Troy Denning has been a person who creates fantasy adventure stories in prose fiction. He has designed games that allow a story to be told by actions and events involving the players. His work on Dark Sun, at TSR was particularly well received, and it was very new for the time. He and I have been Facebook friends for a decade or more, and he has been a kind, bright, thoughtful individual.
Hi Troy, Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.
Alex: Is a game designer similar to the narrative voice of a story, such as found in your many books, and many of those within active and good franchises. Does a reader, who is perhaps passive, become similar bound up in a character if they are not, themselves, the focal point of the story?
Troy: A game designer is closer to an author in function; He writes the outline of the story that he and his players are going to tell together. In a good novel, the reader will identify with the point-of-view characters and live the story through the character's actions and thoughts; in a good role-playing adventure, the readers are the point-of-view characters and help create the story through their decisions and dialogue.
Alex: Entering any new game fiction or book franchises to adapt, and new companies to design games at, is it at all the case that your grand "design" is to have many works at many places, but in the end your writing style and interests will always point to you as the creative talent?
Troy: For the last thirty years or so, my primary professional focus has been writing tie-in fiction. I've done that for a number of properties -- Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Planescape, Star Wars, Halo -- but there hasn't been any "grand design" to my career. I've simply accepted invitations to write in the media that I love as a fan. And when I've been invited to write in the media properties that I'm either not a fan of, or perhaps don't know, I've declined those opportunities.
Alex: What is the key to being flexible enough to write about any fictional world? Is it that you have enough skills to consider anything and a new setting doesn't mean you aren't prepared? What company is the easiest to write for, as far as editorial demands, and which was or is the most difficult?
Troy: I don't think of myself as being particularly flexible as a writer; there are any number of properties that I wouldn't be willing or able to write for. The key to whatever success I've been blessed to have is this: I write for the properties that love, that I'm a fan of, and I don't accept assignments to write for properties that I don't know or enjoy.
Alex: When Creating Dark Sun did you wonder if allowing world unique rules and sorts of characters and magic could find fans using such rules elsewhere upsetting the balance? I know your Dark Sun pentad was an excellent way to suggest how players might become enculturated to such a new world. As a game designer, is it more fun to nudge the rules to fit the world, or does that feel more like what one does in Game adaptation books?
Troy: When we designed Dark Sun, we were very concerned about the possibility of Psionics destroying the game balance of TSR's other Dungeons & Dragons settings. That's why we isolated it from all other settings and explicitly stated that it was impossible to travel from Athas to any other setting via any means whatsoever. It since turned out that were a little more worried about destroying game balance in other settings than we needed to be as Psionics has been successfully introduced into any number of campaigns. In subsequent editions, some of the restrictions we placed on travel to and from Athas have been eased. But, personally, I still enjoy the idea of Athas being completely isolated and godless, and in the scenarios I run at Game Conventions, that's the way I play it,
Alex: Do you have plans to create more games, write more books, or choose a different point and live doing something for pleasure rather than audience?
Troy: I'm kind-of, sort-of retired now. What that means for me creatively is that I only work on projects I'm in love with. But then again, that was my policy when I considered myself full time. So I'm not really sure that retirement is a concept that applies to me. I guess the biggest real difference between my "retired" phase and my "full time" phase is that I'm attending more game conventions now than I am fan conventions. That's because I enjoy playing games a lot more than sitting at a dealer table selling books. Don't get me wrong -- I'm still more than happy to sell a few books where I am, but it's not really the focus for me now. I just want to have fun.
Alex: Thank you Troy.
LINKS
Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Publisher page
Amazon page
Wiki page
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