The Wood Beyond The World Forum Roleplaying as an influence an..

Catsohori mentioned: Quote:


This got a couple of neurons firing so thus a new thread. :-)

Up front, I do not like the various derivative novels being pushed out by the roleplaying companies to promote their various realms. They can be as bad as the Star Wars and Star Trek crap being pumped out by wannabee writers who cannot create their own worlds.

Back in the late 70's and through the 80's, I was a major roleplayer. I DMed a continual AD&D campaign from the late 80's into the mid 90's. The world I used was one I had created in the early 80's for a comic book series I was working with a friend. The roleplaying started to infuse into my world and it slowly morphed into an AD&D world.

So when I shifted from sci-fi to fantasy, I had a solid base for a world but it was barnacled by AD&D "rules" and concepts. From 1993 to 1996 I had to rip apart my world to remove the influences to create my own world; my own creation that did not rely on an existing system.

Roleplaying provides a fertile place for imagination to expand but is it good for a writer? Be it Warhammer, Shadowrun, Ravenloft to name a few I am currently involved in, does it provide a good influence to a writer, especially a young, budding one? Or can it hobble them?

The gates are open, my friends. Let the discussion commence!

Loekie, isn't it a well-known in-joke that every DM thinks he can write a fantasy novel?

I've never done the role-playing thing.  If someone had invited me to try it, I'd probably have enjoyed it.  I don't have time now.  I have no idea how it might or might not affect my writing.

But I suspect there's a fair amount of truth in the joke, which is why so many agents don't want to have anything to do with fantasy -- all those turgid, derivative DM manuscripts!

(Present company excluded, of course!)

First, I am using the old text editor and hope my fonts are normal.
Second, this is one of my typical long rants. I just do not know when to shut up.

As most here know, my Netherron series started out as a AD&D adventure I DM'd with a group of hard core players. 36 to 48 hour gaming sessions were not uncommon for us, sometimes as many as 30 players. Like Lokie, my current world arrived because of my DM creative juices and I created a world outside the norm of the DM, Monster and God manuals. After all, most of the players wanted characters that were 12th level or higher and so I had to be really immagative. What could a poor DM do with so powerful a group of adventurers clamering for more treasure, more winches, and bigger villages to plunder. I threw a very evil god at them and thus Netherron was born, but not in its current existence.

II was writing before I played AD&D, but the D&D stuff seemed to open my flood gates for creating worlds in the fantasy realms. But like Lokie says, I got caught up in the typical monster and magic crap...beholders, drow elves, dragons, trolls, dwarfs, dopplegangers, etc. Slowly they have been elimanted, but I have still kept a few. My drowl elves have been changed to Raven elves with wings...but experienced readers still think of them as drow elves. To me, they look like the winged monkey creatures from OZ, but with out the hair. I don't have trolls, or dwarves, never have, though I do have other creatures that could be easily picked from many fantasy fiction tales. Snow Cats, Fairies, Gray Wolves, Wyverns, Unicorns, and my own creatures. And the magic I use in my world is limited and there are consequences to using magic, especially dark magic.

Ms Andre Norton and I used to be pen pales during the 80's and I remember her questioning me on this D&D stuff. She never played, but had many friends and readers that did. She eventually wrote a story about a group of players who are transported to their D&D world. I can't remember the title, but it was pretty good, but not one of her best stories. I believe that like others she jumped on the band wagon, perhaps because her publisher pushed her to do so. While D&D really opened the Fantasy realms, it also almost destroyed it for later writers, because its themes and styles were over done.

My last agent told me that if I brought my story to her in the 80's she could have sold it without too much effort, as is. Why? Because in the 80's and early 90's, fantasy fiction was hot and books that went along with role playing adventures, (Dragon Lance just to name one), were highly sought after. TSR ruled the fantasy role playing realms then and the other publishers jumped on the band wagon. Hell, even Hollywood jumped on the band wagon and all kinds of D&D type related movies came out, including one called...Dungeons and Dragons. Amout the lamest excuse for a movie I have ever seen. I think it went straight to VHS by time it came out. Then the buy outs and consilidating of the publishing industry started and what was left started demanding better storylines, better writing, and less D&D stuff. Today, the players do not want to read about D&D, they want to play it online where they are involved in the action.

