Vintage Copies of Books – So, books will show up multiple times on the list in different ways, but I think that there are different types of books you can pick up for that fantasy fan. And one of the cooler ones is vintage books. Getting an older copy of Lord of the Rings, even if it has a little bit of wear and tear on it is going to be awesome for a fan of Lord of the Rings, because the vintage covers and just the feel of the books is different. Or, it could be any other vintage sort of fantasy book, but there’s just something about having that almost collectors type book, that fantasy book lovers will really like.

Box Sets of Books – Here’s the other book thing. Box sets of books are also that other book lovers collectible thing. Again, box sets are the pieces that you can put on the shelf and show off. It also means that you can give them something they might not buy, for example, if they were picking up the Harry Potter books as they went along and they were published, they could have a mismatched set, but most book lovers will spend their own money on more books, not making a consistent collection, so you could give them that as a box set, so it is consistent, and it’s something that they’ll likely love.

Fantasy Themed Artwork – Now, this is a bit iffy to put on here, simply because, while Superhero artwork you can know has a recognizable superhero on it, fantasy artwork is all over the map. So, I would lean towards artwork that is based on something. So, Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter are good examples here. There’s going to be artwork that has been done depicting both of those stories, and if someone is a fan of that story, they’ll appreciate the artwork more so. That said, maybe the person has some obscure story that they like and there isn’t artwork on it, I’d be hesitant to suggest picking up large artwork, but postcard size stuff that is work appropriate and they can put up in a cubicle, that would work. Just don’t go with anything too large that they might not like because it’s just not their style.

Fantasy Themed Magnets – Fairly specific with this one, but I’ve found that a lot of people have pretty boring magnets, if they have many magnets on their fridge. Or they might again be using them at work in a cubicle. This is where you can go with the more generic fantasy, because, again, it’s smaller. And especially going with a cute art style or maybe a chibi art style, those work for a nerdy person’s fridge. If the person has a beer fridge or a wine fridge you can put magnets on, getting the hobbits drinking pints in chibi form would be great, in my opinion, for something like that. Or maybe, the person doesn’t want chibi but loves Dungeons and Dragons fantasy, get them dragon magnets. This also has the advantage of being something if you get a magnet that you can use as a stocking stuffer.

Lego – Yup, there are plenty of fantasy Lego sets out there, some generic, and then Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Sorry for you Game of Thrones fans, no Lego sets. This is another display type thing, or if they are younger kids, something that can be played with. But in our house, we have a Hobbit Lego on one shelf and a Hogwarts up on top of another shelf. So, you can go small or big with this, but Lego is a bit on the spendier side of things with the larger sets. It is a lot of fun to put together, and if someone has time off over the holidays, it gives them something fun to do through their time off.

Video Games – Woo, another generic category, but there are a lot of fantasy games out there. You can go retro if they have an older system or a Retron system and get them things like the original Zelda or Final Fantasy. Or, there are middle aged games (not games in the middle ages) like the original Dragon Age that have been ported over to the newer systems, but if someone still have an XBox 360, you could find it for that. There are so many fantasy games out there, figure out if the person you are giving the gift to like the more sword and sorcery style games, more story driven games, fighting, whatever it might be, and you’ll probably be able to find something unique for them. And if they are already a video gamer and have a lot of them, you can look towards more of the indie titles and there are a lot of interesting fantasy games out there.

Classic Fantasy Movies/TV Shows – When I say classic, I more so mean old ones. Find the fantasy movies or TV shows that people might not remember from back in the day. I’m sure there are plenty of good lists out there, or you could find the B-Movie classics in the genre as well. Definitely a lot of them you can check out, and if they are more of a classic one, the cheesy nature of them works better versus a modern cheesy story. Now, you still end up with some of them being too cheesy or dated poorly in other ways, so do a bit of research, but you can probably find bluray or DVD collections of them that would have a good variety as well.

This list is a bit more generic, so I apologize because it’ll make you do more work tracking stuff down. But fantasy is a bit broader than the board game topics and even broader than superheroes, because, while there are indie superheroes out there, most people think Marvel and DC. I tried to suggest some ideas that are a bit more specific for Lord of the Rings fans or Harry Potter fans, but there’s so much in the fantasy realm that it’s hard to cover some of the broader stuff. For that reason, if the person loves reading, books is always a great option, next time you see their book shelf, look at it and find what books might work there.

