D&D General What Obscure/Lesser-Known Book Series Got You Into D&D?

[QuentinGeorge]

Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf, Ancestral Trail, the Belgariad, The Bards Tale games. Books of Mythology. There were a variety of non-Tolkien sources.

 

[Zardnaar]

Legends of Lone Wolf. I have those.

I only have at least two copies of books 1-8, but only 1 copy of books 10-12.

The later Legends of Lone Wolf Books are worth a pretty penny today.

These ones?

 

[Blue]

I was only into SF when I was a kid, the first book that got me into fantasy was A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin. It opened my eyes to fantasy, and then when I saw people playing D&D I had been primed.

 

[Mannahnin]

I didn't get into it through anything obscure. The Hobbit & LotR were bedtime stories for my brother and I when we were very little indeed. I think I got into Prydain around the same time as getting my Mentzer red box Basic set.

A less-famous series that I was reading around the same age as getting into D&D would be Katherine Kurtz' first three Deryni books. Kurtz was a medieval historian (and D&D player; she had a couple of articles published in Dragon as I recall) and her setting for those books was a bit of a fantasy version of Wales, with the church being as culturally important as it was in the real medieval world. It definitely helped ground me in some more historical and realistic ideas about how a fantasy world could look.

A nice overview here, without a ton of spoilers:

Rereading Katherine Kurtz: It's a Wrap! - Reactor

Here we are at last, at the end of the great Deryni Reread. Two trilogies. Two timelines. Both sets of stories continue in later volumes, but these are the core texts of the Kurtzian universe. It’s been interesting to watch Kurtz evolve as a writer in these books. Especially compared to its...

www.tor.com

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Loved those books as well. Even little stuff, like the different gems in the corner, takes me back to being a kid, just discovering D&D.

I don't think Rose Estes gets anywhere near enough credit for the Endless Quest series. They were the gateway to D&D for countless players.

As a kid, I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure books. My mother used to get them for me at garage sales and flea markets.

One time, she found a similar type of book series, called Endless Quest.

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I think this particular one was the first that I read in that series, although at one point I had most of them. I didn't actually start reading any real fantasy literature until I started playing D&D.

 

[GreyLord]

These ones?

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Yes, those are the ones that I noticed in your last post up there. #10, 11, and 12 go for a fair pretty penny these days...if one can even find them.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes, those are the ones that I noticed in your last post up there. #10, 11, and 12 go for a fair pretty penny these days...if one can even find them.

I sold some spare copies of gamebooks in 20's years ago in eBay and was surprised how much I got for them.

That was 2005 or so.

Since then just keep an eye out and have picked up extra copies of various books often for a buck or two.

These are my originals bought aged 13-15. I coated them in plastic. Wasn't thinking of collections in 91-94.

Sacrifice at Ruanon was the first thing I bought with my first paycheck ever.

 

[Argyle King]

Side note regarding Lone Wolf: I stumbled across a Lone Wolf adventure in the Playstation store. I have not played it yet, but I'll likely pick it up at some point. The description makes it sound as though it's essentially like reading a book, but with some interactive animation sequences for combat and such.

 

[Zardnaar]

Side note regarding Lone Wolf: I stumbled across a Lone Wolf adventure in the Playstation store. I have not played it yet, but I'll likely pick it up at some point. The description makes it sound as though it's essentially like reading a book, but with some interactive animation sequences for combat and such.

I think I had that on my phone.

Seemed alright.

Ironically the Legends of Lone Wolf books fit the modern zeitgeist better than the D&D novels lol.

Baddies are spawn, two strong female characters (one a PoC) etc.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think I had that on my phone.

Seemed alright.

Ironically the Legends of Lone Wolf books fit the modern zeitgeist better than the D&D novels lol.

Baddies are spawn, two strong female characters (one a PoC) etc.

Lone Wolf was before its time in a lot of ways. That series and Fighting Fantasy are what lead me to D&D. I think technically the very first was The Riddling Reaver, which I was given when I was 7 or 8 and my mum decided was unsuitable for me, but I got Lone Wolf stuff after that and loved it way more than the other Fighting Fantasy books I came across - it had way more style and made way more sense - it definitely lead to me being very excited about D&D when I heard about it from a friend when I was ten or so.

It's interesting though, looking back, The Riddling Reaver was given to me by my aunt, but I know it was actually her then-bf (later husband) who picked it (I didn't learn this until I was in my 30s). Without that and my second-cousin who actually taught me D&D, who knows whether I'd have got into it, instead of video games or Games Workshop stuff (which were in the mix, but took a back seat to RPGs).