see what it turns out to be. (=

your pumpkin looks great! the feet are a nice touch too :) yeah it was a blast

this is a really nifty idea. thanks

This is a cool idea - I'm going to have to give it a try.
Shena (=

This is SOOO cute. How do you guys make such cute collage things? I guess we need more practice. (=

Shena

I think you let your child do more than we do. :) I can only speak for our pieces (& not Holly's) but Kenzie only paints. I put the rest of it together. I accept a little bossing around from her, and/or let her smother some bits in glue...but for the most part.. -I- do the collage building using solely the junk she's embellished for me. I may also add some lines, dots, etc. but for the most part -- the paint is all done by the kiddo.

I let her control her art pieces whole heartedly. But, she knows this is "our" cooperative work and we both have jobs. She chants "we're doing teamwork" frequently through these art pieces. (perhaps as a reminder to herself about why I'm being so bossy?? :)

I just found your blog today through a comment on my friend lisa's blog ("it's the little things"). anyway, i love, love, love your junk a doodle projects! i love the concept and that you do it with your kids! i'm a mommy of two little boys (ages 27 mos and 14 mos). i think they are a bit young still for some of this, but you have totally inspired me try something like this with them. i was a crazy crafter growing up, designing and creating random things all the time, so this is right up my alley! do you mind if i add you to my favorite links on my blog? i mentioned you and your website in today's blog because i just had to tell my mommy friends!! i love that you instill a love for art in your kids.

and i love all your pieces, especially the hickory dickory dock one and the "hair" lady, and, well, all of them!

-kristen
(www.kristenborland.blogspot.com)

Thanks for the compliments Kristen. Of course, you can link to this blog - however, I must qualify that your favorite pieces were done by the blog owner, Holli Conger....and not by myself & my daughter. (well, except for this one..) :) The junk-a-doodles original idea is also Holli's!

how did you make these? they are pretty cute.
Shena (=

thanks for the directions - these are so cute!
Shena (=