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The first game that we played was a mid-Alpha version of a game called Roll Player Adventures. If you’re not as familiar what Alpha or Beta testing is, Alpha testing is when you’re testing out a concept and still fine tuning it. You’re seeing what works, what might not work, and taking notes on that, Beta testing is more focused. You have a professional or nearly professional looking copy of the game around and you can play through it, you’re just looking for those few flaws that are left, but the mechanics are generally locked in. This was the earlier stage, and there were things that were just pieces of paper, or the story book was just pages in a binder. With that said, this was one of the highlights of the con. The game play was already a ton of fun, the story in the game was good, and the table was great. Role Player Adventures is going to be a cooperative campaign game where you are winning the favor of different groups, fighting different monsters, and reading story as you go. The game it’s based off of Roll Player, is about rolling up your D&D character and manipulating the dice to get the best character possible, and this one allows you to use a character in a game for a real adventure. We had a good group, so it was a bunch of silly fun, and the story was well crafted so that it was serious, but also lighthearted at points.

The following day, we played an RPG to start our day. The game was run in the Savage Worlds system and themed around The Dresden Files. If you’ve read many posts, you know that I love The Dresden Files. It was an interesting game to play, and I definitely had a fun time playing it. However, I didn’t love the system that it was run in. Savage Worlds is meant to be that kind of setting agnostic system, where you can play a Dresden Files game in it, but you could also play a World War II game in it with no magic, or it could be a Sci-Fi game set on a far off planet. I don’t think that is a major flaw with the system, but as a person who played a magic user, I had spells that were all flavored with ice. The spell cards though, were just like “blast”, so my “ice blast” did “blast” damage, and it could have just as easily been fire damage, force damage, any sort of damage. It made the system too devoid of that flavor that would make a character seem unique. The game itself was fun, but I will knocked the GM for the game a little bit. We had the BBEG for the one-shot on the ropes in the first battle. Instead of just having this generic BBEG bite it, he had them escape after a lot of unlikely things happening. It would have been better to let us win, and then have the BBEG’s cousin show up later in the final battle to get his revenge. Overall, I had a good time, but it was lacking.

To end the day, we played Village Attacks. Village Attacks is a tower defense game. But as compared defense game where you are the heroes fending off wave after wave of bad guys. In this game, you’re the bad guys, who are fending off wave after wave of villager who is coming to your house with torches and pitchforks. We had a couple of different experiences with the game, but we both ended up liking it. I had a fun group to play with, and we bum rushed the objective of the game. The game played pretty fast, probably an hour and a half after being taught the game or a little bit less. And you feel the tension of the game as more and more bad guys are placed onto the board. The other cool thing was that we got the scenario, and the full set of scenarios that we played as well as some character sheets for moving some guys from another game into our game.The downside was that my friend got stuck in a game with a person who had slept 1 hour thus far for GenCon, didn’t pay attention to the rules, and then left for ten minutes to go get pop and didn’t actually help the team in this fully cooperative game. So that was frustrating, but my friend still liked the game a lot, and that led to the other downside, it’s hard to find the game right now. And both of us want it, because it’s a very fun game.

The Saturday started out with the North American Championships for Ice Cool. And I love the game already, I learned a little bit from watching other players who were “better” than I was, and I made it to the semi finals. I won’t go into this too much, because I’ve already written about this game. Needless to say, it’s a game that I love, and playing in the tourney was a lot of fun. I might have been able to make it to the finals, but ran into a bunch of bad luck in the first round, which was just kind of funny. There were a few people who took this silly penguin flicking game too seriously, but overall, people where there to have fun.

Our other Saturday event wasn’t actually a game. We went to Hobbit Drinking Songs with Marc Gunn. That was just a funny old time, and even though he had some issues with his amp, the room was small enough that he was able to just play without the amplification and everyone could hear it. He’s a good performer and he has a lot of fun songs to sing. Also learned about ALEP (A Long Expected Party), Hobbit/Lord of the Rings event that happens in Kentucky. Seems like a small educational event and celebration of Tolkien’s works.

