Article: EUOLogy about RPG Campaigns as Books

[EUOL]

Wait a second--I wasn't talking sales, I was talking success.  That's something completely different.

Sprig, gaming fiction is a different market than the fantasy market.  People reading those stories want different things.  Something that makes good gaming fiction can make a terrible mainstream fantasy.

In addition, how many copies have the Lodoss war novels sold?  Do you have hard figures?  Because I can guarantee that Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind BLOW AWAY Lodoss.  They may sell well in Japan, but Japan is a much smaller book market than America.  

I think it's very arrogant to say no "good" fantasy could ever come of it.  Good is subjective.  Yes you get paid to write, but good to most people (that aren't snobs) is anything that sells well.

Again, I think if you released the Lodoss War books over here, I think they'd tank big time.  My opinion, but it's a very informed opinion.  I know the market better than you do.

The only people that would read something from 50 years ago are students (becsaue their teachers are making them) or hard core fans.  I think that's a horrible way to judge quality, especially for entertainment which changes so fast.

I think Sprig has a very good point here.  Entertainment does change fast, which is why Terry Brooks sold so well in the 70's, but similar books now (without his name attached) tank.  

However, none of this gets at the real point I was trying to make.  I've seen A LOT of people try to turn their campaigns into books, and they generally fail worse than if they'd tried to do something from scratch.  I FAILED when I tried to do it.  The reasons relate to the ones I talked about in the lower portion of my column.

RPG campaigns have too much baggage, and are too unwieldy.  Characters that would be considered 'cliche' in fiction are actually quite fun to play in a RPG.  I do it all the time.  Part of the experience, especially D&D, is to play that noble paladin or drunken dwarf.  

Here's the thing:  What's good in an RPG game doesn't make for what's good (or what sells) in mainstream fantasy.  A lot of people don't understand this.  Hence my argument.

(By the way--I think your defenses of your points have been very good so far, Sprig.)

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

my biggest problem with saying selling well means something is good is that it is farcical. Let's go back to McDonald's shall we? Kids like it. But they don't like the FOOD. They like that the kids in the commercials are having fun and that you can get toys and that there's a clown and that it's an exciting change from routine. Sift through the trash in the dumpster behind McD's and I'm willing to bet that the ratio of Happy Meal boxes and ham/cheeseburgers that are less than 50% eaten approaches 1. There will, in fact, be more ham/cheeseburgers because some kids keep the box.

Adults eat at McD too, I know. do you know anyone that says they love the food? No, adults go because it's convenient, fast, well-branded, and relatively cheap. This says NOTHING about the food, except that it doesn't typically make you throw up. Sorry, but I'll call you irrational if you say that means the FOOD is good. There's something well-executed about the process of getting people to buy that food, but that does not mean, in any way, that the food itself is good.

[Entsuropi]

Actually, I quite like mcdonalds food, assuming I only have it about once a month at the very most.

[Oldie Black Witch]

It ain't the box the kids go for. It's the toys.

Back on subject: If people buy happy meals for the extras, what extras in terms of books persuades someone to buy what would otherwise be considered an OK or mediocre book?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

pretty covers, cover quotes, exciting summaries, good marketing, availability

[Spriggan]

Wait a second--I wasn't talking sales, I was talking success.  That's something completely different.

umm...no it's not.  If something is successful it sells well.  If's it's not successful then it's becsaue no one bought it.  There are different levels of success, not evey book is going to sell 1 million copys.

Sprig, gaming fiction is a different market than the fantasy market.  People reading those stories want different things.  Something that makes good gaming fiction can make a terrible mainstream fantasy.

In addition, how many copies have the Lodoss war novels sold?  Do you have hard figures?  Because I can guarantee that Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind BLOW AWAY Lodoss.  They may sell well in Japan, but Japan is a much smaller book market than America.  

I'm really not argueing that anymore, but ya I wouldn't hesitate to agree.  Though one could argue if something that has a small market sold better percentage to that market then larger books it was more successful.  So if book A was in a nitch market that usealy sold 1,000 book and Book B was in a market that usealy sold 10,000 books and Book A sold 2,000 while Book be sold 9-10,000 Book A would have been more successful, becsaue it sold 200% it's normal market.

As for good gameing fiction=horrible mainstream fantasy.  They're different genras, I'm not argueing that either.  I'm argueing that if something is a gameing fiction that does not mean it's a horrible book (not mainstream fantasy).  The crux of the arguements going on with you and Fell is if it's gameing fanstasy isn't going to be a horrible thing and so why do people bother makeing them.  My arguement is it's arrogent for you to brush everything off becasue your tastes are differet.


[/quote]Again, I think if you released the Lodoss War books over here, I think they'd tank big time.  My opinion, but it's a very informed opinion.  I know the market better than you do.[/quote]

I never said they wouldn't.  I just argued they had to be successful and of some quality to be as popular in Japan thats all.  Not that they were some book written by the gods.

[42]

To chime in...if something sells well, then there is usually something abuot it that could be considered good.

Course, there are varying definitions and consideration in deciding what is good. I think EUOL has presented one version of what could be considered good. In fact, most writers/artist/musicians seem to catch on to one thing that is good, it sells well, and then ride that one good thing for all it's worth.

I think fantasy readers look for familiarity as much as they look for originality. So I wouldn't really say that a book based on someones RPG campaign can't be good.

My other argument is kind of based on something in the art world. For a long time art teachers and sudents believed that great art could only come from a great individual effort. Some still believe that way. Unfortunately, they are dead wrong. The greatest achievements of mankind all come from group efforts.

So I actually don't think that basing your story in a world that someone else created would be a bad thing. However, acknowledging that it is someone elses world and working closely with that person's ideas is important. Just like working with any other person on a group project.

