The Tie-In Novel. Self-explanatory: a full novel based on the game or its setting. Examples: the Dragonlance series, the Blood Wars trilogy, the Shadowrun novels.
The Flavour Snippet. Small sections of text - usually just a sentence or paragraph - somewhere on the page to break up boring chunks of exposition and add to the "atmosphere". Generally purporting to be overheard from a conversation. Examples: perhaps most famously deployed in the Planescape books, but also prevalent in Cyberpunk 2020 ("Frack, she was good. She was the best...")
The In-World Expository Text. Part of what would otherwise be explanatory text or rules is introduced in the form of fiction or a fictional conceit. Has three sub-taxons:
(a) The Fictional Gazette. A fake magazine, newspaper, book, etc. in one volume. An item of realia which is dressed up as being an actual text from the setting. Examples: the Cyberpunk 2020 "Chromebooks" - essentially equipment lists but presented in the form of magazine adverts and articles. The recent Volo's Guide to Monsters for D&D 5th edition is another example of the Fictional Gazette. My journal of Laxmi Guptra Dahl from Yoon-Suin would probably fall under this taxon.
(b) The Fake Grimoire Extract. A segment of text, often used to introduce and describe a monster or certain key concept, that is supposedly taken as an extract from some non-existent longer work and inserted into the existing book. Example: any D&D Monstrous Compendium or Monstrous Manual where to break up the monotony one of the monster descriptions is done not by the author of the manual but by some supposed sage or adventurer.
(c) The Fictional Narrator Telling You About Things. A (typically annoying) fictional character appears in the book to explain certain things to you about the setting or give insights into aspects of it. Example: the description each type of fae gives of the other types of fae in the Changeling: The Dreaming Player's Guide ("Why bother? Those poor lost souls crouch so close to banality that they love machines more than people!").
The Literary Introduction. A paragraph or two of poetry, fictional prose, fake quotations and so on inserted between sections or chapters. Example: extracts from "The Book of Whispered Psalms" etc. in Houses of the Blooded.
The Fictional AP. A fourth-wall-breaking fictional account of an incident from a gaming session that didn't actually happen. Typically comes in the form of a script, with the GM and "Bill" and "Jane" as characters. Example: almost any page from Amber Diceless.
The Full-on Cringeworthy Rulebook Short Story. It would be cruel to list examples, but.... Unknown Armies. And The Blossoms Are Falling deserves a special mention for egregiously having two of them right in the middle of the book, one after the other.
The Good Rulebook Short Story. I'm not sure there actually is an example of anything within this taxon.
Ever read the 'Dracula letter' at the start of Vampire The Masquerade, 2nd ed? I think it would come under In-world Expository Text (c), but a longer example than usual. It appeared to be a letter from VT (Vlad Tepes) to WH (Wilhelmina Harker); if so, Mina would have been late in life and Drac must have survived the events of the novel. I thought it did a good job of setting out the setting's 'vampire mythos', although I was pretty young at the time.
ReplyDeleteIt's been ages since I've looked at Vampire. I really can't remember it.
DeleteDoes the CoC rulebook count as being a Good Rulebook Short Story?
ReplyDeleteExactly my thought, but I don't think it does. The rulebook was written to suit the short story; these are short stories written to suit the rulebook.
DeleteSo what about a WFRP short story? I seem to remember there was an ok one by Abnett in the 2e book. custom written for the rulebook...
DeleteI'll see if I can dig that out. I have got WFRP 2nd edition.
DeleteGOOD RULEBOOK SHORT STORY!!!:
ReplyDeletehttp://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2012/01/name-that-south-american-magical.html
Chil 2e vampires
My internet provider's "broadband shield" has kicked into effect for no reason so I now can't access your blog or any of the other pornography I routinely enjoy. THE MAN IS TRYING TO SHUT US DOWN.
DeleteThen over the zocalo Don Roberto would fly through the many-layered and fabulous night, changing the frequency of the townspeople’s transistor radios...
