Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series is obviously based on In Harm's Way. The books - and I've read them all - are all IHW session logs cunningly disguised with a thin veil of superlative writing. Aubrey and Maturin are obviously main and secondary troupe characters of the same player - the third troupe character had me fooled - for the longest time I thought it was Barret Bonden, but I see now in retrospect that it was definitely Preserved Killick. The plots are insubstantial gossamer things holding together some magnificent roleplaying, all of them straight out of the book, but O'Brian's history is not the best - 1814 was apparently the Campaign Year That No-one Wanted To End! Maybe the GM was out of a job then? He must've had a lot of time on his hands. What isn't in the book is the extended shore adventures. I've done this in my own games, but O'Brian - or whoever the GM was - really milked the device! Hat's off for going above and beyond! The possibility remains that Aubrey/Maturin/Killick was a GMPC, designed to overawe the other players - otherwise how does one accound for Maturin, who has three separate avocations - Naturalist, Musician, and Intelligence Agent - as well as being a damned excellent surgeon, a crack shot, and darned handy with a blade! At any event, the GM has loaded him down with nasty personal troubles, and the player obbviously used Charisma as a dump stat! With Aubrey, on the other hand, the player translated a probable normal IQ into mathmatical brilliance with a balancing idiocy in other matters. The GM either approved that little end run or was lax in preventing it! That allowed him to take a modest Interest and a fine Luck while still having a not too stupid character! Now I must find a time machine to send the game back to O'Brian.  Anyone know H. G. Wells' address? :O

-clash

Quote from: flyingmicePatrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series is obviously based on In Harm's Way. The books - and I've read them all - are all IHW session logs cunningly disguised with a thin veil of superlative writing. Aubrey and Maturin are obviously main and secondary troupe characters of the same player - the third troupe character had me fooled - for the longest time I thought it was Barret Bonden, but I see now in retrospect that it was definitely Preserved Killick. The plots are insubstantial gossamer things holding together some magnificent roleplaying, all of them straight out of the book, but O'Brian's history is not the best - 1814 was apparently the Campaign Year That No-one Wanted To End! Maybe the GM was out of a job then? He must've had a lot of time on his hands. What isn't in the book is the extended shore adventures. I've done this in my own games, but O'Brian - or whoever the GM was - really milked the device! Hat's off for going above and beyond! The possibility remains that Aubrey/Maturin/Killick was a GMPC, designed to overawe the other players - otherwise how does one accound for Maturin, who has three separate avocations - Naturalist, Musician, and Intelligence Agent - as well as being a damned excellent surgeon, a crack shot, and darned handy with a blade! At any event, the GM has loaded him down with nasty personal troubles, and the player obbviously used Charisma as a dump stat! With Aubrey, on the other hand, the player translated a probable normal IQ into mathmatical brilliance with a balancing idiocy in other matters. The GM either approved that little end run or was lax in preventing it! That allowed him to take a modest Interest and a fine Luck while still having a not too stupid character! Now I must find a time machine to send the game back to O'Brian.  Anyone know H. G. Wells' address? :O

-clash

I am Imperator and I declare this post AWESOME.

Quote from: ImperatorI am Imperator and I declare this post AWESOME.

/me bows.

-clash

I like some of the Warhammer Fantasy novels, usually the earlier ones. The 40K ones I'm not as into, though I want to check out the Horus Heresy books some year. I liked the first Gord novel as a kid but not now. I'd rather read more Fritz Leiber and company instead.

Quote from: WarthurWell, wasn't Ray Feist's Magician almost entirely based on his D&D campaign?

Yes, they tell the story of how High Magic came to Midkemia 100s of years before the events in the original D&D campaign he played in. The GM almost assuredly had access to Empire of the Petal Throne, so they also serve as a good intro to Tekumel as well as D&D. I like the original books, up to about when the story shifted to the children of the original characters. I missed the Empire (Tsurani) series, I'd like to read that some year.

M.A.R. Barker has written five Tekumel novels so far.

• Flamesong - standalone about a military unit
• The Man of Gold - first of the Harsan novels
• Prince of Skulls - the rest are also about Harsan; while they can be read alone they do follow upon previous events
• The Lords of Tsamra
• A Death of Kings

Flamesong and The Man of Gold were printed by DAW back in the 80s, so while out of print it's not too hard to find a used reading copy. The rest are in print from Zotpub.com . The RPG came out before any novels, though that wasn't the original intent.

Personally I find them as thick as Tolkein sometimes but easier to wade through since they're very "spicy" compared to say a vanilla Tolkein-derivative. Some of my Tekumel players have found the setting easier to play in and understood a lot more after reading the first two novels. Barker does dip into Tekumel 401 topics (which can get as silly as advanced Dianetics IMO but are OTOH just as pulpy ) and seems to use a lot more artifacts and technology than I expected, but then again his novels have a lot of pivotal events and travelling to various lands/dimensions/.

Quote from: Casey777M.A.R. Barker has written five Tekumel novels so far.

• Flamesong - standalone about a military unit
• The Man of Gold - first of the Harsan novels
• Prince of Skulls - the rest are also about Harsan; while they can be read alone they do follow upon previous events
• The Lords of Tsamra
• A Death of Kings

Flamesong and The Man of Gold were printed by DAW back in the 80s, so while out of print it's not too hard to find a used reading copy. The rest are in print from Zotpub.com . The RPG came out before any novels, though that wasn't the original intent.

Yeah, I'm not sure that Tekumel counts since both the RPG and the novels were essentially by-products of MAR Barker's worldbuilding hobby, just as The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings grew out of Tolkein's. The novels aren't "the book of the game", they're "the book of the fat wad of notes" just as Empire of the Petal Throne and its successors were "the game of the fat wad of notes".

If you want a really gritty, dark war novel along the lines of "All quiet on the western front" try "15 hours" for the 40K line.