The Fantasy Writers' Exam, as posted on rpg.net. It's for novels, but it does work for campaigns.

I am of course the first to claim bad fiction can make for great gaming. Still, one cringes at being found out.

Quote1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
6. How about one that will destroy it?
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
26. Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like "The Blasted Lands" or "The Forest of Fear" or "The Desert of Desolation" or absolutely anything "of Doom"?
27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more?
61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
75.Read that question again and answer truthfully.

I know mine sure as hell is.  But as you say, bad fiction makes for great gaming.

What I'm finding amusing is that I recently reread Sword of Shannara again after many years and it's hitting a large percentage of these, especially the last two. I'm on to Elfstones now and it's only better because it's so far more like a horror movie.

I've written at least one really bad fantasy novel in my time, but, even so, I was comfortably able to answer no to all of those questions.

Quote from: Sigmund;220373What I'm finding amusing is that I recently reread Sword of Shannara again after many years and it's hitting a large percentage of these, especially the last two. I'm on to Elfstones now and it's only better because it's so far more like a horror movie.

After reading LOTR when I was a kid, I thought, "Wow, I want to read something else just like that," so I picked up Sword of Shannara. As it turns out,  I was wrong about what I wanted.

I will admit to some cases of hyphenation and polysyllabism.

Also, in the past I have committed #22.

Quote from: Sigmund;220373What I'm finding amusing is that I recently reread Sword of Shannara again after many years and it's hitting a large percentage of these, especially the last two. I'm on to Elfstones now and it's only better because it's so far more like a horror movie.

I tried reading Sword of Shannara twice, and couldn't finish it either time.  I'd to around page 100 and nothing had happened yet.  When I read the #1 on this list, SoS was the first book that popped into my mind.

The Two Towers was the second.

This list kind of seems like it was written by two people - one who was concerned with crappy plots, and one who was concerned with getting the weapons and armour right (and the hay baler).

By the way, the Flashing Swords site is full of stories that

a) are recognisably role-playing-like, to the point where most of them could be converted into modules, and

b) don't have the craptacular 'epic-ness' that this list seems to be criticising.

> 24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?

Of course not. They're also used as housing for undead sailors.

Quote46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?

Of course not! They also serve as housing for old, rich men who give out missions to save their helpless, gorgeous daughters!

Quote35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?

I actually always wanted to run such a campaign with PCs as stranded real-worlders, who have to look how they can make it through the fantasy dimension with their contemporary skills and equipment. Some day I'll get to it.

Honestly, is it a problem in fantasy fiction these days? I don't read it, and I recall a similar set-up only from the old D&D cartoon (and an old German solo adventure).

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?

Well, you roll dice, pick a race and class and skills. I'm not sure if feats are before page 50.

2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?

Mysterious parentage is usually frowned upon.

3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?

Most heirs (which are rare) know it in my gaming experience.

4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?

Isn't that the whole premise of D&D. I'll have to say "YES" to this one.

5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?

Often, but it's a bit cliche, and usually the world saving comes after 10th level or so. But yeah, again, part & parcel. It's not always an artifact. And honestly, the last campaign or two, the true world-saving has been put off until 15th-20th or so.

6. How about one that will destroy it?

No.


7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?

Occasionally, but prophecies are difficult to do without railroading, and "the one" PCs are munchkin.

8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?

That's what knowledge checks are for. Dispensing information is a role for NPCs as well, but no reason to make it one NPC. Do those NPCs need to have more relevance to the campaign than that? They have a role in life, but as far as their relevance to the campaign, that's okay. NPCs are cheap. I don't have to knock myself out to shoehorn my personal gandalf into one of the other 3 NPC roles.

(For reference, the 4 roles of non-villainous NPCs per Ray Winninger's Dungeoncraft articles are: 1) provide knowledge, 2) provide tactical options, 3) catapult the PCs into adventure, and 4) provide flavor.)

9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?

Novel = "Campaign setting"? Yep. Any given campaign? No.

10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?

No.

11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?

Hmmm. Not so much. There are some leaders that fall into this category, but usually I assume that a world with this much magic, if magic ain't on your side, you don't get "king of the world" status.

12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?

Up to the players, but generally, no.

13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?

My slow warrior PCs tend to not be kind hearted.

14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?

I don't do Tom Bombadil. Is that what the reference is here? I guess I can claim to be above this one... if NPCs withhold information, they have a reason. The players may not know the reason. But that doesn't let them turn into smarmy book critics.