Sunday we were supposed to have two games. We actually skipped the first one, the Harry Potter miniatures game because the game just costs too much, so it wasn’t really worth the demo. We should have known because it was a miniatures game. But we did play in a win a box game with the new expansion for Marvel Legendary. That was a fun time, and I really liked the expansion. The most interesting part was that we were the only two people there, so that meant that one of us was winning the expansion, and with having spent $8 total between the two tickets, my friend who has collected most of Marvel Legendary, was able to get the game at a very discounted price. The expansion itself was a lot of fun, and we flew through the game, but just ran out of time at the end before dealing the killing blow, not because we were losing, but because we got started a bit late while seeing if other people would show up.

Overall, I think we planned out basically the perfect amount of gaming and events. With the Harry Potter Miniatures Game, I think that it would have been fun, but our Sunday would have felt a bit full. When we go back in the future, I think we’ll want to keep ourselves as busy as we were this time. A good balance of having things to do, but as you’ll learn in the next article, there is a lot to see and do on the dealer floor.

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For the Dresden Files series, the world of the stories might seem easier than some to describe. After all, as an urban fantasy, it’s set in modern times, in a real place. Then again, I’ve never been to some of the places in Chicago that are mentioned in the books — in fact, besides driving around it once, the longest I’ve been in Chicago was a long weekend, over a decade ago. So, in describing these new-to-me places, what does Jim Butcher do that I appreciate? In an example from the book Small Favors, the characters go to an aquarium to hold a meeting with some monsters. Instead of spending much of any time describing what the aquarium looks like, Butcher lays out the reasons why it is a good spot for the character’s meet-up (despite all appearances to the contrary). With how these details are described, you get an idea for why the aquarium was picked, not what the aquarium looks like. And there isn’t a reason to describe what it looks like — most readers will have a solid idea of this already, so there’s no need to describe the outside as you drive up, because it doesn’t matter for what’s happening in the scene. Even though Butcher used an aquarium that actually exists in Chicago, it doesn’t matter if my mind’s picture of it isn’t exactly right. In fact, this covers for him in case he ends up not having every detail right in his description, because someone would likely complain if he got something wrong. And if someone knows the location well enough to catch that, they don’t need a picture of it painted for them anyway.

So, what was done differently overall in this series that sets it apart from a lot of others? In short, it doesn’t infodump — I’ve read most of the books in the series, and I still haven’t run into any long scenes of world-building; nor have there been any grand, overarching segments describing every piece of magic, lore, and landscape that’s going to be important later. There are a number of reasons why it’s good to avoid this as a writer. An example of infodump occurs in Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One — the author spends most of the first three chapters world-building. He goes through a ton of 80s references and nuggets of information about the characters, their society, and their world that go on and on forever. There are a couple of issues with this; one is that it ends up telegraphing a ton of things. For most of these instances in Ready Player One, it wasn’t so much a Chekhov’s gun as it was a Chekhov’s machine gun, with the way everything was jammed into those first few chapters. It’s also frustrating because it ends up meaning that not much happens in a story full of infodump. Ready Player One is one of the few non-fantasy examples of this — authors of epic fantasy are often the worst offenders of using infodump or overly detailed description. George R.R. Martin is a bad one for this, tending to include too many details that don’t advance the plot. It also happens in Lord of the Rings (yes, I went there), in which things are described to a level well beyond what the reader wants or needs.

The question is, then, how do you balance it so that you aren’t pulling a fast one, but not putting in so much detail that it stops your story in its tracks and gets people to put down the book? I enjoy Dune quite well, for example, but I have trouble getting through it, especially early on, as Frank Herbert spends so much time developing his world, all the politics, and all the other different facets of the series. For that reason, I don’t read it in book form; I listen to it on audiobook, because that’s how I can make it through those opening chapters. But instead of just talking about how some books get it wrong, how about some ways you can do better than the big names I’ve mentioned who don’t always do it right?

(If you aren’t a writer, just think about who might do these things from the stories you’ve read or watched.)

First, I think it’s good to ask yourself as a writer/creator, does the reader/viewer need to know this? You put time and effort into coming up with all the details for your world. That is awesome, but some of those details are only meant for you. When you crest a hill and look down on the plains of Fargath, you don’t need to tell everyone about the river in it, unless the river is really important and unique. I already know what a plain looks like, so I don’t need to know the basics. The example below about the plains of Fargath is what you want to avoid:

As your band of weary travelers crested the final hill, they looked down on the plains of Fargath. Before them stretched miles of open grasslands that were turning golden in the autumn sun. Off in the distance, you could see a stream with a couple of trees standing next to it, but beyond that and a few small rolling hills, there was nothing for the eye to see. You turned to look at your traveling companions. They turned to look at you, sweat beading on their brows after a long days’ work. The horses looked tired, and didn’t appear to want to continue.