I still think there is a large following of former and current D&D players who are looking for a good book that could also be incorportated into their fantasy role playing adventures. But the want new and fresh blood.

Nick.

As a girl I never got into the role playing scene. (I know I would have loved it but the boys never invited me). So could you please explain some of to me. I know what D&D is but what is DM?

The worlds in The Magician by Ramond E Fiest started as Role Playing Worlds.

Gayna

Here's the link to a new comic by the fella who brought us DM of the Rings. This one doesn't have any LotR references -- just a straight spoof of role-players.

And, because it was so good, and for those who missed it, here's the link for DM of the Rings too.

They are great links. I've had them for a while and should have thought of sharing them. Thanks, Leah!

I agree with Nick, that the 80's and part of the 90's fantasy was hot. The sad thing was the industry was cashing in on the wave of gaming. Especially focused on epic battles and situations.

When I was a DM, many younger players didn't last because they constantly wanted battles or melee in AD&D terms. Instead, I had a story was evolving. My campaign was character driven not the battle de jour. Yet the books that came about then reflected the "general" wish for gamers. And sadly, I believe, pushed away some good writers at the time and readers.

But it doesn't seem to have changed. Some of the people I have worked with are gamers. When I hear about what happened the night before, I am stunned that the DM is the ruler of the game and the players are but puppets in his/her grander scheme. If a player does something that does not fit within their plans, they won't allow the player to do what they want to do.

For me, a real DM is a storyteller. As we all know with our stories, we are going with the flow. In reality, we are not in charge, the characters are. Be in the games or my writing, I have had to stop because a character starts to do something I didn't expect. Which impacts on what is to come.

But that is what I live for. I want my characters to challenge me. Be it around the table with dice or from that piece of paper, I want my characters to suddenly reveal something about themselves I didn't realize. And then pick up the pieces and see how the new jigsaw puzzle comes together.

Which is part of why I started this thread. As Leah pointed out, every DM I have known think themselves a writer or film-maker. They believe since they are creating a world, then they are a storyteller. But they force their stories to fit their expectations and not let it grow organically. Evolve. Thus, in my opinion, the tons of crap we find in the fantasy section of Barnes & Nobles. And that is what the industry wants.

Lokie,

I agree that bad DM"s drove many young players away. We called this head hunting and made it forbidden.

As a Dm, I gave the characters their quest, set the world, the scenaro's and turned them loose. I never knew where the game was headed and was greatly surprised in the directions the groups took. Often times, the groups would split up, thus causing the DM to have to think quickly and wing the changing enviroment. Thus creating subplots within the grander scheme of the overall plot I set the players upon.

I did pay close attention to if the players stopped and rested, ate, bathed, tended to injuries and all the other stuff, and my group knew this about me and so it would become standard fare to play for more than fighting bad guys and creatures. They also had to stay in character. It was not unusual for a thief in the group to pass me a note and ask what his chances were of picking a pouch from one of the other players.

The thing is...D&D opened players minds to more than the standard board games or video games such as asteriod or pac man. I was never surprised that many of the players were already SF&F buffs, or computer geeks, or history majors. In our group, we had players from college, military, construction, and members of certain gov agencies I am not allowed to discuss under threats of personal bodily harm. lol. Males, females, young, old, it was a very good mix and in my later years, my daughter joined us and she absolutely loved it. (YES, they guys knew to me on their best behavior by then, but most were also parents and knew my daughter so I was not worried about them corrupting her.)

I still occassionally host reunion tournaments and get betwen 10 to 15 players to show up for a weekend of reliving the old days when D&D ruled, women were women, and sheep were nervous.

Nick.

Nick:Quote:


The good old baa days, right?

