Can novels make or break a setting for you?

[RSKennan]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but are they any actually "good" setting novels out there?

In my opinion, some of the Ravenloft and Forgotten Realms books were well written, even if the Ravenloft ones were often derivative. I also enjoyed the Prism Pentad for Dark Sun until the last book. I think that as long as you don't expect high art, but instead a good yarn, some of them can be worthwhile.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have no intention of reading any gaming fiction. There's enough pain in life already.

 

[the Jester]

Well, I answered "if it was very good," but when I read the OP I realized that I answered a different question than was actually asked.

In the scenario you describe, it would make no difference which setting had novels.

And I agree with TB that gaming novels are usually atrocious.

 

[RSKennan]

Well, I answered "if it was very good," but when I read the OP I realized that I answered a different question than was actually asked.

Sorry about that. I should have been more direct with my thread title.

 

[RangerWickett]

What are the elements that make a good fantasy novel that most gaming fiction lacks? I admit that the last D&D novel I read all the way through was The Thousand Orcs, at which point I realized I didn't like D&D fiction. I've since gone back and reread the first Dragonlance chronicle, and didn't like it that much either.

And then there was the Magic: the Gathering novel. Uff da.

But I also haven't read many good fantasy novels lately. I admit that Perdido Street Station was inventive, but I didn't really enjoy it. Then again, I was unemployed at the time, and I think it might just been too depressing.

I didn't get into Game of Thrones after giving it 100 pages, but I've been telling myself to give it another try. Otherland was engaging, by it just went on way too long. I like it when a novel has a resolution at the end, y'know?

Most of the ones that I really like are more magical realism, like Kindred and Wild Seed by Octavia Butler. Or it was sci-fi by Neal Stephenson or William Gibson. Or it was Ender's Game. I don't really remember liking a 'classic' fantasy novel in a setting with elves and the like for a long time.

 

[BadMojo]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but are they any actually "good" setting novels out there?

Sure. As far as the stuff published by WotC, I've enjoyed the following authors:

Paul Kemp (Forgotten Realms)
Don Bassingthwaite (Eberron)
Tim Waggoner (Eberron)

As to the original question, quality of fiction doesn't really influence by decision on buying a setting.

 

[Starglim]

I've become slightly more interested in a couple of settings due to novels that I enjoyed (Planescape for Pages of Pain , Eberron for City of Towers though the second in the series was forgettable) but that presupposes that I'd read the novels first. I wouldn't pick a setting for that reason in the way the OP suggests.

 

[Starglim]

He needs to understand the themes, the types of action that fit the setting, and what kinds of adventures work best there, and the best way for him to do that is to read game fiction.

Nah. Game fiction is seldom true to the setting, much less to the experience of a D&D game there (for one thing, authors seldom write action scenes by the D&D rules, if they even know them) and it's at best a thin and poor conveyance for world-building detail. They're two different media with different goals.

 

[RSKennan]

Nah. Game fiction is seldom true to the setting, much less to the experience of a D&D game there (for one thing, authors seldom write action scenes by the D&D rules, if they even know them) and it's at best a thin and poor conveyance for world-building detail. They're two different media with different goals.

I don't know if that's true all the time. It can certainly work the other way-the in game action can play out like an action sequence in a novel. I've played in my friend's games via Fantasy Grounds, and he tends to describe combat very much like it might play out in a novel or a movie. I haven't read his story hour (don't shoot me), but doesn't Piratecat do the same thing?

 

[RSKennan]

What are the elements that make a good fantasy novel that most gaming fiction lacks?

I think this is a good question. I don't know the answer, of course. A similar question, but one that might get different answers is: For those who think game fiction is bad, What makes it that way?