Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="CruelSummerLord" data-source="post: 3444131" data-attributes="member: 48692">This illustrates the major difference between fiction and gaming plots: In writing fiction, you take the players out of the equation, and put complete control of the DM/author.  A novel doesn't need to be bound by the strictures of gaming: With no players, it's less likely someone will complain if their character doesn't get to do much at a particular junction in the story.  The author has complete control, and can get the characters to agree to do something even if players, in the same situation, might refuse.  I can certainly understand Wulf's points about D&D game fiction sucking (and, let's be honest, a lot of it does), but again, with no players, the author doesn't have to answer to anyone but him or herself, and his or her readers.  If I want a stripped-down setting where advancement is slow and magic items are hard to find and even harder to make, I can have it without players complaining about slow advancement or a lack of rewards.  I don't have to incorporate all sorts of superhero-type powers and abilities if I don't want, nor do I have to risk breakdowns between what I as DM might think is socially acceptable, and what players do not-for me, it is perfectly acceptable for LG paladins to slaughter humanoid noncombatants...after all, they're just orcs and goblins, right?  They don't deserve the same kind of consideration humans or elves do.  In short, the plot and structure can be shaped by the needs of the novel, not of the game.  In this way, authors have a freedom that DMs do not.  As such, a lot of the pitfalls of converting campaigns to novels can be dodged altogether.  Truth be told, I actually like things better with an ensemble cast where everyone gets some screentime and gets to do something significant: One of my main criticisms of Weis and Hickman's Dragonlance Chronicles, for example, is that Riverwind, Goldmoon and Flint never really got to contribute in any significant way, or even get a lot of emphasis in the spotlight: Weis and Hickman never gave them a chance to "save the day", so to speak, when they didn't write them out of the storyline altogether.</blockquote>

Verification