Intro:
I’m a keen roleplayer (AD+D) , but sadly have had no face-to-face games since the Pandemic.
Fortunately I’ve kept up with one player from my long-running group using Skype.
I’ve also started DMing a roleplaying game on a message board (not this one!) and that is both fun and a big help coping with Pandemic stress.
Now I have some talented players in my message board game, who are both responding to all my prepared plot points and doing some fine roleplaying of their own.
It occurred to me that the message board thread is a bit like a book!
So thank you for reading this far and your opinions are welcome on two topics:
how likely is it that such a thread would be provide a basis for a book? (obviously with some editing )
if I do publish, would I have copyright - and would my players be untitled to a cut?
It seems you are talking about adapting a game transcript into a novel. That could, perhaps, provide a basis for a good book, but via a whole lot, rather than “some”, editing.
Regardless of copyright, ISTM you may not simply plagiarize your players’ text without permission. Why not ask them for it?
Even though they rarely admit it, fantasy writers have been using their roleplaying campaigns as the basis for books since at least the 1980s. Raymond Feist comes to mind, but there are plenty of others. So I say go for it.
I’ve thought about it a few times but I am a poor excuse for a writer. Doesn’t help that most of my best campaigns are in Middle Earth as far as copyrights go.
I actually had a chapter or two of a story written back in the mid-80s. (Based on in person game of course.) But again, I am a poor excuse for a writer.
Sounds to me like a variation of the epistolary novel:
There’s a pretty cool crime novel called The Anderson Tapes, written in the seventies, in which every character involved in planning an ambitious caper is under surveillance by one or more law enforcement agencies. The novel takes the form of a collection of transcripts of those tapes. They made a movie starring Sean Connery.
So yeah, with some good editing to make sure it’s coherent and all polished up, why not?
Occasionally I’ll read a novel and think that it resembles a RPG campaign way too much. I don’t like the style at all, it’s trite. When you can actually pick out the character generation and DM worldbuilding monologue, it’s not a hopeful sign.
When the plot turns into a series of set piece encounters, and you can practically hear the dice rolling as the characters make their checks, it’s a lost cause. Eventually, you get to a denouement regardless of the character’s choices, because there’s no way that the author/DM is going to let his players ruin the plot by failing to figure out the clues.
I guess that answers the “why not?” I posted earlier. What I’m reading is that even if it’s not inevitable, the chances that it would turn out that way are great enough that you might as well not bother if you’re concerned about producing something that’ll read like an actual novel.
I would guess, though, that a sufficiently talented and motivated writer might be able to pull off something in that format by just fabricating the whole thing on his or her her own.
It’s not my thing, but it is a thing: the LitRPG genre of fiction is apparently stories about characters in role-playing games, making explicit references to their stats, mechanics of gameplay, etc.
, but sadly have had no face-to-face games since the Pandemic.
and your opinions are welcome on two topics:
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