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Here I don't completely agree. I found it difficult to find people who were into playing characters, as did other DMs I know. Many people just wanted the slash and hack. They wanted to roll dice. They could quote the manuals, page and verse. Which drove me & them crazy. I had one person tell me that my ruling was wrong because on pg 53 in the DMG (the Dungeon Masters Guide), it says this & that. I looked at him and said: Read the first paragraph. They are not rules. They are guidelines. He walked out of the game in a huff.

My current GM has had the same complaints. That is why he was thrilled when I started gaming with him in stuff like Shadowrun. I gave him background, likes & dislikes. He chortled when he saw some "weaknesses" I gave him that he could completely and throughly manipulate. Which made the game play amazing.

Be it you or me, Nick, I think we attract people who want to be creative and play fleshed out games. Which has lead us to become storytellers. They want to roleplay. But I feel we are more the exception than the rule.

I think the DM/GM sets the tone. If he/she allows nothing but one encounter after another, then that is what the players come to expect from other DM/GM's.

In the groups I ran with...Most DM's gave extra points for orginal thoughts, staying in character, and magic users had to show me their research or clerics spend time in prayer. It really was possible for a character to advance without ever having been in a battle. What was really funny is that the hight rank a players character rose, the less chances they took in losing that character to a random role of the dice in some trumped up encounter.

But...I agree, these DM's/GM's are more than likely the exception to the rule than the rule of any roleplaying game.

Back to does roleplaying help or hender the writer. I think it all depends on the writer, just like reading books on writing, its what they get from the product, what they put into it.

baaaa-baaaa Nick.

I sparked a debate! YAY!

*Laughs utterly and smiles with his bowler tipped to the side of his head.*

I am a Roleplayer, I am also a DM/ST/GM. And I started before GMing as a very amateurish storylines and some fanfic type stuff. However, at one point I dropped out onto a forum and began to slowly develop my own work on the internet. Over time it came to the point where I am now. My first universe, Spirits of the Skare, my first book series, is the result of me tired of Rp on a game and wanting to do something complete. I sat down and scrolled out a few lines and then over time I had two chapters.

By summer that year I lauched a now dead quickly by the way Roleplay on GaiaOnline to test out my world. It allowed me to flesh out the different magical systems, the abilities of certain invidiuals and stances of factions. I like my worlds to be realistic in the fact that there are no overpower major swordsman of DZ running around. There are no Andruil swords in the Skare, all ablities have a direct balanced price. And magic is not magic, its the direction of energy based upon the concept that energy merely changes is not destroyed. I honestly got tired of "Magic" and wanted a more scientific stance on it.

My second story series, one that evolved into a Roleplay called Sequential Truth, is the direct opposite of the Skare. It's set in our modern Era, acknowledges the Bush administration and other parts. It delves into the past back to the Thule Society and the rise of Nazism. And talks about the ultimate war contractor, a organization that is so deep in the layers of government that only a select few members of a Illuminati/UN styled panel know about it. The point of it, to replace the Soldier with something that can be easily controlled trained and exposed.

The Current DnD campaign I'm working on started off as mostly custom, custom racial selecction and basic classes. We selected our gods pretty much using the nine arch devils of Baator and then countering them with the seven archangels of celestia. However, we're working on it to the point where I hope to move beyond the core books and to perhaps even create custom races and a custom set of classes that fit the world better. Also, we outlawed playable paladins and the halfling race.

~Catsohori

PS: Nick's fonts are awesome.

Nick Quote:


True, Nick. But I also wonder about something a little more subtle: the influence it has on their world. And now I will bring Cat into the discussion.
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I wonder if the different magical systems were based on existing roleplaying games or of your own invention. I know, for my world, Re, the original magic system was seeped in AD&D. It took me quite some time to pull off the barnacles so it was original. Well as original as any idea can be. :-)

Because D&D, Warhammer, White Wolf, etc. already have a well developed system, I worry that writers who come from those realms get "lazy" and use elements of these games to design their world. And not go further. Which then takes away from the freshness of the story.

