Gaming Fiction

[Mouseferatu]

Just a thought that occurred to me, as sparked by the "What do you hate about Drizzt" thread...

Who decided that gaming fiction didn't have to uphold the same standards as "normal" fantasy fiction?

I mean, most of us accept that as a given, that gaming fiction is generally of lower quality. That doesn't mean there are no good gaming fiction books. (Just for example, I happen to really love the Paul Kidd Greyhawk novels.) But overall, while exceptions exist, gaming fiction seems to hover well below the "average" mark for fantasy fiction in general.

Any idea how this trend got started? Is it just because the companies know that gamers will snap up anything with their favorite logo on it, and thus don't need to find/pay for decent writers? (And yes, I include myself in that, although I'm getting better about it.)

 

[Theron]

I think you pretty much hit it on the head. I think when the whole phenomenon of gaming fiction started, it was seen as a promotional tool to sell the games. As such, the companies had to go with what writer's they had on hand (see below), and editorial direction was mainly focused on "how does this drive game sales". The worst offender would be the Rose Estes Greyhawk stuff, which literally quoted rules as part of the narrative, but there's plenty of bad to go around.

While creating settings and characters is a creative endeavor, a lot of writing in the game industry is basically tech writing. Which requires a very different set of skills to do well than writing novels, and not every writer is capable of bridging the gap. Ditto editing novels vs. editing game products. As such, early on a pattern developed of game-related fiction being held to a lesser standard than the mainstream (although just barely, there's a lot of terrible mainstream fantasy and SF out there).

All of the above, IMHO, of course.

PS: Ari, I work with your Mom and Sister.

 

[Mouseferatu]

PS: Ari, I work with your Mom and Sister.

*Blinks*

LOL!! Man, the gaming community really is a small world unto itself, isn't it?

Tell them I said "Hi." That'll throw 'em for a loop.

 

[Theron]

Answered via e-mail.

 

[Yuan-Ti]

I have to agree with a lot of Theron's explanation for it. A lot of technical writers trying out fiction--some can do it and others simply should not. In defense of the writers there might also be something about being forced to follow certain rules and use someone else's setting (even more strictly than most shared setting books) that stifles the writing a bit.

For some companies, also, there seems to be some censoring going on, as well. I think if you wrote a dark fantasy book set in the Forgotten Realms that WotC would probably decline to publish it, no matter how good the writing was. Early on in the publishing cycle I read quite a few FR novels and I got the feeling they were aimed at mid- to late-teens and that they avoided certain themes, and tried to make everything a little too clear cut and simple. Life isn't like that. It has its dark sides. Good fiction usually acknowledges that.

As both of you mentioned, though, there really is some good gaming fiction out there. Some of the WotC novels are good. Some of the Warhammer novels are good, as well. More importantly, even those which really aren't good literature are fun just as pulp fiction.

As a side note, I find anthologies to be the worst offenders. Most fantasy anthologies are a bit hit and miss, anyway, but when you dig into a gaming anthology, I usually end up thinking about half the stories are fine, a couple are quite good and the rest are terrible. A couple of the Warhammer anthologies are exceptions: one has a number of good stories (more than bad) and another has no bad stories (though maybe only a couple really good ones).

Interesting topic, Mouseferatu!

 

[Theron]

I have to agree with a lot of Theron's explanation for it. A lot of technical writers trying out fiction--some can do it and others simply should not. In defense of the writers there might also be something about being forced to follow certain rules and use someone else's setting (even more strictly than most shared setting books) that stifles the writing a bit.

Doubtlessly. I also think, though, that the prospect of working in "someone else's sandbox" tends to attract people whose skills may be less than up to the task.

For some companies, also, there seems to be some censoring going on, as well. I think if you wrote a dark fantasy book set in the Forgotten Realms that WotC would probably decline to publish it, no matter how good the writing was. Early on in the publishing cycle I read quite a few FR novels and I got the feeling they were aimed at mid- to late-teens and that they avoided certain themes, and tried to make everything a little too clear cut and simple. Life isn't like that. It has its dark sides. Good fiction usually acknowledges that.

