Trash input, trash output.
Read only D&D modules, and you'll only ever be able to run D&D games.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing- I greatly enjoy D&D as D&D. But it's worth playing around creatively since sometimes you don't realize how stifling the standard tropes are until you break away from them.
My Deep Time setting I kind of created on a whim, and the idea was that I'd make a setting out of all the vibes from my favorite psychadelic and prog rock albums. As further challenge, I decided I'd use as little of the classic monster humanoids as possible as is, just to keep it from feeling like D&D with guns- it still ended up feeling like D&D with guns due to me sticking to a tried and true game structure, but it was a good experience because on my end at least, the game felt really fresh like it hadn't been in a long time.
So thinking about direct influences, and liberally pulling cool stuff is how you start building that library of unique monsters, unique setpieces, unique ideas. I certainly cannot create stuff out of the void. So recently I've been thinking about the utility of capturing that in a list. A bit of a double edged sword, as capturing the mystery and quantifying the influences risks depriving them of their mystery, but also it's much easier to come up with ideas when I have a cheat sheet!
There's apparently an Appendix N bandwagon going on, and I'd be lying if I said that didn't remind me to post it. But I've been working on this idea for awhile. These are direct quantifiable influences, specifically for my most recent tabletop game settings- plenty of other influences would come up if I thought hard enough. And there'd be a lot more anime and video games if I didn't limit it to this particular vibe. The focus here is very visual, I think, and audio. Visceral and direct imagery.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard albums- in particular Nonagon Infinity, Murder of the Universe, Polygonwandaland, Petro-draconic Apocalypse, and The Silver Cord
Yes albums and their album art- Fragile, Close to the Edge, Relayer, and Tales from the Topographic Oceans in particular- The Yes Album also is wonderful even if it doesn't have the Roger Dean art, callout to Wurm at the end of Starship Trooper.
Roger Dean album art in general, even when I don't like the album itself as much
Hawkwind albums, shoutout to Space Ritual and Warrior on the Edge of Time
Emerson Lake and Palmer albums- Tarkus and Brain Salad Surgery in particular
Red Queen To Gryphon Three- obscure folk prog band Gryphon only made one truly great album, but it instantly gets me in the right mood for worldbuilding.
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway - and other Genesis albums, but the labyrinthine nature of this particular album gets it special attention from me.
Van Der Graff albums- The Least We Could Do is Wave At Each Other and Pawn Hearts have the killer album art here, but H to He, Who Am The Only One has the killer opening track. (this sentence wrote itself I had no agency with this one)
Moebius's comics- Arzach, The Incal, The Airtight Garage, and many others. Often barely coherent but these are the images I nearly glimpse in dreams.
H. R. Giger's art in general- and these are the images I nearly glimpse in nightmares.
Early Heavy Metal comics in general, mainly in glimpses, issues here and there. 2000 AD and Judge Dredd as well.
Mad Max, the first movie in particular fascinates me due to the gulf between what it is and what it'd become.
Bone by Jeff Smith- Big fan of the rat creatures in particular.
MAD GOD, if only I could convey that everything in my games looks like this when they move
Sinbad movies, Jason and the Argonauts- or maybe like the monsters in these...
Early Magic the Gathering Card Art, especially The Dark, Fallen Empires, Ice Age, that era.
House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft, The Silver Key, Celephais, etc
Elric, especially the Melniboneans as a template for all kinds of asshole elves.
The Book of the New Sun, though I've been fairly light on pushing this until I give it a thorough reread.
The Black Company by Glen Cook and Malazan Book of the Fallen, my edgy military fantasy books that still have a good deal of influence on how I think about military, sorcery, and empire in my fantasy games, for better or worse.
Heroes of Might & Magic 3, King's Bounty, and similar games where large roving bands on monsters hang out and you build an army that's an odd assortment of hundreds of weird creatures, while roaming a fantasy land.
Wizardry 8, Morrowind, Unreal- I have a soft spot for this particular early 3D look that successfully made these game's worlds feel so alien.
Jurassic Park, The Land Before Time, Dinotopia, and countless paleoartists long forgotten. The steamy, wet forests of the Triassic often depicted in paleoart are a particularly visceral inspiration.
The search continues...
