|
First and foremost, I'd like to say hello to all of the other Pathfinder players here. I just recently got my core book and have not been able to put it down. To say that it's gotten my creative juices flowing as a GM would be an understatement. I finally feel like "the world's most popular role-playing game" is mine again - no longer unduly convoluted, nor over-simplfied, and most of all, not a tabletop version of a MMORPG. This is fantasy gaming done right.
Moving on to the topic of this thread, I'd like to know what you think about adapting various fantasy novels to Pathfinder. Are you interested in playing in other people's milieus? How would you feel about tampering with canon, particularly in the case of longstanding series? What novels would you adapt, were you able to do so? How would you represent the characters in the game?
I would be very reluctant to have any one other than the author do the adaptation, or a team who has a very solid grasp of the body of written work to be adapted. To me very few worlds based on literary works are good adaptations to tabletop play.
However, please do not take this as disparagement - as we have seen over the past two decades or so, settings from literature can be successfully adapted to game play. I love the Belgariad/Mallorean series of 10 books (and its three or four follow-up books), but I do not think it would make a good setting to game in. Certain concepts from that series are ones I strongly tend to use in gaming, however.
|
|
I would be very reluctant to have any one other than the author do the adaptation, or a team who has a very solid grasp of the body of written work to be adapted. To me very few worlds based on literary works are good adaptations to tabletop play.
However, please do not take this as disparagement - as we have seen over the past two decades or so, settings from literature can be successfully adapted to game play. I love the Belgariad/Mallorean series of 10 books (and its three or four follow-up books), but I do not think it would make a good setting to game in. Certain concepts from that series are ones I strongly tend to use in gaming, however.
No, I hear you. I tend to mix and match myself, most often brazenly borrowing from sources literary (R.E. Howard, Jack Vance, Clark Ashton Smith, Poul Anderson), folkloric (Anglo-Celtic myth usually gets a workout) and historic (ever read "A Distant Mirror"?). I've not done much in the way of straight-forward literary adaptation.
Still, after reading Jesse Bullington's "The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart" or James Enge's "Blood of Ambrose" the temptation is certainly there.
I would be very reluctant to have any one other than the author do the adaptation, or a team who has a very solid grasp of the body of written work to be adapted. To me very few worlds based on literary works are good adaptations to tabletop play.
However, please do not take this as disparagement - as we have seen over the past two decades or so, settings from literature can be successfully adapted to game play. I love the Belgariad/Mallorean series of 10 books (and its three or four follow-up books), but I do not think it would make a good setting to game in. Certain concepts from that series are ones I strongly tend to use in gaming, however.
No, I hear you. I tend to mix and match myself, most often brazenly borrowing from sources literary (R.E. Howard, Jack Vance, Clark Ashton Smith, Poul Anderson), folkloric (Anglo-Celtic myth usually gets a workout) and historic (ever read "A Distant Mirror"?). I've not done much in the way of straight-forward literary adaptation.
Still, after reading Jesse Bullington's "The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart" or James Enge's "Blood of Ambrose" the temptation is certainly there.
As I am unfamiliar with the works in question, there would strike me as nothing wrong with dabbling.
If nothing else, I tend to apply certain elements from the written worlds I enjoy as "general principles" throughout my own gaming, from a minute element to a very major metaphysical one.
Thanks for giving me something else to find and read!
|
I'd like to know what you think about adapting various fantasy novels to Pathfinder. Are you interested in playing in other people's milieus? How would you feel about tampering with canon, particularly in the case of longstanding series? What novels would you adapt, were you able to do so? How would you represent the characters in the game?
Well, I think a lot of people do it, and if I could I would. If I could adapt a series of novels to RPG play I would adapt the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson. The Land would be a fantastic place to game in, and its low magic world would be a great challenge to traditional high fantasy players. The Land is rich and developed but you don't have to worry about canon because the series itself changes the landscape and people so much. There are some canon such as the history and traditions that you wouldn't want to mess with. But otherwise it is ripe for interpretation and need.
The only reason I have not done this yet is the sheer amount or work necessary to make it good.
|
The title made me think of this a little differently.
Perhaps Paizo could take a leaf out of the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies book and create...
The Charge of the Aroden Brigade
The Celestial Eagle Has Landed
Wuthering Heights of Nex
The Calistrian Handmaid's Tale
Varisian Great Expectations
etc.
|
|
The title made me think of this a little differently.
Perhaps Paizo could take a leaf out of the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies book and create...
The Charge of the Aroden Brigade
The Celestial Eagle Has Landed
Wuthering Heights of Nex
The Calistrian Handmaid's Tale
Varisian Great Expectationsetc.
lol
OMG that is great!
The title made me think of this a little differently.
Perhaps Paizo could take a leaf out of the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies book and create...
The Charge of the Aroden Brigade
The Celestial Eagle Has Landed
Wuthering Heights of Nex
The Calistrian Handmaid's Tale
Varisian Great Expectationsetc.
lol
OMG that is great!
Totally agree...
To add to that list, "Cheliax of Wrath".
:oP