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

[TarionzCousin]

Campaign into a Novel: Selective Editing

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?

I would propose that the campaign's storyline would probably need to be selectively edited to make a great novel. Some things would get left out and others would get added.

Left out:
Tangents that didn't tie in to the rest of the storyline
Plot lines that didn't fully develop
Anachronistic character references

Added:
Characters' thoughts and feelings
Villain(s)' actions and motivations that occurred "behind the curtain"
Scenes to tie the overall narrative together.

These are just a few quick thoughts on the subject. Basically, I think that the campaign could provide the outline and many possibilities, but that the novel would not be able to include everything.

 

[Cor Azer]

I would propose that the campaign's storyline would probably need to be selectively edited to make a great novel. Some things would get left out and others would get added.

Left out:
Tangents that didn't tie in to the rest of the storyline
Plot lines that didn't fully develop
Anachronistic character references

Added:
Characters' thoughts and feelings
Villain(s)' actions and motivations that occurred "behind the curtain"
Scenes to tie the overall narrative together.

These are just a few quick thoughts on the subject. Basically, I think that the campaign could provide the outline and many possibilities, but that the novel would not be able to include everything.

Yeah, that's how I see stuff working.

I'm currently doing that with the old logs of my PbeM game - rewriting a lot of the older stuff to really bring out the flavour and (I hope) depth of the world. Then I can use it as a springboard for the rest of the campaign.

 

[diaglo]

i gave G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief as a book report with the PCs as the main characters back in 1981.

 

[Cor Azer]

i gave G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief as a book report with the PCs as the main characters back in 1981.

diaglo is my hero.

 

[GwydapLlew]

i gave G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief as a book report with the PCs as the main characters back in 1981.

You had me at 'hello.'

 

[Janx]

Several years ago, a TV director found my game site, because my game world had his last name. (Google for your name, it's odd what comes up). He got the idea, after reading the site, that making a movie might cash in on the Fantasy is making money thing (Harry Potter, LoTR was just out).

He also read the fiction we had written. And the history page, which sort of covered plots one could make a story out of. It still would have taken some word-smithing to turn game session events into a readable (or showable) story. Some game events would need tweaking to make them play better. Such was the case in the fiction I'd written. There were just some events (PC X shows up and joins for no reason) that had to be revised, as compared to actual game event history.

In the end, nothing came of it. But it was interesting to think that my group's campaign world was almost a movie.

Basically, a game campaign can be the seeds of a story plot. PCs can be the template for characters in a story. But you'll still have to make up dialogue, and tweak motivations, backstories, and "what really happened" to make a better tale.

 

[Turanil]

There have been successful adaptations of D&D Campaigns into novels before

Here in France, there was a best selling novel (two tomes) that was clearly adapted out of a D&D campaign (can't remember the name though), despite some efforts had been put to tweak things so it was not obvious D&D. So, this wasn't like the Dragonlance series which are clearly D&D novels. In fact the author never said it had been written after a rpg campaign, but some hints in the postface, and the archetypes within the story strongly let me believe it. For examples, the group of adventurers clearly included a ranger, fighter, two psionicists, and at some point an assassin or thief too. there was an assassin cult directly based on the Scarlet Brotherhood, and a lot of undead too (including in a typical dungeon crawl).

 

[fusangite]

I haven't read the books but apparently these were originally D&D campaigns: http://www.danielheathjustice.com/

In my view, an RP campaign can be a great starting point for writing a novel.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

When does a D&D Campaign make a great novel?

When the author has talent. The campaign events and characters are purely of secondary relevance.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I would suggest that a great novel from a D&D campaign would likely either focus on a small number of characters--maybe four at the most--or jump from among a dozen or more characters in an "epic" fashion (as in A Game of Thrones et al.).

As much as I am enjoying George R.R. Martin's series, I think it would be a greater challenge to tell an entire D&D campaign story from a single point of view. You might miss some of the main plot points, or not have a good flow from action to action.... That would require more characterization than most Fantasy novels have, and that's a good thing, IMO.

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

No mention of Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series yet. I won't be the first.

P.S. Ericson's Malazan series is very intense. We're still waiting for it to be completely published here in the States (I think there are 3 or 4 books in print in the U.S.A. right now. Someone who knows can correct me.)