Fantasy RPG book

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As I mentioned in Random Babbling, I started writing a new book about a pseudo D&D group that gets sucked into a fantasy world to save it from boredom. I say pseudo D&D because I don't know enough about real D&D to make it realistic. So, I called it Sword and Sorcery (S&S) and can make up the rules as needed, while keeping the D&D flavor. It's been fun so far. I started with a prologue from the wizard who accidentally enchants a Ouija planchette, and have continued with the first chapter where the group is actually playing the game and about to start using the spirit board.

So far my characters are:
The GM, Julian -- nice guy. Haven't really developed him much.

The GM's girlfriend, Sheila -- also nice, but very much into New Age stuff, and not so much into the game. She gets bored and restless a lot and causes disruptions. She's the healer of the group. She's the one who introduces the Ouija board.

Seth: he's the wizard, very thin and wears glasses. Pretty easy-going. He's a little more developed than Julian, but not much.

Mike: he plays a half-goblin barbarian, but in reality, he's tall/built, gentle, and highly intelligent. He's also a skeptical agnostic.

Chelsea: main character - thief, not sure what race yet.. She's short, but compact with dark hair, and is a bit of a tomboy. She lives with her grandma and younger brother and just bought a used car. Her grandma thinks S&S and Ouija boards are demonic. Chelsea loves doing anything she can to flaunt her interest in things that her grandma disapproves of, especially ever since her grandma burned her S&S books. So she's really excited when Sheila brings out the spirit board. I think she might be interested in Seth, but I'll have to see as the book progresses.

I'm doing this one a little differently. I usually plan the plot and characters out first, but I'm going to try writing a first draft without a lot of planning this time, and see what develops organically as I write. I think my characters might end up pretty flat (they tend to in my books, even when I DO have some planning), but others have said that when they plan, it causes them to forget to develop those things in the actual book, so if that's my problem, maybe not planning is the answer.

Thankfully, I don't have to do a lot of setting research. That's the hardest part for me, and the most important. My settings tend to be bland if I don't know what's really there (so I skip over it). I'm basing the real world in a town similar to mine (but much smaller), and making up the fantasy world.

Anyway, I need to go now. Enjoy your day or night or whatever time it is when you read this!

 

This sounds like it has potential. I have to admit that at first I thought "this has been done before" (because we all play these games after all), but the idea of real world people entering those roles is intriguing.

 

Well, and really, everything has been done before. The trick is always trying to make it new and fresh. For me, I think the freshness (and difficulty) is the fact that, so far, the antagonist is boredom. So, it's fresh because they're not just killing off some evil usurping demonic mage king-wannabe, but the difficulty is that the antagonist really does need to be personified somehow in a character, and I'm not sure how to make a character out of boredom.

I'm thinking of using Fantopia as the working title, since the land (Fantaric) is basically a utopia in which there is absolutely nothing wrong . . . which is why it's so boring. I'm not too happy with my first scene, although I read it to my students because I think it's useful for them to see that their teacher writes, too, and sometimes badly (especially if it's a first draft). There are some things that were fun to write, but I think as they came out, they don't quite work.