Alternative Storytelling · 4:16am Sep 20th, 2016
Pretty much every game based on a book seems to have gone so far off the original plot to add extra fights, puzzles etc, that it's basically something else all together.
Lord of the Rings Return of the King for example: most of the game is added fight sequences like beating the army of the dead into submission as Aragorn or fighting through a labyrinth of dozens of giant spiders as Sam before you can fight Shelob.
I can't think of any games that didn't add a lot to the book they were based off of, nor can I think of any books that would make clean translations into a good computer game.
Alternatively, almost all of the computer games I like: Knights of the Old Republic, Legend of Zelda etc, would be absolutely ridiculous if someone tried to write their plots as a novel; though I'm told there are a very few games, like Lord of the Rings Online, which might possibly work with a small amount of editing.
That said; a few weeks ago I started thinking about Dungeons and Dragons style play, (which is the grandfather of modern RPG games) and it occurs to me that the one or two campaigns I'd imagined myself DMing could work as either a game or a book. Then again I've never tried either playing or writing either of them so I might be wrong.
My question then: What are the core plot components for a game as opposed to a novel, and how often are they contradictory or compatible?