Even worse, writers try to merge the fantasy with our current world. I know some DMs that will have people living in our world and then are pulled into a fantasy world where suddenly they are an important savior, nexus, whatever because they bring something into this crumbling fantasy world that no one else has. A lot of current fantasy roleplaying games have loopholes which many DMs use.

How many stories we have read like that? Joe Blow living an ordinary life suddenly propelled into a new world because of some special thing. After they save the world, they have no interest of returning because the real world is boring and hum-drum.

I will leave by going back to roleplaying for a moment. Cat concludes: Quote:


For me, getting off the core books should be the first thing you do. The core books are great to set the ambience but the DM should quickly create their own world and system. Part of the reason is to keep the players off-balance.

What my players loved about my games was that stuff would pop-up that were not in the core books. It challenged them. They could not quickly flip through the Monster Manual and get ideas on what to do next. They expected the unexpected. Which is what a storyteller should be doing.

Loeki on magic in the Skare:
Definitely, I actually am very anal about whether my books are cliche or original.

Actually yes my magical system was developed outside of DnD, it was created after I had spent a long time reading a Manga called Samurai Deeper Kyo, the entire story had a lot of singular sword styles that were quite realistic. It also talked a lot about the distance between a fighter and his oppoenent, really just covered basic Samurai fighting style.

Now where does the magic come from? It's not magic, while I was influenced by a simple minor inspired idea, much of my concept came wheni was in physics class. Learning much about equations reminded me of the golden mean. I started to wonder, what if perhaps there was something about it? Like your basic Futhark, Runes equal to a symbol which are found near an element, an animal, rock formation or other things. A Rune could be something discovered while toppling bodies. What happened is that they were translated into a fixed language that could be written. The only problem is that Runes are highly literal, when you put explode on something, you get that desired effect. You are not casting a spell you are telling basically the world that you desire a reacting so you spell it out, like a /command to a computer of mud.

Soul weaving works on the idea that since souls are a piece of energy that they can be reworked. The idea was influenced by the Necromongers with their Lord Marshall's ability to rip out and tear apart souls. So I played with the idea that you could create an artifact that basically states, "When I do this motion  said object can pass into the spirit and thus remove life from targeted individual."

The final system is more related to the Siddhis of Vajrijana Buddhism, who believe that once remove a self imposed illusion of enlightenment that you are able to move the illusion. So a Mystic another type of "caster" is very much like a guru. He or she can go beyond the normal world and see how it really works, much like someone in LOTR that sees aspects of the Elder days and how they work.

On DnD Campaign:
Great point Loekie! I agree, I like the core books but I don't like to use them as direct references. I own several supplementary boosk for nWoD from WhiteWolf and they removed the metaplot to make the game less reliant on constant core book updates.

With DnD, my friends and I do not recognize editoins, if we find something we like we use it. We use monsters and make up stuff as we go. I personally hate orcs in WoW and DnD, and prefer them more towards a noble barbaric people. We even are going so far as to say that you may not be half of another race.

For classes, I'm looking at some found in the supplementary books that I think would fit our world better. We even have a custom casting class that would work perfectly.

Thanks for your comments!
~Catsohori

What is Magic?

 

In any roleplaying game, the rules of magic have to be understood by all the players as well as the GM.  Without this understanding and agreement up front to keep the game and gamers on a level playing field. 

 

But in writing, is the fine details of magic neccessary for the reader to understand that magic exist?  Look at some classic films, some hapless newcomer reads from a book, usually in latin, and suddenly something magical happens.   What was the magic?  The words?

 

Within my world, the magic is woven into the very bedrock of the world.   Its the world that is magic to those who know how to call upon it.  Nathin and others are often heard saying, there is power in words, but is it really, or is the power within the one who calls the words?   For me...the magic of my world is a matter of the mind, which takes years of study to learn the techniques.   I really do not go into detail about how magic arrives, or what one must do to perform this magic.   The readers see what is occuring, a little hint of how the magic works is given here and there, but for the most part there are no long drawn out details.  

