Comments on: Turn your Dungeons and Dragons campaign into a novel

By: Don’t write a Dungeons and Dragons novel - Pens and Swords - Talking shop with fantasy fiction author Kameron M. Franklin

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:04:10 +0000

[...] received some recent emails and comments related to my post on turning your Dungeons and Dragons campaign into novel. It gives me the warm fuzzies to know that people are still reading this poor, neglected blog. It [...]

By: Kameron

Kameron — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 01:59:49 +0000

Hi, Mike. I do believe there was a recent novel trilogy that featured the githyanki, but I can't remember the title or author. I haven't kept up with the FR novels since the 4E/Spellplague transition. Wizards does have some writer's guidelines posted, but you will notice that they are not looking for actual manuscripts to publish, novel or short story. They want writing samples to judge your ability. If they want to work with you, they'll contact you and assign you something to write about. That's pretty standard for shared settings that contract work-for-hire.

By: mike kelligan

mike kelligan — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 03:47:51 +0000

hi i was thinking of submitting short stories to wizards of the coast about a group of characters i and my friends have been playing for over twenty five years many of whom have become gods…the characters,not the friends…ha ha ha but anyway these characters in our campaign are more than a bit evil,is there a market for the anti-hero out there?…p.s the githyanki are my favorite monsters in the d and d universe has anyone ever wrote about them?

By: dungeon 420

dungeon 420 — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 19:29:32 +0000

tahnks

By: Kameron

Kameron — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:53:09 +0000

That depends on what you want to do with it, dungeon 420. If it’s just a game aid for your D&D campaign, it might be entirely worthwhile. If you’re hoping to publish it as a game product, you’ll need to stay away from using WotC properties like Greyhawk or Eberron. If your plan is to make these into fantasy fiction novels, you’ll probably want to follow the steps I outlined in the article above. None of these would be a waste of time if it’s doing something you enjoy, however.

By: dungeon 420

dungeon 420 — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:39:20 +0000

i wrote a few choose your own adventures a while back using 3.5e in fights where it basically walks you through roll for roll. It was intended to bring new players into the game and level up their characters a bit. In total about 25 adventures of varrying level and a main campaign connecting them all.

i was thinking of mapping out a world over serveral books (greyhawk or eberron) but it might just be a waste of time?

By: Joseph Milillo

Joseph Milillo — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:01:49 +0000

This may not be helpful if you dream of becoming a paid, published writer with your D&D game, but if you’re not…

Having a bard in the party makes this easy, particularly if the player is attentive to the overreaching story (and maybe has DM’d himself), detail-oriented, and truly creative.

I have a blog (www.theadventuresoffloydfiftynames.blogspot.com) that is meant to be a “recording the game” blog, similar to Kameron’s, but like Kameron, reporting the mechanics isn’t that interesting to me.

Through the character of the bard (Floyd), I am able to tell the story as a puppet theatre musical – precisely the sort of thing a bard might do, but no one other than a participant in the game OR a true D&D enthusiast would really find it interesting. Forced to present the story in character gives me a restraint that keeps me from making meta-references or giving specific numbers and stats to the spells, weapons, etc. that are encountered in the game. Plus, since your bard’s 1st person account can be treated as an unreliable narrative, you are free to trim the fat and take artistic license with the story as you see fit, which makes it more interesting to read.

By: Depicting game mechanics in fantasy fiction - Pens and Swords - Talking shop with fantasy fiction author Kameron M. Franklin

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:35:31 +0000

[...] D&D fantasy fiction is influenced by the rules of the game. Fans appreciate when authors ground their stories in the setting by referencing classes, spells and other game features–descriptively, if not literally–along with established world lore. I remember reading Dragons of Autumn Twilight as Raistlin tossed out a handful of sand, uttered his magic words and watched their pursuers drop to the ground, and thinking to myself, he just cast sleep. It’s a fine line for writers to tread; it’s supposed to be a novel, not a campaign log. [...]

By: Serial fantasy fiction at Paths of Adventure - Pens and Swords - Talking shop with fantasy fiction author Kameron M. Franklin

Mon, 04 May 2009 21:04:32 +0000

[...] My new blog Paths of Adventure is another matter. One of the reasons I started this new blog was to record the play sessions of the 4E game I’m currently playing in, but a dry, mechanics-based report didn’t interest me. So, I decided to take a page from my experiment with play-by-post roleplaying and fictionalize the game. [...]

By: Ravyn

Ravyn — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:53:12 +0000

I’ve been in a few campaigns (like Ben, mostly Exalted) that could probably be turned into decent stories, and even written a couple things that could qualify as stories that branched off of my games; then again, I was a writer first, so much of what I run I try to make story-quality. And one of the best D&D campaigns I’ve ever been in, aside from the fact that we’re referencing the setting’s gods almost constantly, could probably serve as the beginnings of a novel; admittedly, a lot of that is that most of it so far has been character development and player-side worldbuilding.

For me, it’s mostly what the writer’s doing that steps away from the standard conventions; D&D in general, and 4E in particular, tend to lean most people into the combat end of things, and that results in stuff that is more trying to parse a bunch of dice rolls than trying to tell a story.

You’d need a story that isn’t just “Go to this dungeon and fight these monsters”, and you’d need a group that aren’t PCs first and characters second. It’s doable, it’s just difficult.

Ravyn’s last blog post was Letting Go