I play an online role-playing games (Second Life Gor) and apart from being tremendous fun, I’ve found it’s a great way of honing my craft as a writer. I get to try out ideas in front of an audience (the other roleplayers) and see how they work out. It reminds me of the boost that some comedians say that doing stand-up comedy gives them: you learn what works and what does not instantly.
What’s more, the other roleplayers often give ME ideas. But roleplaying is NOT the same as writing, you do have other players to bounce off of so that might also detract from your writing. I don’t think so, but it’s a possibility. And the time you spend roleplaying is definitely time you COULD be spending writing. So I thought I’d ask other writers who play roleplaying games about it. What do you think of roleplaying games? Do they help or hinder your writing? Do they tend to produce a certain STYLE of writing? (I could see a lot of bad DnD type stories coming from DnD roleplayers). Are there any authors who are known to adapt roleplay into their stories? Any that are suspected to? Is there a group of RPG writers like there is of fanfic writers?
A lot of the classic fantasy authors have admitted being “inspired” by games that they’ve played or run. I think that it can be useful, but depending on the game, can limit your writing range (do we really need another sword&sorcery set in “McMedievalLand” with a bunch of white dudes hacking or spellslinging at orcs or necromancers?) Also, there’s the caveat that a campaign that seems fun and innovative to your group of players may not be so interesting taken out of the context of the players and their relationship to each other and to the game.
Other writers have gone a different route and created a world through their writings and then run games in it to flesh out different areas or aspects of that world, or just to play around in it in a more interactive manner - Pat Rothfuss has mentioned running games in his world before, and I believe that Jim Butcher has done the same for both Dresden Files and Codex Alera. Butcher even played a large part in designing an entire game system to use for his Dresden Files world.
I have actually considered it for a few games I’ve been in. I’m part of a troupe that plays regularly, and our games tend towards the long-running and epic end of things. A “short” campaign for us played once a week and finished in about two years - our average is about 5 years, and one kingmaking game has gone on for eleven now - with the same core group of players. Those sorts of games can lend themselves nicely to novel-sized story arcs, interesting character developments and conflicts, and to inventive world-building.
However, my main problem is this - who does that gaming experience belong to? I couldn’t write the chronicle down without using the characters and actions of my fellow players, but novels as traditionally written only have one author. Is it fair for me to take the credit (and the royalties) for a book that really is a chronicle of a group effort? (Especially when I’m only a player and not a GM.) What about when I have to edit or condense or change actions from the game to better fit the narrative structure of a novel (or series)? What if there are hurt feelings that “their character wouldn’t do that” or “you cut out my best moments!” I’d rather have my friends and my gaming group than have a book deal.
It just seems like a really careful approach is needed.
The Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy came from the role-playing AD&D adventures in Terry Hickman’s apartment. A number of notable TSR authors and designers played the various characters. From Wiki:
Granted, they were playing a TSR game and ultimately creating a TSR-branded series of novels but most people would consider the Chronicles good, even if not ‘high art’ level, fantasy literature.
Joel Rosenberg got his inspiration to write from Dungeons and Dragons, too. Esther Friesner was a member of the SCA when she started writing, which is just a form of roleplay.
How much it helps a writer depends entirely on the writer.
I play tabletop, not online, RPGs. I don’t find the two reinforce each other so much on the craft side of things – what makes for a good RPG session is usually terrible for a written story. But they’re invaluable for getting setting details that reinforce verisimilitude.
Background for an RPG session may require defining some of the setting history, which in turn informs stories written in that setting. I’ve found it useful to write a story for myself in an RPG setting; when I’m then able to glibly talk about the setting’s numismatics or whatever in a game session, everyone is all impressed at how detailed the setting is.
I can’t see turning an RPG campaign into a novel, though. Players do dumb stuff. In the game it makes great fun when the navigator decides to learn sorcery from the probably-a-daemon talking skull, and hijinks ensue. In a novel that is the point where the reader’s suspenders of disbelief are snapped, because it doesn’t read like something a reasonable person would do; it’s too random.
Steven Erikson and Ian Esslemont have based the Malazan books on their GURPS campaigns, and they’re good reads. They’re also historians, so they have practical experience at writing.
I’ve based a lot of my campaigns on the Roman Empire, because it lends itself to a lot fantasy-type conventions. However, I found it kind of sticks me in a rut. I keep wanting to make my content adhere to historical precedent, and there’s really no need to. The goals of the Romans are to forge and maintain empires. The goals of role players is to kill monsters, disarm traps, and get loot. They’re usually more concerned with their effectiveness in battle. They’re not going to care too much about intricate plot lines and back stories. Some do, but burnout can set in eventually. So, role players don’t really make good models for story characters.
When I want to write for real, I tend to shortcut and generalize a lot of detail, like I did when writing up campaigns. I do okay for dialogue, but I lack the inclination to describe scenery. I sometimes make up for this by describing what they’re eating. I sure don’t want to emulate Robert Jordan, who takes half a page to describe what some noble is wearing.
