The reasons why "novel-talk" is taboo on WotC Boards?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Actually, it is cheap AND inaccurate.

Cheapness implies malice. I assure you there's none. Shocking revelation: I have a friend who's a WotC novelist and one who's a WWGS novelist.

More than a few WotC authors have been published BEFORE they ever wrote a book for WotC (and outside of the "gaming" market).

"Few" is a necessarily vague term, and I suspect we're disagreeing about how few is few. The majority of TSR and WotC novelists never had a work of fiction published prior to TSR and/or WotC giving them their shot. Some of them, by any standard, deserved that shot. Some did not. I simply think the numbers that did not are larger than they need to be.

If it's the fact that I'm saying WotC that's so offensive, pretend I'm talking about, I dunno, Vampire: The Masquerade fiction. The same principle applies.

Have you read any of the various D&D novels?

Yes. People can be informed and still have a different opinion. I know that's a heretical thought as far as the Internet goes, but it's true.

Course, its all my opinion that WotC pushes out some great novels, but at least I've read them and have some background for my opinions.

It's ironic that this thread started out talking about how the people who didn't like the novelists made personal shots (although it sounds like, over at the WotC board were just simple trolls), whereas here, it's the defenders who are doing it.

Of course I've read the novels. Please cut the crap.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think the only relationship that can be pointed out about people being critical of the fiction, is you can't please all the people, all the time. For example, take one of the "larger" realms authors, who was not "in the industry" before he began publishing, and MANY, MANY people do nothing but trash him and his novels (more exactly, the novels main protaganist).

Said author has used that springboard to create commercially successful non-game fiction. I think he's a good example of one of TSR's fiction gambles paying off.

He's outnumbered by the folks who haven't broken into non-game fiction, though.

 

[romp]

This part of your post baffled me--I have never heard of a company getting in trouble with parents because of TOO MUCH moderation. If fear of one disgruntled teen was the problem, then the WOTC boards would not have banned anything at all, ever, lest there be a complaint about...something.

Someone else already posted about haphazard and inconsistent moderating, which I suspect is more the problem. You either need a benevolent dictator (or two, and they all agree) or a firm policy, or moderating simply won't work. And you need a thick skin.

This brought to mind the designer/writer for Avalon Hill back in the day and the various sex-related charges brought against him by some girl that he had exchanged emails with, he was eventually accquited but since Monarch Avalon (parent company of Avalon Hill) also published a girls magazine they had to drop him like a hot rock ...

 

[I'm A Banana]

Posts of rape and killings of the authors? Geez, who the hell were these people? I am surprised the game designers aren't receiving these threats also, why was it geared only towards novel authors

I dunno....sounds to me like so much internet tough guy conversation. Just a board where two groups of people with radically different opinions converged. Stones were tossed, trolls were flamed, and the hypersensitive had hurt feelings. Happens every day in the big bad world.

I don't know why WotC would be affraid of such things, except as another poster said, that the forum exists primarily as a way for them to pat themselves on the back, and as a community second.

They're within their rights to do it, but it seems petty and reactionary. Opinions differ, and forums can be places for the expression of different opinions.

 

[diaglo]

I think the only relationship that can be pointed out about people being critical of the fiction, is you can't please all the people, all the time. For example, take one of the "larger" realms authors, who was not "in the industry" before he began publishing, and MANY, MANY people do nothing but trash him and his novels (more exactly, the novels main protaganist).

actually that isn't true. said author had his own work before he started writing about drow. i have them and read them. they just weren't very popular.

 

[Faraer]

J., I just don't recall much of the canon-worship that you talk about, and not by the novel-board jerks in any case.

 

[Odhanan]

I'm mostly with Whizbang on this issue. I think most WotC novels are seriously sub-standard. I like a few of them (Cormyr - a novel, for one), but most of the books, if they aren't that badly written, feel bland and feature stereotyped, one-dimensional characters (teenage, never changing/evolving, invulnerable, cliched, and so on and so forth. I can actually give precise examples if you want me to). Fact is, to publish fantasy in most major publishing companies interested by it, you've got to make some kind of compromise by leveling down styles, uses of words and so on. Which is taking readers for stupider than they are, IMO (JRR Tolkien proved this in his time absolutely masterfully).