DeleteThis time, when Don Roberto entered the glitterball, the two men smoked cigars, and Don Roberto told Josue Maldicho about the tower and its lancet windows, a tower indeed so tall that it was said that the servants aged unspeakably climbing the stairs that led from its cellars to the large, muraled study at its pinnacle. The mural depicted the history of the region, so delicately crafted that once, when Don Roberto spilt wine on the eastern wall, he had to use great speed and diligence in cleaning up the accident: had he not, the volcano called ”La Malinche” would never have existed. So it was that the younger servants worked on the ground floors, the middle-aged on those floors of the tower which lay only slightly above the cloud cover, and the aged where the air was so thin that only those who had faded, who needed less than before in their diminishing lungs, could survive. Don Roberto, of course, ate, slept, and lived on the floors above his servants. ”The stratospheric Don,” whispered Josue Maldicho with reverence, as brilliant parrots, conures, and jandayas disguised slyly as parakeets joined in chorus above the zocalo-a chorus that agreed with Maldicho, if not in reverence: “Yes, the stratospheric Don.”
”You flatter me,” disclaimed Don Roberto, the end of his cigar glowing in the darkened interior of the glitterball, its smoke rising invisibly through the gaps between the mirrors and into the air above the zocalo, where it rose toward the moon, passed through several time zones, and dispersed in a country where the dogs laugh, where solid architecture is valued, where the stars bowed in magnificent homage, and the years turned under
Nice.
DeleteIdeally episodes of fiction should illustrate an rpg, just as art does. Imagine Vance & Leiber produced their own OD&D supplements with setting and rules, like Greyhawk, it would naturally be heavily weighted with fiction in the manner of several of your categories. Fiction creates a more powerful impression, is more memorable, than the encyclopaedic style of rpg writing but it is less exact, the truth is veiled, there is rarely the god's eye view of the rpg. I think there are two classes of gamer, those who want to be inspired by rpg reading and those who want material more or less exactly as they will use it.
ReplyDeleteIdeally I would prefer heavy inclusion of fiction in rpgs. In reality it would only expose the authors to the same degree as if they illustrated their own work (generally a bad idea). However if integrated fiction became de rigueur in rpg circles it might have the salutary benefit of making clear what kind of brain the author has.
I buy novels when I want to read fiction. I don't think fiction can illustrate an RPG in the same way art does, because the goals of fiction are different to an RPG session and attempting to reproduce fiction through an RPG is doomed to failure.
Delete==the goals of fiction are different to an RPG session
DeleteYeah, the goals of art are different to an RPG session too.
As I said some rpg people want material they can immediately use and others want to be inspired. If someone can write then fiction is a proven way to reveal your ideas in a dense and memorable way.
The way I look at it is the standard encyclopaedic approach presents a list of bullet points or paragraphs, some on places, some on characters, some on monsters. With some brief fictional episodes you can in addition show how those elements relate to each other. That is a richer experience. If it is 'doomed to failure', as you say, it is because few people can write, but if a gamer can he should include fiction. The principle is sound.
Actually, you know what? I agree with you. Kent, for once you have made a cogent argument.
DeleteSwell. That's big of you.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this also plays into Kent's point, but I feel that short fiction can help express a setting (not the rules or game itself) in a way that visual aids cannot, and that can be the most efficient way of communicating that information.
ReplyDeleteIt would be helpful to have ready common sense advice for those who want to introduce fiction sketches into rpg setting material. For example a fundamental point that comes to mind is that the writer has to poise himself on a narrow height between two faults - Banality and Overreaching.
ReplyDeleteTo avoid Banality he asks, "Is this scene or dialogue obvious? Is this description of environment a cliche? 'Obvious' in the sense that I am not telling the reader something deeper than he could intuit from the rpg material I present. 'Cliche' in the sense that there is nothing striking or original in my description, nothing particular to my setting." The Fiction sketch can be an opportunity to spotlight his inventions.
To avoid Overreaching he asks, "Am I using language I am comfortable with so that I am clearly conveying what I imagine or am I piling up a thick stew of fantasy-poetic words that have gained currency since the heyday of Weird Tales and I know have a familiar psychological stink?" The power in an idea is in the thought not the vocabulary.