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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="takyris" data-source="post: 1064698" data-attributes="member: 5171">Ditto Vision to an extent.  Readers who already know something about the setting of a story get very indignant when a story differs from their opinion of how such a story "ought to be".For example (and Paul, I haven't read your stuff, so none of this applies to you), you get gamers who want to see spells called by name, with wizards using spell components and such and spells following the rules in the book pretty closely.  You also get people who want to see magic more "fantasy-like" in their fantasy novels, and get really irate when a fantasy novel reads like a gaming session, complete with how many fireballs the wizard had to cast to take down the guardsmen.  Different gaming groups use different levels of flavor and rules interpretation, and the poor gaming author is stuck trying to make each of them happy.There's also the question of clerics.  Clerics and clerical spells mess up most common fantasy-novel plots.  Murder victims have a habit of getting raised or at least spoken with, and when the gaming novelist has characters do something that would make sense in a normal fantasy novel, he's branded as stupid for ignoring the possibility of simply using spell "X".  When he does, he's branded as stupid by the other side for having "a plot no better than the average gaming session", because the mystery was spoiled.  Same goes for healing.  Leave out healing, and the gamers mock you for having a party with no cleric.  Put in healing, and you've got to have a) a cleric in the party, which leads to more religious discussion and argument, b) a description of how the healing works, how you can dash in and heal your friend in mid-battle, and so forth.  Good D&D tactics end up sounding less heroic when applied to fiction, rather than a roleplaying session.  This is one reason that I read very few story hours.Some writers manage to make most people happy by refusing to cater to one side or the other.  I'm not a huge fan of Salvatore's new stuff, but I loved his old stuff -- mostly because he kept the flavor of a game I'd like but didn't bother with the boring stuff.  He made cool fight scenes.  I liked reading about his fights.  They were fun.  They were fights I'd have loved to try and do in a D&D game.Elaine Cunningham's "Danilo & Arilyn" books do a lot of the same things -- they use as little of the rules as possible in order to tell as good a story as possible.  People could complain that Danilo couldn't cast that many teleports per day and so on, but the fact is, it's a fun story.Note: These are my personal biases.  I like fun fight scenes and good dialogue, and I could care less how well it maps do D&D rules.  Mileage may vary.So, those are some reasons why I think you have a point.  Gaming Fiction gets a harsher treatment from gamers than ordinary fiction -- although it's only slightly harsher than Media Fiction, which is treated harshly as well, for many of the same reasons (people have watched the show from which the novel came, and have their own ideas about how things should look, sound, feel, and go).  Media Fiction gets off a bit easier, though, because at least there, you've got a show to work from.  Gaming Fiction accesses the imagination of a hundred thousand different roleplaying sessions, each of which had a different flavor.Finally, I'd suggest that gaming fiction really gets a bad rap from gamers because it's the area where gamers get to be snobs.  Bring up some of the "normal" fiction that people are reading in some writing/reading message boards, and you'll be laughed off as an adolescent fanboy.  Jordan and Goodkind are not treated with kid gloves everywhere, and you'll find people sneering at you for liking them and suggesting you go read Neil Gaiman or China Mieville to find out what "actual fantasy is like".  Every genre, and subgenre, has its elitists.Second Note: My personal perspective is that of a "normal" fantasy/sci-fi writer who also happens to game.  I've got five or six short story sales under my belt, and novels with agents, and a ton of respect for people with the commitment and dedication to get their novel published, whatever genre or subgenre it might be in.  I read for fun, for enjoyment, and for the occasional thoughtful realization.  I get ticked off when I'm lectured by the author, and I hate sloppy dialogue and lame fight scenes.</blockquote>

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