Campaign Stories

[carrdrivesyou]

SO...I know that there are several people who have done campaign journals covering their DnD games, but I was wondering if anyone has ever tried writing an actual BOOK covering their Game? I mean Kaveman and Saph's are solid and could easily make the transition, but has anyone actually written it in narrative style??

[Unoriginal]

SO...I know that there are several people who have done campaign journals covering their DnD games, but I was wondering if anyone has ever tried writing an actual BOOK covering their Game? I mean Kaveman and Saph's are solid and could easily make the transition, but has anyone actually written it in narrative style??

...you mean, anyone on this subforum?

[carrdrivesyou]

Yes. I know about Dragonlance and such, but I was looking for other "amateur" writers. I could use a few tips. Mostly on conversation pieces.

[username1]

The problem with turning a campain into a novel is dnd stories aren’t suited for books. With many characters in your game there is no main character. In addition it’s very hard to make a dungeon delve interesting in a book. In books the hero often doesn’t get treasure for their great deeds, because they are the good guy. If you were to tell a player that in dnd they will get angry.
Now there is a way to use your campaigns in a story. I took my favorite campain from my dnd years and rewrote the story for a book. The plot points and villains were the same but I changed the location and main character. Currently it’s going on great.

[SociopathFriend]

SO...I know that there are several people who have done campaign journals covering their DnD games, but I was wondering if anyone has ever tried writing an actual BOOK covering their Game? I mean Kaveman and Saph's are solid and could easily make the transition, but has anyone actually written it in narrative style??

You can easily write something BASED on your campaign. You don't have to shot-for-shot copy it over. I at one point started something like that but I stopped with the Mindflayer Chronicles because... well I wanted to start working on truly original content plus at the time I stopped I had just started working 2nd shift which shot my sleep to hell.

Point being- you can adjust events. "Based on real events" is Hollywood for, "This didn't happen exactly like this but we changed it so it flows better".





Yes. I know about Dragonlance and such, but I was looking for other "amateur" writers. I could use a few tips. Mostly on conversation pieces.

Ahhhh the killer of such things- you cannot take conversation from your game directly because players seldom hardcore stick to the in-character vs out-of-game separations of conversing. You simply have to adapt and fabricate conversations and how they would act. As I said above, base the character on the previously existing one. Make them something you can own and direct while still drawing influence from the source material.




The problem with turning a campain into a novel is dnd stories aren’t suited for books. With many characters in your game there is no main character.

Not only that- most writers have the advantage of knowing exactly what every given character would do in a situation. When writing a party-based game, often you simply will not know how or why someone else did something.

[Wildarm]

I write a session summary for my players after each session. Helps me remember things that happened months back.

Basically a campaign journal. I try and make special mention of key events, where certain characters shone, expand on shorter descriptions that happened in game, etc.

Fun to write and helps me get the creative juices flowing for next session.

[Unoriginal]

Like SociopathFriend said, maybe adapt the characters from "characters played by people" to "characters who are part of the world, are always immersed into it, and have always been", more fitting to the written medium, and then ask yourself how they'd actually talk about the "bullet points" version of the conversations?

[Laserlight]

I post a summary of every sessopm to our party's Facebook Group. For our Curse of Strahd campaign, I've been doing that in the form of journal entries written by my character, who is a noblewoman and the party's Face and leader (or "pushy little Napoleon-ette"). We're at 6th level and I have something like 20-25K words. That's about a quarter of a novel.

However, it is not really in the structure of a novel. An adventure novel generally goes:

1. The hero in his starting situation; he's not fully himself and he's not happy but he's unable/unwilling to change. (Luke has to stay on as a farmer)
2. Something happens to kick him out of his rut; he gains a Goal. (Luke sees the Princess and wants to help/impress her).
3. He makes an attempt which is insufficient. (He goes to Ben but can't just hand it off and say "I did my part!")
4. Something happens which prevents him from returning to his starting situation, so he has to commit further and raise the stakes (Imperials burn out the farm)
5. He meets people, allies with them and argues with them. (Han)
6. He makes another attempt to achieve his goal, which is also insufficient (he rescues Leia, but she isn't that impressed--"aren't you a little short to be a stormtrooper?")
7. Upgrade goal and stakes (now you have to save the rebel base in order to keep the Princess happy)
8. Moral argument to prove the hero's worth (Luke and Han argue, Han leaves)
9. Face the foe, the hero resolves his question of identity, unexpected help connected to the hero's worth (Death Star battle, "use the Force Luke" and he does, Han comes back)
10. Vindication in which a third party acknowledges the hero's merit (the medal ceremony)

Most DnD campaigns, at least the ones I've been in and read about, don't really conform to that structure. What you get instead is a series of short stories, with characters who usually don't have a lot of identity questions ("am I really a science-y pilot, or am I going to get into this Force nonsense like my father before me?") have their stakes set at life or death to get started (so you can't increase tension much) and achieve their objectives without any setbacks worth a good soul-searching moment.

[solidork]

It's not D&D but there are some guys over at RPG.net who mostly play Werewolf: the Forsaken via chat with a very small party (one or two PCs) and post it with some light editing and it reads sort of like a novel. They are pretty incredible. Detroit Rock City is basically what would happen if you covered all of your walls with art from metal album covers and then had a fever dream about werewolves. Like, the descriptions of Detroit's ruined and twisted spiritual reflection are just superlatively evocative, creepy and even beautiful at times. The game spent four years irl building up to meeting a mysterious and powerful patron of the party and my expectations were not only met, but blown away. I once had a nightmare about having to beat the primary antagonist at guitar hero.

Detroit Rock City: Completed
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/werewolf-the-forsaken-detroit-rock-city.446663/ (tw for some homophobic slurs in a flashback and some truly extravagant violence)

The Seventh Seal: Currently Ongoing
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/werewolf-the-forsaken-the-seventh-seal.775548/ (again, extreme violence)