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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 1865246" data-attributes="member: 2205">I can see that.  Although I still gamed both the weeks my third and fourth kids were born!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  Helped that my mother-in-law was in town to help out thought; frankly I was more in the way then helpful until she went out of twon again.No such luck; the Canton Public Library doesn't have any of your books.  I'll buy one anyway; let me know which one you'd recommend I start with.Fair enough.  Although I'm not generalizing based on a book or two; I've read dozens of game fiction novels over the years.  Although, indeed, some of them weren't bad, many of them were, and few of them were really impressively good.  Of course, the same can often be said of other licensed property fictions, like Star Wars novels or the like as well.  I think game (or other licensed property) fiction has its own set of difficulties above and beyond "regular" fiction; there's not as much flexibility for the author to change things to suit him, or if he does do so, he tends to "get the setting wrong" and create poorly concieved kitbashes of books, all the while ticking of legions of setting purists who don't like the new direction the author is trying to take it (New Jedi Order is a great example of this, and a major part of the reason I dislike Star Wars fiction in general.)  Gaming fiction also has the trap, although few good authors will fall into it, of not balancing the gameplay and the novels.  You don't want metagame elements intruding on your fiction (I despise novels that refer to characters by their class name, for instance -- and Rose Estes used to even say that characters couldn't cast spells because they weren't high enough level yet..   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" />  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> ) but the reverse problem; of making things happen in the novels that are completely inexplicable from the game mechanics standpoint, is just as bad.I also think its difficult to write; authors (and their editors) are rarely very bold, because they don't want to significantly change the setting, and they also want to appeal to the existing audience as much as possible without doing anything that might alienate portions of them.Another problem is that the books don't actually have to be that good to sell in big numbers; they merely have to include the requisite elements to draw out the fans of the setting, who will buy it regardless of the quality.  This, at least, is unique to game (and other licensed properties) fiction.  So, no, I don't automatically write off game fiction, I just recognize that with those challenges, there will probably be fewer game fiction novels I like as opposed to non-game fiction novels.That, and I also don't read much fiction at all anymore, but that's a different problem altogether.Like I said, though, I'd be more than happy to read one of your books.  Tell me which one I should start with, and I'll try to pick it up either this weekend or early next week.</blockquote>

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