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A campaign I'm fed up with. . .
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<blockquote data-quote="Thotas" data-source="post: 3178173" data-attributes="member: 18974"><p>She needs to learn that writing a novel and running a game may have some superficial resemblances, but there are some very fundamental diametrically opposite qualities. That's part of what is making this situation so bad.</p><p></p><p>It is possible for a game to translate into a good novel, but a novel does not ever translate to a good game. Examples of the first? Paksennarion has a lot of fans, and only a blind gamer can read those stories and not see that Paks was once a PC of Elizabeth Moon, and that she played the Village of Homlet. Then there's Dragonlance; after playing the scenarios as a home brew, the authors had enough fun to think they should write it as a narrative. Example of the second? Dragonlance again. I don't know from my own experience, but I've heard from those who've read the stories and tried to play the adventures that the reading is better than the playing; the process of gaming is too free-form and individualistic to expect another group to recreate the original experience, which is what those adventures apparently do.</p><p></p><p>The lesson is that game to novel can work, novel to game cannot. And, sorry to say, it sounds like your friend has a pretty lousy novel that she's working from anyway. I doubt there's any hope for this game, as a result. I can't know enough from message board posts to advise you on what to do about it, but I will say that whatever you should do, the fact that you have to begin with is this: This Game Cannot Be Salvaged.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Thotas, post: 3178173, member: 18974"] She needs to learn that writing a novel and running a game may have some superficial resemblances, but there are some very fundamental diametrically opposite qualities. That's part of what is making this situation so bad. It is possible for a game to translate into a good novel, but a novel does not ever translate to a good game. Examples of the first? Paksennarion has a lot of fans, and only a blind gamer can read those stories and not see that Paks was once a PC of Elizabeth Moon, and that she played the Village of Homlet. Then there's Dragonlance; after playing the scenarios as a home brew, the authors had enough fun to think they should write it as a narrative. Example of the second? Dragonlance again. I don't know from my own experience, but I've heard from those who've read the stories and tried to play the adventures that the reading is better than the playing; the process of gaming is too free-form and individualistic to expect another group to recreate the original experience, which is what those adventures apparently do. The lesson is that game to novel can work, novel to game cannot. And, sorry to say, it sounds like your friend has a pretty lousy novel that she's working from anyway. I doubt there's any hope for this game, as a result. I can't know enough from message board posts to advise you on what to do about it, but I will say that whatever you should do, the fact that you have to begin with is this: This Game Cannot Be Salvaged. [/QUOTE]
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A campaign I'm fed up with. . .
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