Let’s break that down. First, what I’ve described is a pretty standard plain. It’s actually a pretty boring plain. We probably already know I’ve been traveling all day, so it’s obvious that everyone is going to be pretty tired. The only useful pieces of information in the paragraph above might be that it’s autumn and that the area is called the plains of Fargath. It could be cut down to something like the following:

As your band of weary travelers crested the final hill, they look down into the plains of Fargath. The autumn air did nothing to stop the heat, but had already begun to turn the grass a golden color.

Two sentences — that’s all you need to describe what took way longer before. Now imagine traveling all the way to Mordor describing everything like the first example.

Next, unique is cool. In the example of the plains of Fargath, what sort of detail could be unique?

As your band of weary travelers crested the final hill, they looked down into the plains of Fargath. The autumn air did nothing to stop the heat, but had already begun to turn the grass a golden color. Off in the distance, you could see the head of the giant. The thirty-foot-tall stone head was clearly broken off from a giant statue, but none was to be seen.

Okay, that’s pretty cool. A thirty foot tall stone head, clearly broken off from a statue — how did that get there? It’s a detail that is probably going to be important, and that is definitely unique. Maybe they just camp by the stone head for the night and something happens there — even if it’s just an important conversation, now people are going to remember the plains of Fargath. But look at that compared to the first paragraph. It’s more interesting, because heads of statues lying on the ground are interesting. It’s still shorter, and the reader isn’t getting bored, because thirty-foot-tall stone head.

That’s one way to keep things more interesting — another would be to describe the function of the place or the reasoning for going to this place as you travel. This is what Harry Dresden did in Small Favors when going to the aquarium. He said it was off of peak season. So we now know to imagine the aquarium as being pretty empty. He talked about how unless people can see something, they don’t really know what happened or think that it happened the way it did, hence meeting indoors. We now have a clear purpose and functionality for picking the location of the aquarium. How would that work in an example that isn’t written by a prolific author?

No one went to the plains of Fargath for anything more than a novelty visit to the thirty-foot-tall head of a statue. It would be a quiet location for planning to be completed, and a place for plans to be set in motion for getting back the kingdom.

That’s really short, but again, without going into great detail about the plains of Fargath, we now have an idea of what the place is like. It’s quiet, it’s empty, there’s nothing there. We also know why we’re going there — probably something the reader would know already by that point, but a nice thing to clarify form time to time. We also know that this is going to be their base of operations. That tells us a lot about the place and why they are going there instead of just what the place looks like. Using this method also cuts down on a planning session ahead of time. It literally cut two scenes way down, potentially. It also has a sense of action to it that you lose in just a purely descriptive scene. Sure, there are plenty of ways to make description more active, but generally that adds to the length of the description. See the plains of Fargath example below:

As your band of weary travelers crested the final hill, they looked down on the plains of Fargath. Before them stretched miles of open grasslands that were turning golden in the autumn sun. The grass twitched in a breeze that barely cooled anyone. Off in the distance, you could see a stream babbling slowly across the plain with a couple of trees standing next to it, but beyond that and a few small rolling hills, there was nothing for the eye to see. You dropped out of your saddle and looked at your traveling companions. They turned to look at you, sweat beading on their brows after a long days work. The horses hung their heads and didn’t appear to want to continue.

It’s a little bit longer, and while we now have sense of motion with the grass twitching in the breeze, cresting the hill, the stream babbling, and the sweat beading, it’s still pretty much a long descriptive paragraph. If you felt like my two sentences above about reasoning weren’t enough, we can even add a little of the detail back in while keeping it very short:

No one went to the plains of Fargath for anything more than a novelty visit to the thirty-foot-tall head of a statue. Even fewer people came to see the statue as the autumn days grew shorter. It would be a quiet location for planning to be completed and plans to be set in motion for getting back the kingdom.

Now we know the season and also sets up more why the plains of Fargath will be empty. It’s probably not needed to add that, but maybe the shortening days will matter to the plot later, or that will be a trial they have to overcome. It only adds in a sentence, and not a long sentence at that.

