Today – plotting! And scheming!

One point I have to clear up in my own mind is to what extent I want the campaign to mirror the events portrayed in the book. I have a fairly clear storyline in mind for the first book, which plays rather well into at least the first half of the second book; to a large extent, this will lead to a lot of detail being added to the world 'on the fly'. There are, I can see, three options available to me at this juncture, one of which I intend to discard immediately.

Option 1: Write the book with the PCs as the core cast. This is a nice idea in a lot of ways, but this is the one I am opting to discard. I may well use the PCs as secondary characters in the book, that would be wholly appropriate and a great tribute to the players in the campaign, but I would lose a great deal of plot control if I simply opted to write 'the adventures of the PCs'.

Option 2: The PCs have one set of adventures, the characters in the book have a different set. Interesting option, as it allows me to employ the PCs in the book, and also have them hear of the 'other adventuring party' as well. Some of the background material I will be able to employ, but obviously that relating directly to the novel characters I will be unable to use.

Option 3: Parallel universe, in which the PCs 'take the place' of the novel characters in the same setting. This is another good option, in that I can save a lot of work by using most of the material for the novel in the campaign I am writing – characters, settings, dungeons, plots, and so on. Of course, it is highly likely that the PCs will diverge from the plot as written, so this won't work perfectly, but I can use some samples of dialogue, player ideas in response to plot elements, and the like, at will.

On balance, I think I'm going to go with Option 3, with a hint of the other two options as well. Option 1 in that I will introduce the PCs as cameo characters, certainly in the first book and probably later on, Option 2 in that I can use the novel characters to cameo in the campaign, which should be interesting. This maximises the point of running a game in the setting in the first place!

Next time: Focused world building!