Chatting with Malazan Author Ian C. Esslemont about the Impact of Games on Fantasy Fiction 

It's honestly quite arbitrary what sets people off vis a vis logic/rules/etc in narrative fiction. One of my real points of maturation as a critic of stories (and one that I still struggle with at times) was realizing and accepting that there's not some perfect measure of logic or quality in stories. Different things will pull different people out of a story. For some it might be the economics of the world, for others the psychological motivations of characters, for more still the consistency of magic and its "rules."

Thanks for the video AP! As a gamer and reader, I thoroughly enjoyed this talk. The task of writing a book is extremely hard, and certainly takes a talented hand. To think of the history, culture, folklore, values, economy, government, and myths within the world is a journey in it of itself. And I believe that one draws inspiration from the things we read, watch, or even play (whether games like D&D or Magic the Gathering or Video Games). Again, thank you for the video; I find these talks insightful and informative/thought provoking.

"Who would win in a fight: the mage or the warrior?" Well, it depends. If the mage is Professor Fireballs, the warrior is toast . . . unless he's wearing tweed armor. 😁

I also think that another potential factor about why fantasy is becoming more literal is related to how western culture (and I'm sure many other cultures) views maturation as a shedding of childishness. All these experiences that are so ubiquitous to children are often seen as inappropriate for adults. I could see some of this literalization of fantasy as a reaction to the unfair stigma around fantasy being for young people, maybe a misguided attempt to make it more "mature".

I think it can be argued that with the modern rise of "litRPG" and "progression fantasy," reader expectations of the genre have become increasingly gamified over time. There certainly does seem to be a certain percentage of fandom who is really, really into the idea of fantasy narrative as a written (or, I suppose, sometimes audio) version of a Twitch stream. They just want to watch someone else "playing a game" rather than experience a traditional narrative. I've also thought about it over the years in the inverse - how the expectations of traditional narrative from literature and TV have shaped computer game narratives, both within and outside of fantasy. It feels like there has been a genuine trend over time to move away from a silent protagonist who can be a blank cipher into which the player can pour any motivation into to a fully-voiced character with their own backstory, motivation, and ultimately, restrictions upon player agency, so, in the end, it's more like you're watching a movie with some action beats thrown in than making substantive decisions. In the end, what we expect from a game and what we expect from a traditional narrative are quite different. When we play a game, we have the expectation that once we figure out the systems, challenges will be reasonably easy to overcome and have little issue with play that sets up semi-repetitive action and/or puzzles. However, the same thing, when read, can be quite boring. Yet when we read, we often want our POV characters to fail, at least for a while, before they succeed. We have experience with failure and we like seeing that in relatable characters. But too much failure put into the narrative of an RPG can be quickly off-putting. But, that's clearly not all of us, or progression fantasy wouldn't be so popular. Some people do just want to watch a hero level up, it seems, in a semi-repetitive fashion. So maybe it is training those younger than I to think about all narrative in a different manner.

Very interesting discussion. Thank you for doing it. I would argue that the inclination towards systemic views or magic and other fantasy elements in fantasy literature, may be more causally linked to a growing cynicism of the unexplained and part of a pendulum swing that started with the birth of romantic literature, between the rational on one hand and the imaginative or immersive on the other. ie its a modern reflection of the age-old dichotomy between "realism" and "imaginative". Modern gamification, beginning with D&D may well be a factor but it too may be a symptom of the larger trend.

Reminicing on all the discussions about how insanely long a minute combat round in AD&D is or what a hit point is. I don't play computer games but I remember all the rpg's that would come out based on books. MERP had some amazing stuff for backgrounds and names for the other 7 Nazgul for example but ran into trouble with Zelazney when they put trump cards in the Court of Ardor. Do we need a Buffy rpg? Never seen anything for a New Sun rpg though... And that is exactly how I came across Night of Knives in the bookstore

YT up to its old tricks again. Only getting the upload notification *now* 😂

One interesting aspect of the videogames that often succeed, they don't hard rule it or how to put it. A recent example is Baldur's Gate 3, a game directly based on DnD but also on prior titles by the developers. Anyway, I'd say the narrative success of that game is centered around a party's quest as it often is in these games, however they do not strictly adhere to the rules when writing their characters and narrative. It's there, but it's not followed to the letter. Maybe an even better example is the two recent Pathfinder computer rpgs. The first one was mainly about implementing the ruleset and a module to go with it, whereas the second game took that and relaxed the narrative roleplay rules aspects enough to actually be more compelling as an RPG with a story. I think it's really interesting that it seems to be a common theme somewhere in there, for a more successful RPG that the larger audience takes to. Also, thanks for the talk, this hard v soft magic stuff is something I've also noticed a lot and I feel like I'm one of those that just loves when it's organic to a narrative and doesn't need detailed explanations. I think it really a lot like me and maps to the fantasy novels. I can appreciate them (I love maps!) but I wouldn't want everything to be marked out with denotations.

We should give goldfish more credit. They never seem too bored within the fish-tanks. Not an ipad or vertical video to be seen.

When I played the Witcher game series, at first I didn’t know they’re based on novels, even though they differed from games I enjoy the novels as much as I enjoy the games

Every time I've tried to nerf magic in my game, my players get mad at me. I wonder why that is? Even going a little outside the rules of an established ludic system sometimes garners resent. Oh well, what's a poor DM to do?

Midichlorians... sigh.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? -The rationality and logic of the enlightenment and science have rendered god and the divine superfluous. We don't need to appeal to the divine or the mystery to explain the workings of the universe. It is not solely gaming that has eliminated the desire for the mystery of magic. The belief that the world is fundamentally comprehensible is foundational to attempting to explain and define magic. The problem with sociology is that isn't sufficiently consistently rigorous for its standards of knowldege claims. There are rules and you have to find them.