Can a D&D Campaign make a great Novel? Under which conditions?

[Odhanan]

This is not a thread about narrativist DMs, novel techniques applied to RPG campaigns.

It's about playing an RPG Campaign and wanting to write a novel out of it, but keeping the two separate and thinking that indeed, the two things are truly different. How are they different, exactly?

When does a D&D Campaign make a great novel? Which conditions, what transformations, which modifications, re-writings, changes in focus and so on, are necessary for a D&D Campaign to become great novel material?

There have been successful adaptations of D&D Campaigns into novels before: the first DragonLance novels come to mind. What made them so successful? How were the original modules modified so that they could become decent novels?

Or do you think that D&D Campaigns should remain RPG campaigns and never be translated into novels? Why, then?

 

[Ron]

Great campaigns usually have great storyline, interesting plots and so on. Although those are also part of good novels, game fiction usually features poor characterization. As much as some players invest in character development, most PCs and NPCs are not very deep. Whatever you are planning, try to explore your characters motivations and feelings. Also, allow then to change in one or another by the events they are going through.

 

[Sandain]

Raymond E. Fiest made a writing career out of exactly this.

 

[Odhanan]

Whatever you are planning

I am not planning anything. I was just thinking about this today, and thought it could be the start of a good discussion on ENWorld.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Odhanan, I'd be interested in your opinion of my Story Hour since you brought this topic up. My story is fictional - and not a transcript of a game - yet it is based off of D&D 3.5 characterizations. I'm just wondering from your perspective if it makes the grade or not!

I think the poster two above me makes a good point. Good stories are made by believably deep characters. Characters who have motivations. Those motivations are not 100% reliable - giving them an occasional moment of spontenaity - yet for the most part the character is driven in a certain fairly reliable direction. Many RPG table-top adventurers don't have the worlds most thought out backgrounds... Not all, of course.

Furthermore, I think it is important to identify the use of magic at the beginning. People are willing to believe magic in a novel so long as it is consistant. One wizard who can summon lightning from heaven is believable if another can fling flaming balls that explode upon impact. But beginning the story with only being able to hardly levetate a two pound object and evolving as the story goes simply rings or a converted table-top adventure. When I write, I want even my "low-level" characters to experience high powered magic. Sure, I make it clear at the beginning of the story that the main characters may just be learning it so they can't do the good stuff. But I also make sure there are some cool examples of the good stuff from the very beginning. [I think this is true of combat, weapons, items, etc.]

Anyway ... hope this helps your understanding!

 

[Nyaricus]

Steven Ericson turned his AD&D (and then after GURPS came out and he comverted everyone over GURPS) campaign into the series we know as Malazan Book of the Fallen. Man, is that ever an amazing read

It can be done folks, and it has been

 

[an_idol_mind]

I've actually written and published a novel based on my D&D campaign (see my sig).

It is not, however, a retelling of events in the campaign (except for the prologue, which liberally rewrites a combat encounter from my game). It uses the same characters and extends the storyline of my homebrew, but is definitely different from how a game would run.

The biggest issue with turning a game into a book, in my experience, is writing the characters. Folks get really into characters they've played, and it's easy to leave out important details of the past or assume that the reader will be as interested as the writer is. My novel involved a lot of flashback sequences specifically for the purpose of fleshing out characters for the reader. In the process, I also ended up retconning some events in my campaign setting.

The other issue is that not everything in a game makes a good book. Using all of the spells and special abilities in D&D, for instance, can become confusing to the reader. D&D has a ton of very fantastical stuff in it, and using all sorts of magic up front can take away the base of normalcy that most novels require. I think a book based on a game can be done (and I would not have written my novel if I thought otherwise), but it requires conscious separation of the book and the game.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Upfront this is IMO but written properly and given a flair that is more than the mechanics it came from a campaign can become a novel. Personally I'd think Sepulchgrave's story hours or either of Shemeska's two story hours are definitely of that quality. Shemeska's in particular are rather better than the majority of the tripe I've seen passed off as fantasy novels.

 

[Felix]

I think the best example of a campaign moving from a campaign log writing style to a novel writing style is in Sepulchrave II's Tales of Wyre Story Hour. In the first few entries, you can clearly see that there are 5 guys sitting around a table playing DnD. You can see the dice rolls, know exactly what spells they are casting, can can feel the effects of a turn-based combat system.

Later on, however, the story hour becomes prose. Characters other than the PCs are focused upon, and some of their motivations, though perhaps not the full extent of their machinations, are revealed. You know they are PCs, yet you feel as if they have become a character all their own, seperate from the players; you see them performing their actions because of what they want, not because the player wants them to do something.

If anyone has not read this story hour, I very much recommend you do so; it is one of the most moving and inspiring tales in fiction, regardless of source; it is a story you wish would go on being written. The story in whole is found here.

 

[Shemeska]

Just look at some of the better written storyhours here on Enworld and that'll answer your question pretty easily.

Of course you have to heavily rewrite at times and take some dramatic license in order to make the characters seem alive in the fiction, because afterall while you might have been there at the table for the campaign to understand how they were portrayed, your readers weren't and you've got to convey it all to them in prose. You've also got to strip out game mechanics and such and just focus on the characterization/drama/plot etc.

If some folks think I and others have had some success on that level, all very cool