First, you kill somebody.
I work on a few projects I can’t talk about, usually because they belong to other people. Screenplays, TV pilots, adaptations, that sort of thing. But occasionally, one breaks free into the light.
And so, I’m gonna do a weird thing here. Imma send you to LinkedIn!
Because the guys from Valens Games have me doing an adaptation of one of their strategic policy RPGs, Sleeping Giants.
They asked if I would adapt it into a novel and I said sure. But how do you even start with something like that?
Easy.
I am constantly amazed by how linkedin is still hanging around . . . . . . sort of like trying to get dog crap off the bottom of your shoe. And lately it seems like the dog crap is self multiplying into a mound that you just have to put up with, even though it smells to high heaven.
There's worse things out there than content that is generated off rpg games. They involve a bit of structure, rules, hopefully a good kernel of an idea and then you throw random human brains into the mix. Seems like they are perfect for novel adaptations. When i was a whipper snapper i loved the dragonlance books . . . . as an adult not so much, but thats okay, they hold a special place. The malazan book of the fallen books were also based on an rpg. They were amazing and much more involved. I feel like fantasy was the progenitor of rpg (or at least was the thing that made it take off). When we were young, my mates and I developed a vietnam war based game. Did a few campaigns but life got in the way. We invested a fair bit of time into it and used the DnD ruleset as the basis. The setting up was probably the main chunk of the time we spent!
That was a cracking first chapter. When do we get more?