4e--can you write a novel using it?

[Ahglock]

Depends on what you mean. I think it would be hard to novelize most per encounter and per day abilities in a way that shows or expresses they are per encounter and per day. You can easily just have the character only use that ability once per encounter and never really explain why its not used again in that encounter. It is kind of like most D&D books, staying true to the rules in a way that expresses the rules in a story is absurdly rare. Staying true to the rules while keeping the rules totally hidden is more common.

Healing surges is something I'll see in lots of movies and manga and few books though it is there in books as well. I happen to like action movies and manga so I'm cool with them as a story telling element.

 

[Andor]

Healing surges are very cinematic. True.

I've yet to see a movie or read a fantasy novel where the swordsman had moves that were only usable once per day however.

Can a novel be written using 4e as it's basis? Of course one can. There's one coming out next month I think.

The real question is: Can the action of the story follow the rules of the game without breaking the immersion of the reader?

Honestly? I doubt it. When our heroes carve their way through 50 orcs in 18 seconds and then suddenly need to spend 2 minuetes surrounding Johan der uber-orc before they manage to collectively beat him down we as the readers are going to stop and go "Oh. Those earlier orcs were minions. Johan was a Bloodrager with 194 hitpoints." Immersion broken.

 

[The Little Raven]

I've yet to see a movie or read a fantasy novel where the swordsman had moves that were only usable once per day however.

I've yet to read a fantasy novel where the swordsman uses his uber awesome move every single time he attacks. In fact, they often vary in effectiveness, even over the course of a single fight.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Healing surges are very cinematic. True.

I've yet to see a movie or read a fantasy novel where the swordsman had moves that were only usable once per day however.

You're thinking far too literally, mon frere.

A good novel based on 4E won't talk about the notion of "martial exploits" at all, at least not in the same way it talks about specific spells. Rather, its martial characters will simply pull off occasional really cool moves in combat, as appropriate to the circumstances. They won't happen too often, because that would be neither interesting nor realistic. A character might develop a signature move or two. But it will come out as part of the narrative description, not as the writer saying "and then he used Riposte Strike."

 

[Aus_Snow]

I have a suspicion that *no* edition of D&D that is not immensely house-ruled will ever be a good candidate for novelisation.

YMMVAOD.

 

[Hussar]

Healing surges are very cinematic. True.

I've yet to see a movie or read a fantasy novel where the swordsman had moves that were only usable once per day however.

Can a novel be written using 4e as it's basis? Of course one can. There's one coming out next month I think.

The real question is: Can the action of the story follow the rules of the game without breaking the immersion of the reader?

Honestly? I doubt it. When our heroes carve their way through 50 orcs in 18 seconds and then suddenly need to spend 2 minuetes surrounding Johan der uber-orc before they manage to collectively beat him down we as the readers are going to stop and go "Oh. Those earlier orcs were minions. Johan was a Bloodrager with 194 hitpoints." Immersion broken.

Does Conan throw his sword EVERY single fight? Yet, every time he throws his sword, someone dies. You'd think that'd be the first thing he'd do, since it's 100% fatal 100% of the time. Surely, after all the years of fighting that Conan does, he'd realize this and be carrying a quiver full of swords to be flinging like shuriken.

I mean, your second example isn't even a criticism. It describes just about EVERY action movie ever made. There have been multiple links posted to fights where the hero wades through minions then battles the big boss at the end.

Heck, we've already mentioned Inigo Montoya. In The Princess Bride, he stabs four mook guards in succession and all four fall down and then he chases Count Rougen. Perfect, textbook example of minions in use.

Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe all have minion fights followed by a bigger guy at the end.

Y'know what? If it's good enough for Tolkien, it's good enough for my game.

 

[humble minion]

Can anyone name a piece of pre-4e D&D fiction which paid even the most minimal lip-service to the Vancian casting mechanic, which is probably the single most prominent and unique mechanical feature of pre-4e D&D? (No, Vance doesn't count!)

Authors will write novels, and will attempt to write GOOD novels. Game system mechanics will rightfully give way to that ambition, no matter which edition.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Can anyone name a piece of pre-4e D&D fiction which paid even the most minimal lip-service to the Vancian casting mechanic, which is probably the single most prominent and unique mechanical feature of pre-4e D&D? (No, Vance doesn't count!)

Dragonlance did.

But most D&D novels don't, or at least they don't adhere slavishly to it. Which is, of course, the point. Nothing translates perfectly from one medium to another--be it game to novel, novel to movie, TV show to game. Nor should it.

Can you translate 4E mechanics, 100% perfectly and without modification, into a novel? Probably not. Can you do so as well, if not better and more easily, than some details of past editions? I'd say so.

 

[Roger]

I've yet to see a movie or read a fantasy novel where the swordsman had moves that were only usable once per day however.

It was Conan's savage instinct which made him wheel suddenly; for the death that was upon them made no sound. A fleeting glimpse showed the Cimmerian the giant tawny shape, rearing upright against the stars, towering over him for the death-stroke. No civilized man could have moved half so quickly as the barbarian moved. His sword flashed frostily in the starlight with every ounce of desperate nerve and thew behind it, and man and beast went down together.

-- "Tower of the Elephant", by Robert E. Howard.​

When our heroes carve their way through 50 orcs in 18 seconds and then suddenly need to spend 2 minuetes surrounding Johan der uber-orc before they manage to collectively beat him down we as the readers are going to stop

Etched abruptly in the rising moon, Conan saw a darkly blocked-out head and shoulders, brutish in outline. And now from the shadows dark shapes came silently, swiftly, running low--twenty great spotted hyenas. Their slavering fangs flashed in the moonlight, their eyes blazed as no true beast's eyes ever blazed.

Twenty: then the spears of the pirates had taken toll of the pack, after all. Even as he thought this, Conan drew nock to ear, and at the twang of the string a flame-eyed shadow bounded high and fell writhing. The rest did not falter; on they came, and like a rain of death among them fell the arrows of the Cimmerian, driven with all the force and accuracy of steely thews backed by a hate hot as the slag-heaps of hell.

In his berserk fury he did not miss; the air was filled with feathered destruction. The havoc wrought among the onrushing pack was breathtaking. Less than half of them reached the foot of the pyramid. Others dropped upon the broad steps.

(...Later, in the same combat...)

Twisting about, he saw it--the winged one!

With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike shape hurtling along on bowed and stunted legs; of huge hairy arms outstretching misshapen black-nailed paws; of a malformed head, in whose broad face the only features recognizable as such were a pair of blood-red eyes. It was a thing neither man, beast, nor devil, imbued with characteristics subhuman as well as characteristics superhuman.

But Conan had no time for conscious consecutive thought.

--"Queen of the Black Coast", by Robert E. Howard.​

Cheers,
Roger

 

[Jonny Nexus]

Horror in general is often predicated on the basis that anyone can perform the ritual provided that they get a complete copy of the ritual in question.

Yeah, that's how we thought it worked in Call of Cthulhu, at the end of our last campaign.

We ended up dissolving into goo fifty minutes later.

(The fact that it turned out that we didn't have a complete copy of the ritual might have had something to do with it, of course).