Can Campaigns based on books be successful?

[the Jester]

In theory, it can be fine to use fiction for setting elements. In practice, it can be disastrous. I'm much fonder of creating my homebrews from whole cloth, even if I do steal a lot of setting elements from other places (really, from everywhere).

It's very easy to get 'caught' by a player with more knowledge of the setting than you. It's also very easy to spoil the books for players who haven't, but might yet, read them.

 

[Niccodaemus]

Except by those many people, like me, who have had nothing but good experiences playing what many people, like me, consider to be highly fun, innovative, and influential modules.

Ditto! I loved Dragonlance. Of course, like all adventures I have purchased, I did a great deal of re-working, but DL gave you an amazing amount of flavorful stuff to use... or not.

I'll take that any day over endless pages of "stats".

 

[DonTadow]

The #1 reason I will never run or play in a game based on Forgotten Realms is cause most players I have played with in these settings have read all the books and either
1. they know main characters or design their character as main characters and expect the dm to treat them as superstars with said powers and abilities automatically.

2. they get upset at any deviation or contradiction of the book.

 

[Chris Knapp]

The #1 reason I will never run or play in a game based on Forgotten Realms is cause most players I have played with in these settings have read all the books and either
1. they know main characters or design their character as main characters and expect the dm to treat them as superstars with said powers and abilities automatically.

2. they get upset at any deviation or contradiction of the book.

In my experience, this is why most campaigns based upon books fail, not due to any railroading aspect. The dreaded combination of someone new to the setting paired with a complete canon fanatic at the same table has caused most of my DL games to implode. And this has played out not only in Dragonlance, but in LotR, FR, Star Wars. . .

 

[Elf Witch]

I have done it and it worked fine. Player buy in is important. We had a very successful Dr Who game back in the late 80s we all played our favorite companion and the DM ran the Doctor.

I have never run a game recreating exact adventures from a book or with the original characters as anything other than NPCs. I don't know if that would be fun for us. But if your players are having a good time then that is what counts.

I have run Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance and I have never encountered the issue of players expecting it to be just like the books even from diehard fans of a setting. I don't know if this an exception but they all recognize that this Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance world is not the world of the books but ours to do as we please.

 

[TheYeti1775]

It can be done.
You just have to agree with the players with at the point that Canon ends.

Take Game of Thrones for example, do you end it at the beheading or the red wedding?

Star Wars depending on the ERA where do you cut it off.
I'm in a Legacy campaign now, and we kept the canon on the backburner with our characters all around it. But we all agreed the end of the Krayt/Cade fight in the last ones was the complete divorce from Canon.

The real problem is when you do have players well versed in the world's canon and functions. I know it's caused some headaches within our group. But it can be worked through.

 

[Rhenny]

I'm running a game right now that I created from one of those D&D Fantasy Novels (The Seal of Karga-Kul). I'm using the situations and encounters to build a few possible paths for the campaign. The book is great for developing settings and encounters, and overall plot concerns, but I'm creating my own NPCs and allowing the players to follow whatever path/direction they like. I'm also pretty sure none of my players have read the book, which kind of helps.

Heck, way back in the late 70s when I was a teen, the DM I played with adapted "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" (Genesis with Peter Gabriel Album...yes in those days we had albums) into a campaign. It was strange, and creepy, but a really fun set of adventures.

You can basically use anything for inspiration, but like others say, it is hard to prescribe a specific outcome or have characters play like characters you've read about or imagine.

 

[Dragonhelm]

TSR created a series of modules based on the DragonLance trilogy.

The modules were being produced prior to the release of the Chronicles trilogy.

They are near universally held up as the the model for what not to do with a campaign.

And yet, they are beloved by many, and republished twice for 2e and once for 3e. I would not discount them as a failure by any means.

Trying to do a campaign based on a playthrough of the main storyline of a book and from the pov of the main characters is simply a railroad. You can't really let the players interact with the fiction in a meaningful way unless they can change the ending and the journey.

Yes, there was some railroading going on, but that was primarily in the first four modules in the series. As time went on, and the novels began to bypass the games, the Dragonlance design team learned that you can't base a novel on an RPG, at least not without hearing the dice roll as you read.

When Margaret Weis Productions gained the Dragonlance license, they operated with novels leading the way, with the RPG then publishing materials based on the novels afterwards. It was a recipe for success.

Personally, I'd like to see the two sides of things work a bit more in tandem, but I realize that can be a logistical nightmare.

I would echo the thoughts above about not including novel characters. Your group's characters are the stars, not the heroes of the novels. Maybe those other heroes are somewhere else in the setting, or perhaps your vision is an alternate history.

Novels can also be inspiration for a story in your own world. My DM recently adapted JC Hutchins' 7th Son podcast trilogy to use in our Dragonlance campaign. Some serial numbers were filed off, and details changed to adapt certain portions of the story to our game. The end result was one of the two best DL campaigns I've ever played in, and the single best play by post game.

 

[Desdichado]

With the right people and DM of course it can be successful. Any campaign can no matter what the masses think. The key is to realize that what people not playing in the game don't matter. Just keep the players in front of you entertained and as long as they enjoy this type of campaign have a blast doing it!

I was all ready to type up my response about how this is a bad idea, and I wouldn't want to do it, and yadda yadda yadda, but really Crothian hit the nail on the head. If you're players are enjoying it, particularly relative to other campaigns, then don't rock the boat and listen to all the naysayers (like me) who probably wouldn't enjoy it. We don't matter.