It’s just not a problem in my experience, as I have little or no desire to directly transform the gaming experience into a story. What I find useful is the way the day to day interaction inspires me to come up with ideas for funny lines, and the fact that the players often bring a certain depth and nuance to their characters that is entirely missing from the characters in the Gor novels that the online RPG is based on. It’s easy enough to build much better character than Norman ever did after RPing with them.
Well, it is not the same as a role-playing game. But I was having plotting problems. I decided to plot it like a Super Mario game. First level, set the scene, establish the ultimate goal, and start on the intermediate goal. Beat the boss at the end, go through the door into the next level. Etc., with increasing difficulty until the next to the last obstacle, which is misleadingly easy–and then onto the last battle. And resolution.
Anyway it gave me a good excuse to play a lot of stupid computer games when I was supposed to be writing.
I am a (frustrated) writer. Many of my stories have come from (paper-and-pencil) gaming sessions.
It’s great! You have a group of people sitting around, coming up with clever ideas of what to do – how to solve the problems the adventure challenges them with – and saying clever things. They’re writing dialogue for you!
(Be sure to get their permission before using their dialogue in a story.)
Also: I use a particular role-playing-game system to define my fantasy magic system. The story doesn’t necessarily ever indicate this, but I know, in my background, exactly what magical spells can do. I don’t have to “fake it” and I’m spared the temptation to make something up at the last minute.
Chris Claremont, writer of X-Men comics, was once asked exactly how strong Cyclops’ eye-beams (superhero zap) was. He said, “Exactly as strong as it needs to be for the story I’m telling.” (Quote only approximate from memory.)
I don’t do that. I know exactly how strong a Magic Zap is, and I don’t deviate from it. Perhaps I’m straitjacketing myself…but I like to think it adds a semblance of realism.
Gaming is great fun. I’ve even recycled some of my stories, which were based on game sessions, back into new game sessions for new groups of players. (Now, to write a story based on that new game…)
SL Gor is not so much about campaigns, it’s very free-form. There is an elaborate combat system that generates roleplay and also often interferes with roleplay. But it would be very hard to directly turn SL Gor into a novel.
I find certain aspects of the background definitely useful. The people who build Gorean sims are extremely talented and detailed, if I need a setting (in most cases, medieval European sorts of setttings, though there are some Greek/Roman settings and medieval Japanese settings as well) all I need to do is visit a sim and look around.
Also, there are players who have well developed characters of various castes (physicians, merchants, builders, etc.) and although most players are, predictably enough, warriors, I can get all sorts of detail from them, and from the notecards they’ve created about their castes. Very nice indeed.
I much prefer books written where there are limitations on magic (or super powers) which can so easily become a sort of deus ex machina for solving any plot problem when used as Chris Claremont does. Plus, a magical system which has limitations is much more believable than unlimited magic, which basically transforms into wishful thinking on the author’s part.
RPG’s have certainly helped my writing. One of the best times was probably when I was working for a gaming company in the days of the text-based gaming. Most of my responsibility was creating new areas (cities, outdoor areas, etc. Writing a 20-something room forest and keeping each room fresh was a challenge), writing story lines, creating NPC’s and so on.
I used an old system called Adventure Writer to create a text-based adventure game for the C-64 back in the day, based on Lovecraft’s story “At The Mountains of Madness.” It won a third-place prize for writers of adventure games on the online service I was using at the time. But …
Definitely, especially given that superhero and high-end fantasy gaming are “wishful thinking” or wish-fulfillment experiences already. There’s something wonderfully indulgent about being Green Lantern and lassoing up ordinary bank robbers or drug dealers or terrorists or whatnot.
In those situations where the levels of power are balanced, it calls for tactical and strategic thinking, and a more “puzzle solving” kind of approach.
Both of these milieux are good for writing experience. A fantasy book should have some scenes where the protagonists vastly overwhelm the foes – this is much of the satisfaction of the “Scouring of the Shire” scene from Lord of the Rings. But it also needs to have scenes where the heroes are stuck, trapped, at a loss, deeply disadvantaged, and have to work for their victory.
And “But he struggled, and strove, and called upon that one last ounce of strength” doesn’t cut the mustard. My writing group ridicules that as the “Oh, look, he tried real hard” brand of heroism. It isn’t an expression of an “idea,” just of a kind of authorial intervention.
The biggest help I find is that it’s really helped me with voice. That was, and probably still is, my most hated weakness when I’m writing, the thing that sticks out most obviously to me. It’s probably obvious, but just playing different characters, and seeing other people play different characters, really does help with getting into another mindset. Not to mention that a lot of RPG books have very good and simple instructions for creating a character that work well for writing, too.
I sure don’t want to emulate Robert Jordan, who takes half a page to describe what some noble is wearing.