15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?

Players often give their female characters high charisma. Does that count?

16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?

I caught myself doing that. I try to mix it up a bit. But people often do need rescuing, and often they will be female.

17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?

Not that I can think of. Unless you count feminism in a general "females can do anything males can do" light, in which case, I suppose any female PC qualifies.

18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?

NPCs of any significance? Well, not all NPCs are not all warriors, and frying pan is probably a simple weapon.

19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?

And conversely, I think that would fairly describe any female PC proficient in swords.

20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?

Huh. Phuck yeah.

21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?

No. Half-elf torn up about how lame half-elves are, sure. That would actually be deep for most of my players. But can't say it happens a lot.

22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?

I make dwarves and elves... communities with their own agendas which sometimes conflict but often coincide. And considering they live in a hostile world populated with gnolls, orcs, drow, and dragons, I think it's only fair and logical to say that they often put aside their differences.

23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?

No kender PCs. Or NPCs.

24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?

Er, no? Merchantry and Exploration get top billing in my games.

25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?

No phreaking clue.

26. Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like "The Blasted Lands" or "The Forest of Fear" or "The Desert of Desolation" or absolutely anything "of Doom"?

Oh, probably. I don't think I have anything "of Doom", but I can't claim much better.

27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?

I think the short answer to this is no.

28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?

I'll translate to "do you do campaigns". Yup. Don't usually have time these days, though.

30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?

N/A.

31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?

I'm getting the sense that Mr. Smarmy Critic here has a pretty narrow definition of anything happening.

As for me. Stuff happens. Orcs die, tribes fall, wizards get foiled. It's a big world and there are always more.

32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?

N/A. Or no.

33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?

Ah, so this is Mr. Smarmy Literary Critic.
Guess he doesn't like Robert Jordan. Not that I blame him.

34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?

Does not compute.

35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?

When I am running Second World, yeah. And clue: this is fresh stuff for RPGs, unlike novels.

36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?

No, but some ancient characters of yore do.

37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?

Yes.

38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?

Yeah, but it bothers me more when they have names like "Matthew", "Jose", and the like. (Rueful stare at players.)

39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?

Abso-lutely.

40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?

Um... no.

41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?

Ab-so-lutely.
But honestly, I don't like them.

42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?

No, but I wouldn't hesitate to do so.

43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?

Does not compute.

44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?

Er, yes.

45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?

Phuck no.

46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?

Sadly, I don't think I've had a bar brawl since college.

47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?

No. I know how feudalism worked but assume a more capitalist society.

48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?

Not after 9th level.

49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?

See question 7; this sort of book cheesiness doesn't fly too well in RPGs.

50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?

Absolutely. They are usually easily identifable as that because that's what they are named.

51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?

No.

52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?

No.

53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?

Not IC.

54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?

Yes.

55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?

No, but why would they need to?

56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?

I miss Combat & Tactics some days. But this one's easy enough to adjudicate without complicated "endurance" rules. No.

57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?

Hmmm. The only weapons with the "returning" property in my games are generally daggers.

58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?

Look here. A scimitar is a slashing weapon. Duh.

59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?

"Straight through"? There is no straight through. There is hit, and there is miss. Details are up to the DM.

60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more?

What, are you too lazy to look again?
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm

No.

61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?

Like reality, anyone as rich and proactive as your typical adventurer is just the sort of character who has little trouble wooing women. That said, my players usually don't bring romance into the game.

62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?

Not so much, these days. Quotes from Monty Python, the Princess Bride, and Court Jester, on the other hand...

63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?

No, which game critics never cease to bitch about.

64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?

If it didn't kill him, it wasn't in the chest.

65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?

Trail rations, 5 sp/day.

When I do bother to describe a sharing of rations, it's often bread and salted meat.

66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?

Er, no.

67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?

Er, no.

68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?

Er, hell no, hell no, and yes.

In a world where the gods are knowable, I think its fair to say religion would have a bit more cohesion.

69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?

No.

70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?

No. It may seem like it, though.

71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?

:lol:

The bard can use a cure light wound wand for when the cleric goes down. That's good for something.

72. Is "common" the official language of your world?

Phuck. No.

I hate hate HATE the idea of a universal language. I have trade tongues spoke in various regions that keep language from being an everpresent issue, but the idea of one common tongue that all humans speak throughout reality insanely SOD-breaking.