So I can see an RPG campaign becoming a great book, but I think it would take a lot of effort on the part of the writer and his/her players. I can see an RPG group that ran their campaign with the goal of turning it into a great book actually being rather successful. Not to mention it could be rather avante garde in it's own right. It would be kind of like a just having a group of writers trying to writing any other sort of fiction book.

Course, since the setting was published in another medium, it will carry a certain stigma forever.

[Entsuropi]

Everyone here seems to be assuming that people all use pre-made settings. Homebrew settings do exist people.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

The thing is, 42, that in the same way that women are physically weaker than men, books people write that are based in someone else's setting are weaker than original ones. Just as there are a few examples of women who are stronger than the average male, there are a few examples of books based on an RPG setting that are better than the average fantasy book, but those are rare exceptions to the rule, and their infrequency doesn't do much to change the point -- and they still aren't better than the best of the original books.

Peter David's best writing ever is in his Sir Apropos series. His ORIGINAL setting. It's even better than his work on Supergirl and it BLOWS AWAY his work on the Hulk. His work on Hulk is legendary among fans, but he can and does do even better when he does something else.

And Ent, even when a home brew setting is used, they are by nature of not inventing a game from scratch still adapting it from someone else. And I would even go so far as to say that even if they based it on an RPG they wrote from scratch, it wouldn't be a great idea. Simply because 99% of those worlds are built with the idea of gaming in mind, and the novel writing idea comes after they've had fun playing in it. ie, the world serves a purpose other than a novel setting, it is to accomodate certain game mechanics, and for a plethora of reasons, that almost always means a problem for a prose narrative.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

I haven't watched or read any Lodoss, but it's entirely possible someone will license the novels in the next couple years.

I'm not happy with the marketing of the Slayers novels, but they're selling so-so, mostly to an anime/manga fanbase. Note: I don't believe Slayers plots are based on RPG sessions, but the universe ON THE SURFACE is very cookie-cutter RPG world. (The author outright says in the notes in book 1 that he's influenced by RPGs.) There's a deeper cosmology that makes things much more interesting though, plus some really wacky characters and nice plot twists that make it fun.

The other Japanese novels I worked on though, CLAMP School Paranormal Investigators, really sucked. Incoherent, jumpy plots, characters with all sorts of abilities for no reason, no motivations, etc...(though there was ONE story in the three volumes that was pretty good (2-3 stories per volume) that involved a time travel loop...I generally like stories like that...) Anyway in the author's notes for the third and blessedly final volume I found out why: they were novelizations of RPG sessions among the CLAMP members. Now, definitely not a standard D&D type RPG; the worldbuilding is very shoujo, so the universe is not the same old dreck, but the plotting and characters really show the mark of the RPG. The books just suck. Yet they sell better than Slayers because CLAMP is incredibly popular and anything you stick their name on is going to sell no matter what.

[42]

SE what I'm arguing is that when you look at all of the great inventions of mankind, they are rarely individual efforts. Look at the seven wonders of the ancient world. All huge group efforts.

So I actually think that a good novel could come out of using someone elses setting. However, it suffers all of the problems associated with doing a a group effort. Paying too much homage to the orgininal setting writing would probably set one back. Successful group efforts require a lot of give and take. Many writers are not willing to do such a thing.

So I can see a group of RPG players, sitting down and making a great novel. Course, they would all have to be willing to make sacrifices (like playing for fun) that they would probably all only be willing to make if they had the intent of writing the novel as the end result.

Writing just because you think your campaign was cool is probably not going to work as well because not everyone is on board. Groups where not all of the individuals contribute their best effort are a recipe for disaster. That is what I think EUOL and SE are getting hung up on. Often the RPG developer didn't contribute his/her best effort towards the writer's novel based on the rpg setting, or vice versa.

But the principle that group efforts always produces better quality than individual efforts when focused on a singlular task, remains true.

[Entsuropi]

Uhm...

Tolkien?

Van Gogh?

[Fellfrosch]

Van Gogh was a hack.

[Entsuropi]

Maybe not a hack but certainly not my favourite. I've been and seen his art first hand, in the musee d'orsai, and it was still somewhat unimpressive. That was a while back, and i've not looked at it since mind, but it was just so... boring. Flowers, yawn. I like my art to be more than that

The point still stands though. The impressionists may have all be a big friendly group but their paintings individually were solo efforts. You could group them all together but then if you do that then why not just group almost all genres together? Cyberpunk authors have always been dominated by a clique, so lets call cyberpunk one thing! Novels (excepting your bible) are generally solo efforts as well, with outsiders influencing the book.

That was a wierd museum as well. The interior seemed like one big cubist painting :/ All blocks and stuff.

[Skar]

You all keep wandering back and forth over a line here.

Writing a novel with ideas in it that you had during an RPG session is no different than writing a novel with ideas in it that you had while listening to the radio or while reading someone else's book.  They're just ideas and I don't think this is what EUOL is talking about.

What is universally bad (nearly) are novels written in thrall to the RPG campaign.  Trying to make a novel out of an RPG campaign would be as silly and likely bad as a first time writer trying to stick completely to his original outline, no changes, no room for new ideas after reflection.  That is, after all, the process by which the RPG campaign was created, the first thoughts/impulses of the player characters.

As for the whole worldbuilding aspect...  It's fun to read about a new world but a novel in a totally novel (grin) setting takes far more info-dump and therefore less focus on characters and plot than a story set in a familiar fantasy setting.  It's a tradeoff you can only mitigate by writing really long novels where the info dump takes up about as much room as the novel is longer than a normal one.

I like well-written stories in new settings, I really like well-written stories in familiar settings, but when an author pulls off a really well written story, good characterization, good plot, etc... in a seamlessly integrated new setting where the info-dump feels like a part of the story...Well  I LOVE that.