Now, that said, this isn't an excuse to insult the authors on WotC's board, getting personally hurtful or just being a plain jerk. At any age. If people just can't talk about a subject in a mature, responsible AND respectful way, let's just not talk about such subjects (God, am I thinking about politics and religion right now...).

 

[wingsandsword]

J., I just don't recall much of the canon-worship that you talk about, and not by the novel-board jerks in any case.

There was plenty of it in other boards, I never spent much time on the novel boards, but if you suggest anything on the Realms boards that violated even some obscure tenet of Realmslore from some long forgotten source, or a message board post or statement Ed Greenwood made at a convention a decade ago, expect somebody to call you on it and give you a detailed explanation of why your idea/suggestion is a bad idea because it violates some obscure aspect of canon. I love the Realms, I even know a fair chunk of Realmslore, but some fans on the wotc boards are so rabid with their canon love it makes talking about the setting hard.

Oh, and never say you don't like the Yuuzhan Vong on the Star Wars boards, apparently a lot of the people on those boards think they're a better villain than the Sith, Empire and Separatists rolled into one.

The basic problem with the WotC boards is that it is largely populated by a bunch of kids that it's their first time online. They've gotten into Magic or some other CCG, or are trying out D&D in junior high, and these are the first boards they find. The average age and maturity of posters is pretty low (there are always exceptions, but it's a trend I've noticed over the years). Spelling and grammar that literally makes me cringe is routine there, and while there are many mature and sensible posters, they have a very low signal to noise ratio very often. I can only imagine that WizO's have a pretty tough job with just what I've seen in regards to keeping order.

 

[PaulKemp]

On the subject of the closing of the WotC novels board: I was sorry to see it go and was not part or party to the reasons. There were some malicious posts made there, but I honestly wish WotC had simply banned those users. I enjoyed the forum. But what is, is.

As for the idea that most WotC authors are amateurs and cannot or have not been published in other areas, that's an empirical question that (I suspect) is exactly wrong. Here's a list of authors off the top of my head who have published novels or short stories with publishers other than WotC: Troy Denning, R.A. Salvatore, Elaine Cunningham, Mel Odom, Clayton Emery, Richard Lee Byers, Voronica Whitney-Robinson, Thomas Reid, Lisa Smedman, Matt Forbeck, Don Bassingthwaite, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, J. Robert King, Jeff Grubb, Ed Greenwood, me, and I could go on. My list is not determinative on the question, but it at least suggests that a good number of writers for WotC also enjoy success in other areas.

As for the comment that WotC novels are of sub-par quality -- I disagree and wish you felt otherwise, but I must acknowledge that one opinion is just as valid as another.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As for the idea that most WotC authors are amateurs and cannot or have not been published in other areas, that's an empirical question that (I suspect) is exactly wrong. Here's a list of authors off the top of my head who have published novels or short stories with publishers other than WotC: Troy Denning, R.A. Salvatore, Elaine Cunningham, Mel Odom, Clayton Emery, Richard Lee Byers, Voronica Whitney-Robinson, Thomas Reid, Lisa Smedman, Matt Forbeck, Don Bassingthwaite, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, J. Robert King, Jeff Grubb, Ed Greenwood, me, and I could go on. My list is not determinative on the question, but it at least suggests that a good number of writers for WotC also enjoy success in other areas.

I don't disagree that there are some that had published fiction prior to working in game fiction and some that have done so afterwards. I have, though, sat in Barnes & Noble, pulling book after book off the shelf. That sampling (I had a lot of time on my hands) of all the books available that day in the book store about three years ago showed that the number of authors (counting authors who had multiple game books as just one author; it's absolutely true that WotC/TSR tend to give more work to the better authors who are also the ones who tend to have outside game fiction experience, before and/or after doing game fiction) who had only published game fiction was higher than those who had not.

And, perhaps I should clarify instead of simply allude: This argument of mine (although I think that's a stronger word than is merited) begins with TSR and includes other game companies. Grab Mage, Werewolf and Mage novels and compare the author list to the developer lists at WWGS, for instance.