| From: | Twist0059@***.com Twist0059@***.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Jak Koke E-Mail (Concerning the SR Novels) |
| Date: | Fri, 16 Jul 1999 00:25:12 EDT |
JonSzeto@***.com writes (forwarding Koke's letter):
> So my question is, finally, what role do you believe the SR novels should
> play in the larger plots of the SR Universe?
>
> Jak Koke
The novels should maintain a simple ideal: Never interact with the events in
the sourcebooks. Leave the sourcebooks to the players. That doesn't mean
you can't use the SR personalities, just don't take our plot hooks.
As for the novels, the whole thing that made them interesting was that you
didn't hear about them in the sourcebooks! They were the adventures going on
quietly in the shadows, stories you will never hear about on Shadowland.
They were the essence of shadowrunning. And now they're just narrative
sourcebooks. If you must have novels interact with the sourcebooks, at least
follow the Bug City/Burning Bright axiom: Introduce the cool event, and then
step aside. Note this is the exact opposite of what the DHS did.
Also, a note on characters. I make no distinction between the "classics" and
paperback pulps like the SR books. A great story is a great story, and we
shouldn't be told differently by others claiming only hundred year old
material is truly great. Yet when the SR novels degenerate into <shudder>
"gaming fiction" (read: The Super Mario Bros. novels or the Street Fighter
movie) they justify the idea that they are nothing of merit. Don't make
your character a superhero. Make them feel pain, and make them lose almost
as often as they win. Make the victories small, and make them hard fought.
Don't make the ultra-secret Aztechnology dela clinic guarded by three guys
with baseball bats (pretty much, compared to what was stored there). Don't
make your characters into The Man With No Name and his iron stare with the
cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth. Make them people; give them
problems, give them vices, give them paranoid delusions if you must. Try and
eliminate the gratuitous sex scenes, or just suggest them (see 2XS and
Night's Pawn). Make the mysterious, intelligent, and dangerous characters in
the sourcebooks just as mysterious, intelligent, and dangerous in the novels.
And, above all and I say again: STAY AWAY FROM THE SOURCEBOOK PLOTS!!!!
They are for the gamers. Novels that use the sourcebook plots eliminate GM
options and become boring in continually seeing the same perspective in both
products. If I read about the mysterious Dunkelzahn assassination in PoaD, I
don't want to pick up a novel and see the answer plainly on the page and have
the sourcebook's mystery mean nothing and become silly, nevermind negating
whatever plots the GM had made up for Dunk's assassination. The sourcebooks
are supposed to provide the gaming mystery you base your adventures off of.
The novels are supposed to tell the stories different from the sourceboks,
and to give you the flavor of the game universe. Don't let either step on
the other's toes, or you cut back on the enjoyment of both.
All the rant above said, it's important to let it be said that even though I
hate the DHS, I have nothing against the writer as a person. This isn't a
flame at him or the work he has done and that is in the past and unchangable,
but hopefully a guideline he can evaluate to figure out where the anger from
those who didn't like his previous books is coming from. I'm just a single
person, so maybe others who didn't like the book had different reasons, but
from all those I've talked to online and off the above seems the jist of the
complaints.
-Twist
