This little nugget came across my Twitter feed earlier today: I don't know M.T. Black, but a quick look at his Dungeon Master's Guild page shows about 70-odd publications. You can follow this hyperlink (or the image link) to see the thread his post generated. Suffice to say, there's a lot of support for the idea. Before seeing this tweet, I actually had no idea the D&D novel line had been discontinued. A little googling reveals it was killed off quietly, with Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro making no official announcements and enforcing NDAs against the writers involved. Anyway, Black has a good point in regards the potential benefit of a program like this, at least from the WotC/Hasbro perspective. If the reason for shutting down the novels was financial, this would serve as an alternative with no production cost, funneling money into a revived fiction publishing arm. They could use that to fund the bigger "official" releases. Not to mention the ability to use the platform as a sort of "farm team" to scout for new talent. And he's right that thousands of writers would benefit from having such a big, name-brand platform to showcase their work. But let's be real. What Black is suggesting here is that Hasbro give "official" recognition to D&D fan fiction, in turn for split profits/monetization. I'm not against fan fiction in principal. I think any SF/F writer with a shred of honesty will admit to writing it in one form or another. Hell, one of my very first "serious" attempts at fiction was a Castlevania/Ravenloft mashup, based on a weekend campaign I ran for my brother and his friends. What rubs me the wrong way about this is the conciliatory, "mother, may I?" dynamic it encourages between the fan writers, and the corporate overlords in charge of the IP. In this model, writers aren't encouraged to break out and build their own sandboxes. They're encouraged to keep playing in the one owned by the multi-billion dollar entertainment company, in hopes of getting some kind of official seal of approval at the end. That kind of closed feedback loop is the enemy of long-term creativity. If you write D&D fanfic, and you want other people to see it, there are plenty of sites and boards available. One of them even won a major industry award, if you're after a little name-brand prestige. But if you want to earn money for your D&D fanfic, then you're better off doing it the old fashioned way: by taking the storytelling skills you've learned, and using them to build something new.
4 Comments
Fractal Rabbit
8/26/2019 03:02:14 am
When we speak of D&D fan fiction. are we speaking of writers writing stories in the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, etc.?
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8/27/2019 11:40:26 am
In this sense, I mean writers using the licensed settings and characters owned by Wizards of the Coast.
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I was at Gen Con a few years ago, at a Candlekeep Seminar, where none other than James Lowder showed up and talked about the cancellation of the novels. He mentioned how the novel division had been turning a tidy profit up until Hasbro pulled the plug, including at one point being responsible for up to 50% of the profits (I think he was referring to the D&D brand as a whole, since there's no way that's true if you take Magic: the Gathering into account).
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9/10/2019 11:32:42 am
Really appreciate this insight. Thanks.
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AboutI'm an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer based out of North Carolina. This is where I scream into the digital void. I like cookies. Archives
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