73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?

No, though there are tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody dared go near because they were populated by hazardous undead that would feast upon their soul.

74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?

To the extent that D&D is, unabashedly. Which is to say you'll recognize the races and to a lesser degree, the quest formula.

Within those parameters, not so much. A few bad patterns in this list I was guilty of but overcame. But a few work just fine and there is no reason to fix because I'm not writing a freaking novel and don't think of my game world as a strict analog of feudal Europe.

I am pleased to find I am failed miserable reprobate who cheerfully adheres to many of these points.

C. Slaad, beautiful. Just beautiful.

I think a far greater and more insidious error is not that someone will try to be too stereotypical (as these questions presume) but that they will try to be too pretentiously iconoclastic and end up sucking in their Novel and/or Campaign because they imagine that just by breaking some of these conventions it automatically means they must be a "Great Artist".

So, I think these here are far more useful points to look at as a test. Putting them more or less into questions:

1. Is your setting one where absolutely no one is truly heroic? Everyone has to be either wrong, evil, self-serving, ignorant, or some other "shade of gray"?

2. Are the apparent villains not true villains in your setting? Is the evil archwizard really just misunderstood? Is it all "morally relative", and the Orcs are only invading because their tribal lands were taken from them? Did the Dragon just attack because the ignorant humans were destroying the ecosystem? Is the Troll just acting out because he's sexually confused?

3. Are the PCs allowed to be heros? That is, are they allowed to change the setting, save the day? will what they do matters? or would that go against your marxist conception of history as being the product of material developments and not the actions of great men?
Is your game/novel set up so that in the end nothing the PCs/protagonists did mattered at all?

4. Is your setting forbidden to have a theme? Is it all just about being cool and looking cool and everything being the aforementioned shades of grey, but nothing is actually meant to happen? No dark lord, no invasion, nothing to provide any real direction to the campaign/novel?

5. Is Combat a Dirty Word in your campaign? Are PCs who want to fight punished for it? Is your game a Vanilla fantasy setting of some kind, but you insist that only "investigation" or "social conflict" is acceptable? is combat seen as evil or wrong?

6. Do you sneer at backstory? Is the history of your game utterly unimportant, because its just a vehicle for you to tell your "story" (a "story" with no real good guys, no real bad guys, no real theme, and no real change?)?

7. Do you insist on creating jargon for its own sake? Do things that have a perfectly normal english name have to be renamed into something unpronounceable in your game/setting/novel?

8. Do you reject all concepts of pace? Does it seem that your game/novel exists outside of time, because again, all that matters is "Story", and anything that actually creates a sense of immersion in a fantasy world would be seen as "wrong" to you?

9. Do your plot twists suck ass? Do you end up taking the central point that the PCs thought they were working towards and make it so that either it never mattered in the first place, or doesn't matter at all by the time the PCs get to it?

10. Is ambition a dirty word in your world? Have you set it up so that PCs have no opportunity to actually change their lot, gain any power, rise in social status, or end up being their own boss? is there always someone above them who gets to make all the real decisions, get in all the real action, and make sure they can't go anywhere?

11. Have you set up the campaign so the Players can't possibly win against the (non-)villain they are facing? are they doomed from the start? Are they just supposed to grin and accept it when the tentacle things from dimension x (who are only evil because they had a bad childhood) suck their brains out, because you've made it damn clear that there's NO way to beat them, and trying to get into combat is both wrong, forbidden by their superior, and won't work anyways?

12. Are any organized religions (especially monotheistic ones) the only really evil and corrupt groups in your world (though again, only because they're sooo ignorant)? Are any visibly religious people (unless they're hippie neo-pagans) obviously going to be vicious, mean and abusive (because they're prejudiced and don't know any better)?

13. Do you secretly despise regular RPGs, and want to run your game as an example of how the "traditional" RPG is flawed and needs to be replaced with your superior vision?  Is your game setting really designed as a reaction to other game settings that you claim are "dead" as a genre?
Do you hate LoTR with a passion?

If you answered yes to these questions, your game setting will suck donkey balls far more than the most blatantly stereotypical of vanilla settings.

RPGpundit

If I were writing a fantasy novel, which I really think I should, I would concentrate more on keeping it moving, keeping it interesting and keeping it fun.  Then I'd worry about some list of questions or other.