During the TSR years, there was an official Code of Conduct that both gaming and fiction products had to hold to. No overt sexuality, good must win and win decisively, evil shouldn't be portrayed as attractive or sympathetic, etc. A lot of it was in reaction to the Anti-D&D Crusaders of the early 80s, and I think no small amount of it had to do with some of the mind-bogglingly dreadful things that happened in the Rose Estes Greyhawk novels (rape, trans-species rape, and worse). It's good to see that Wizards has loosened the reins quite a bit on game product content; it'll be interesting to see if they do the same for fiction.

 

[Piratecat]

I'll slide this over to the sci-fi discussion board. It's an interesting discussion; some of the bad gaming fiction put me off of fantasy novels in general for years.

My personal rule: when the book has a hero named "Earwig" (some Dragonlance short story) or two cockney-slanged talking aardvarks (Ring of Winter), toss it in the garbage before it has a chance to burn out your eyes.

 

[Staffan]

During the TSR years, there was an official Code of Conduct that both gaming and fiction products had to hold to. No overt sexuality

There's definitely sex going on in some of the D&D books though, even if it's "off-camera." In the Forgotten Realms Avatar trilogy, Midnight and Kelemvor are bumping uglies (it's been a while since I read it, but Midnight might even technically be prostituting herself - I'm not sure if they do it as "payment" for Kelemvor's services), and the relationships in the Dark Sun novel "The Verdant Passage are almost on the level of a soap opera: Rikus and Neeva start out as partners both in the gladiatorial arena in in bed. Then Sadira is "assigned" to Rikus by the Veiled Alliance. When she escapes from the slave pens, she encounters the psionic nobleman Agis of Asticles, and takes a liking to him too, creating a rivalry between Agis and Rikus. I'm not sure they actually get involved during the first novel, but by the second it's pretty clear. In other words, the situation could be seen as:

Neeva -=- Rikus -=- Sadira -=- Agis

 

[Black Omega]

Good thread. About the only gaming fiction I've really enjoyed was the BattleTech novels from Stackpole. Very enjoyable stuff. Aside from that, it's all pretty average at best. It's seemed at times it's a little too much people's own campaigns, rather than something written as fiction.

 

[Humanophile]

I think the problem comes in that it's gaming fiction. More to the point, it's about PC-style characters who do PC-style things and lead PC-style lives. And to be frank, what people want of their PC's and what they want of their fiction protagonists can be worlds apart.

Let's be honest; when we make a player character, even when we're not hoping to approximate the all-18's superman as closely as we can, even in the rare circumstances when we don't want to play that really cool ego-projection of ourselves, we still want our characters to be perpetually successful, to be eternally composed, to be cool, and to be capable of whatever life throws at them. And while not everyone fudges, lies, and cheats to get what they want, I'll bet that nobody has ever said around a table "It'd be great for the story if my character failed at this so he'll have to come back driven for vengance. C'mon, daddy needs you to roll a 1." That's fine when you're around a table with friends, more concerned with having fun than with telling a story for all ages, and there's enough compotence between the DM and players to keep the spotlight moving and the challenges challenging.

However, in gaming fiction, there are no dice to interject the chance of failure (and as a matter of fact, a protagonist who faced realistic odds would lead to either an incredibly dull or an incredibly short book), and there isn't as much pressure to share the spotlight around. In the best gaming fiction I've read (which to be fair, isn't much), it reads like a transcript from someone's gaming sesson, but at least the interparty tension and interactions between all the protagonists leads to some human interest. In most gaming fiction I've seen, however, it seems like the author places the character they wish they could play into a "campaign" where the PC is run by the DM, without even having to pay more than a token nod to the rules of the game. And at that point, it strikes me as ego tripping and fanboys who insist on telling you about their character.

The problem with gaming fiction, at least to me, is that it's told from the perspective of the PC's, while NPC's tell the best stories. Even in a supposedly low-powered, "realistic", atmosphere-heavy setting like one of White Wolf's, you won't find gaming fiction properly in the vein of American Beauty or good Lovecraftian horror. At best you'll have The Crow, at worst you'll have bad LARP rejects. And while we'd all want to be that super-cool guy (the dude with the flowing black trenchcoat and kickass comkat skillz or the restrained, wise, ANH-era Obi Wan Kenobi, depending on genre and maturity level), we'd have more fun reading about someone with human flaws, who makes mistakes, and who we as falliable human beings can empathize with and be interested in.