What I Changed When Adapting my Player’s Characters to a Novel

Before really delving into this topic, I want to point out that I try my best not to change much from table to tome. The essence of the story itself remains the same, though I often like to embellish, polish, and dive deeper into the nuance of a scene or moment because otherwise it would just be like reading a transcript of a game, which I’m sure would be far less enjoyable. And while I’ll add or change dialogue just to amp up a moment or provide further clarity, I don’t often go back and retcon things that have happened in the story. 

Note the use of the qualifier “often.” Sometimes this is a necessary act for several reasons. Sometimes, a player will come to me afterwards and say something about how their character was feeling in the moment or they’ll reflect on a chapter, giving me new insight into what was going on in their heads when they made decisions, so I’ll change up a scene slightly to grant you, the reader, that same insight. I don’t feel it changes the scene all that much since it's more internal, but when the other players read it, they do notice a difference because they’re learning something they hadn’t known before as well. 

Other times, I need to alter an entire scene by cutting or changing an action the player’s character took. There is a prime example much later on in a book that hasn’t been published yet, (as River Song says, “Spoilers…”) where two of the player characters get into an argument. The in-character argument gets heated, and one of them escalates the stakes, causing the other to storm off angry. Out of character, the player was angry as well, which can sometimes happen in the game. We mediated it, talked it out, and after several days, the one who escalated the argument asked if we could change the scene. They didn’t want me to eliminate the argument entirely, but to change how they reacted. Still escalate the argument, still step out of line, but diminish the action from the zero to one-hundred reaction they’d had in the first place. I was able to tone it down, create a more subtle threat that still conveyed the message and the meaning, but without stepping over lines that both players disapproved of. 

There are also sessions where the players, needing to blow off a little steam as many of us have had to the past decade or so, decide to get a little goofy and do crazy or stupid things that don’t further the plot. While I normally include their shenanigans, or even hype them up in certain scenes, there have been instances where I’ve just cut almost entire sessions because nothing of consequence happens or what they’re doing in character is just trying to flex their abilities, test them out, or see how durable one character is by dropping them a couple hundred feet into a lake. While fun to test out, not a scene that is entirely necessary, especially if its a PvE where players just want to “test something out.”

All in all, some of the biggest changes I make come in the form of dialogue and justification. The players know why they’re taking certain actions, even though some have difficulty articulating it, while others recognize their character being better at quips and one-liners than they as a person are. There are several notes in sessions where we have to put down “One liner regarding [insert relevant pun here]” or “say something along these lines here” because the player couldn’t think of something in the moment and wanted to keep the story moving rather than workshop lines, and that’s perfectly fine. What I love about that is that it allows me to take some creative liberties with the characters, but more than that, my players trust me to take those creative liberties. 

I think the biggest benefit to writing these books based on the campaign is that it has given each of my players not only a better insight into their own characters, but also into each others’. While they trust me to portray their characters in the books, they also are able to fully trust the insights into their own characters from other players. We start each session with a question to help us build up character knowledge. Things like, “What would be your character’s walk on song?” or “What movie would you choose for a date night and why?” just to help us really understand our characters more. Sometimes, players will struggle answering a question, but it has gotten to a point where other players can make suggestions for answers that fit perfectly or can help inspire one for the struggling player. Each of them has grown to trust each other’s insight into their own characters, and thus have grown to trust each other more as people. 

So, while I do adapt a lot of what happens in the game for the book to make it fit and flow better, very little is changed. What you get is quite often exactly what happened, just with a bit of embellishment. But what gets changed, and that is few and far between, is what needs to change in order to preserve the integrity of the characters and story when the players may have just been having a bad brain day, were tired, unfocused, or just wanted to reframe their choices enough to preserve them beyond the mistakes of the players themselves.