 

Is this a cop out then that my world, or magic is not fully developed?   I don't believe so, I just don't want to get caught up in the Robert Jordan descriptions of how everything works.   The characters are my story, the magic and action is secondary, which there is enough of to keep the commercial plot readers happy, I think. 

 

Nick.   

 

 

In the world of The Quolltellan the magic is a genetic inheritance capable of skipping generations before appearing again. If you have the Talent you have to study to learn how to use it. The magic is shaped by the mind. Books and words are not generally used although a chant may be used to aid concentration.

In Newland (the country most of the action is set) to become a magician is a three year course at the magician city of Cagimup (and Arimup later) for which you must pass a test to enter. There are six factions of magic each represented by a colour. The primary colours are more academically minded while the others are more practical. Anya, my main character, is a Green magician which means she is a healer. Her friend Pummie is an Orange magician, a builder. Types of magic often run in the family so that Ginger's family have always been Orange back to when the magicians first came to Newland.

In Heleth, a small island country, learning magic is  less regulated. Any one can learn magic as long as they have some talent and they learn bits from any of the faction, whatever they are interested in.

In Bultrug (another country) magicians are burnt at the stake.

Magic came to the land through the deliberate breeding of land men with seapeople to create a super race called the Quolltellan.The Quolltellan and their offspring army, the Quollinta, were destroyed in a war with the Bultrugese. However it is Anya's destiny to give birth to a new Quolltellan. This is the story of "The Servant of the Phrenet".

Gayna

Cat Quote:


I think most of us here in the Wood are the same. (No comments, Nick!) That is part of the reason I started this thread. Instead of creating their own world, many rely on the existing worlds of gaming and pump out poor to mediocre books.

Up until the early 90's, I wrote exclusively SF so I gave no thought to this. My gaming was separate from my writing. It was only when I started to write fantasy I had to stand back and examine the basis of all of my ideas, not just magic.

As I mention in the new thread on magic, the development of magic in my world did start with AD&D but evolved as I looked at magic from different angles. And I was influenced by different authors and mythologies. But now I can call it my own.

Yet I also look back and miss the "safety" of the gaming worlds. Creating your own world with all the internal mechanisms is not easy and takes time. Especially if you want to be original and be consistent. Games like White Wolf or Ravensloft provide a strong foundation so you don't have to do the hard work.

Thing is, I am glad I've taken the journey that started back in 1994. The things I've learnt about politics, law, religion, plants, etc. haven't just enriched my world but also enriched me.

My scaffolding or safety net is the real world itself.  Everything in my created  world has it's origins in real-world cultures and beliefs -- I've just assumed that stuff would be altered by telepathic and other psychic powers being a recognized fact of nature.  In that sense it's fantasy.

Isn't real-world mythology the ultimate source for RPG worlds?  All those monsters and supernatural beings -- the storylines of the quest, the hidden treasure, etc. That stuff runs through this-world legend as far back as you care to go.

I kind of think there's really only one place to go for stories -- the unconscious -- especially the collective unconscious.  It's where all world literature springs from.

 

I like Cat's (may I call you Cat?) magic that comes from this-world scientific principles, by the way.  I also like Loekie's comprehensive, whole-person concept.  Those are the little twists that make the principles of magic (or powers) unique in each of our subcreations.

My world wide web nickname is Cats, yes my nickname is plural, I am a pile of Cats in a human suit.

I think Rp can be very helpful, has anyone here tested out a Character concept in  online Roleplay before?

Ha!  I took off my glasses and peered at your avatar, and saw that what I took for a kind of decorative collar actually spelled out CATS.  Now I know!

I would worry that with worlds derived from gaming there would be a sameness about them no matter how hard you tried.

I know a new publisher in Australia was looking for fantasy novels without elves and dragons. I am hoping to attract their attention as I have a small scene with a dragon and definately no elves.

Gayna

 

Bumping one last time for Matt.   You might find this very interesting.

 

Nick.