To Write Dominion "Derived Fiction" and not Fanfiction

[Tolkien]

Can we not dwell on this? It's suppose to be a family-friendly forum (well, at least I think so).

Not that I mind.

[Caradryan]

Sombre's got a point.

Warning: rant.

There's a difference between derived fiction and fanfiction. From my understanding (and I have little expertise in English itself), the original definition of fanfiction is defined as using canonical characters within a particular work and re-interpreting elements of the story with an overall adherence to the work as a whole.

In other words, you are limited by the definition itself when writing fanfiction.

Fanfiction on FF.net is more or less "writing whatever the hell I want." Most fanfiction I've found lack a great deal of things - in the end, they don't even make good stories to read. The few pieces of writing using established game-universes I've seen that are (in my humble opinion) good are really derived works.

Derived fiction is taking elements of a particular work and then putting the author's own creativity into it. A short story written in J.R.R. Tolkien's universe about an elf would be a derived work and not quite fanfiction, even though it uses elements found in Tolkien's work (elves, middle-earth, etc).

This is why good video game writing tend to be more of the derived fiction format, because a video game isn't meant to tell a story. Its design is to entertain. Oftentimes people praise final fantasy or whathaveyou as amazing works full of character depth, but from a writer's perspective, there's really very little for you to work with.

So, in my opinion, good writing is good writing. It doesn't matter if you use canonical characters or not, so long as there's a purpose to everything in your story. Be warned, however, that oftentimes what I consider to be good writing is considered to be unreadably boring by the contemporary 14-year-old fanfiction writers. :P

[Zeldor]

Ha, in one of my games I owned Gath with a Kraken, so a good base for a story. I prefered to not watch closely what he was doing with them.

[theenemy]

I don't understand this "there are no real characters in Dom3" argument. You just make up your own characters. Dom3 is always more enjoyable when you make up your own little stories about charaters and battles and stuff.
Jeebus.... how difficult can it really be?

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by theenemy

I don't understand this "there are no real characters in Dom3" argument. You just make up your own characters. Dom3 is always more enjoyable when you make up your own little stories about charaters and battles and stuff.
Jeebus.... how difficult can it really be?

well, I think the 'characters' in Dom 3 are the nations. it doesn't have people, but it has, for example, a byzantine-like nation with Hydras. That's a personality. I guess in that sense it does have unique personalities

[Arralen]

Maybe there's some missunderstanding 'bout the "fan"- part of the fiction.

Yes, those K/S stories are centered on those two characters, which the authors are pretending to be fans of. Thereby ignoring much of the rest of their universe, for obvious reasons ...

Yet, "fanfiction" settled in the Dominions World can of course be centered on singular heros, pretenders or even persons not even depicted in the game - but to make it stand out from Harry Potter, one could not ignore the rest of the whole world as laid out in the game: You're most likely a fan of the Dominions game, not of the Red Dragon pretender, aren't you?

So, before someone starts writing (additional) stories, an at least somewhat coherent storyline would have to be "extracted" from the in-game text.

That said ... I started a Dominions P&P RPG just some days ago ... and o.c. I have just started thinking 'bout getting all the facts together ...

One of those thoughts was: "Ask Kristoffer, if he has at least some outline of the history of the Dominions World scribbled down somewhere!!!"

... maybe I should send him an email soon, before I bore my players to death because I don't have an idea whats going on ...

[Sombre]

Calling someone biased suggests they are being unreasonably prejudicial.

I wouldn't call you biased if you said 'All poo smells bad and I'd never eat it'. Obviously the statement does show bias, but the common usage of 'biased' isn't 'making a subjective statement'. If that's what is meant, why bother to say anything at all since everyone is guilty of being biased at all times.

[Redeyes]

The below quote perfectly illustrates bias:

I don't see how you can call me biased. Every piece of fan fiction I have come across is terrible. Fan fiction is widely regarded as being terrible by people whose opinions I respect. If making any experiential subjective judgement equates to biased, well gee, we're all biased.

Thanks for the plug of fanfiction.net but 'you'd be surprised by the quality of some stuff' from a stranger doesn't really sell it to me.

If you had admitted that it is possible for good fanfiction to exist, you wouldn't have acted with bias.
It's just like the old "all swans are white" example.

[Foodstamp]

Since you are comparing Fan Fiction to dog crap, maybe I am misunderstanding what it is. I haven't read any fan fiction but the name suggests to me he wants to write a fictional story set in the Dominions Universe. I am guessing by the prejudice and the homoerotic links I am wrong on this? There are more rules to this genre that inherently make it comparable to something vile?

At first glance, I think the nerd hierarchy is coming into play here. D and D guys make fun of LARPers who make fun of those guys that dress in the animal suits etc.

Hah, I found an example diagram!



I am guessing Fan Fiction author is slightly below TBS modder on the food chain, so much like the firetruck stalks the gazelle, you are about the make your kill. The ambulances will have to wait their turn.

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

I am guessing Fan Fiction author is slightly below TBS modder on the food chain, so much like the firetruck stalks the gazelle, you are about the make your kill. The ambulances will have to wait their turn.

Are you saying that Sombre is a firetruck?