The final way to make interesting world-building is on-demand world building. This basically means that you only add a detail to the world when you need it. Patrick Rothfuss does this in The Kingkiller Chronicle series. His narrator, Kvothe, only tells the parts of the world that are interesting to him, and only when they are relevant to the story. That does mean that information is sometimes sprung on you, but not often, and as a writer, that would be something to try to avoid if the piece of information is important for a later plot twist. What Kvothe does is about the opposite from what Wade Watts does in Ready Player One. In both cases, you’re dealing with a narrator who is the star of their own story, but Wade Watts gives you all the information to start, whereas Kvothe sprinkles in what is important where it’s needed. In Ready Player One, however, I don’t know that it could have been information dumped a ton better. As I said above, it was a Chekhov’s machine gun in that information dumping, so how do you avoid springing a surprise on the reader with that? It could have been cut down some, as there was a plethora of information and details given that weren’t needed, and that likely would have been the best solution.

With on-demand world building, it’s something that you just don’t have to use in writing or in shows or movies. I’m actually doing that with season two of Dungeons and Flagons (Found Here) where the players are helping me create the town of Bresson on the fly as well as NPCs. As a Dungeon Master, this can be a little bit scary to do, but it’s also a lot of fun, they are giving me the cast and location for this adventure, and I get to see the places that are interesting to the players and really get to be along for the ride with them. All of the suggestions above are great ideas for pulling into your RPG as well. Giving information on demand, or keeping descriptions short for a theater-of-the-mind game, or even just describing why a place is a good spot for the characters to go can all make for an interesting story.

What are some of the best and worst books that you’ve read or movies or shows you’ve watched in terms of world-building and information dumping? Is there someone who really stands out to you as being a great world-builder?

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Though I sometimes have to settle for re-watching the movies piecemeal, my preferred way to do it is all at once in a giant, day-long Middle Earth extravaganza. In my very biased opinion, it’s the best way to enjoy these movies; however, there is some preparation involved in such a venture. Thus, I give you my list of LOTR movie marathon essentials!

1. The extended editions. At this point, watching the standard versions just feels incomplete (and a little wimpy, to be honest).
2. Fellow nerds to watch with. Everyone knows Middle Earth is best explored with friends! In my opinion, a smallish group is best — it allows for both moments of silent cameraderie and well-timed quote-offs. Speaking of which…
3. Quotes for quoting along with your favorite moments. This will happen no matter what you do, so you may as well embrace it. Let’s face it; pretending to be Pippin and saying “We’ll need someone of intelligence on this mission…quest…thing…” will never not be fun.
4. Tasty Middle Earth-themed treats. You’re in this for the long haul, so you’d better bring some provisions! Lembas bread is a must (I’m partial to this recipe), and a potato-based dish (taters, precious!) is a nice addition, as are hobbit-y treats like seed cake, sausages, or some nice, crispy bacon.
5. Themed clothing (or full-on costumes for the truly dedicated!). Personally, I have a replica Evenstar necklace that I like to wear during LOTR marathons (and just in general, really). I’m also determined to get a pair of those hobbit-feet slippers from ThinkGeek one day — more perfect LOTR marathon apparel was never created. Of course, making it a pajama party rather than/along with a costume party is a great way to go as well, since you’ll want to be comfy during your tour of Middle Earth.
6. Your knowledge of LOTR film trivia. If you’re doing a marathon, chances are very good you’ve watched at least some of the special features, which means you’ll always remember choice tidbits from them whenever the relevant scenes come up. And you WILL feel compelled to share them with your fellow marathoners. Just proceed with caution and try to keep it to the more obscure fun facts. If you try to tell the story about Viggo’s broken toe in the scene with the orc pyre, prepare yourself for some eye-rolling.
7. Decorations. It can be as simple as a “No admittance except on party business” sign or as elaborate as dressing up your front door to look like the entrance to Bag End, but a Middle Earth-themed decoration or three is great for getting into the spirit of it all from the get-go.

These are the things I love to include as part of my LOTR-movie-madness events, but I’m sure there are other things that would be delightful as well — what do you consider to be essential to a true LOTR marathon experience? And if you’re not into LOTR, (we don’t understand but we still love you and) we want to know — what are your favorite movies or shows to marathon? Share with us in the comments!

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