Of Gamebooks and Guns

I've noticed throughout the years that guns of any traditional type are very rarely used in gamebooks. This could have to do with the fact that the majority of these books are spent in fantasy-based environments or sci-fi settings where if guns are used during gameplay they take the form of laser pistols and plasma rifles.

When working on Westward Dystopia I had a vision of the main character: A grizzled vet of many harsh wasteland battles, scouring the sands of the post-apocalyptic environment and duelling mutants, bandits, and gunslingers with a pair of revolvers. I wanted western meets post-apocalyptic and I stayed within those lines for the most part, although I decided to skew sci-fi in the end at what may have been the expense of some western bits. Point is though, I wanted those revolvers. They were key. When I discussed the design of the cover for Westward with illustrator Tony Hough, those crossed revolvers were right out in front. Tony came up with a fantasy twist on a revolver design that I found quite visually appealing and I never thought twice about how such weapons would function in real life.

Then I started writing and I realized that I didn't know the first thing about guns. Although I grew up in the US before immigrating to Canada, I have never owned a gun, although my father has always been a big fan of the old romanticized westerns, so as I grew up I learned about Hollywood's take on the days of the 'Wild West'. I bluffed my way through it and for the most part I think it was a success (at least nobody who purchased the book ever wrote in to correct me on anything!) I've been fortunate that the combat in gamebooks tends to be told through the rolling of the dice rather than exposition and the player only hears what happens after defeat or victory. I kept the revolvers vague, more as an extension of the main character than an object in the inventory: they were important, but their function was left to the player's imagination.

Writing Spire Ablaze changed things a bit. This second book begins in the Technomancer city of Root, where guns are far more common than out in the wastes where technology is a relative unknown. In Spire, the player has an option of three weapons to choose from after the opening sequence. This led to the need to be even more vague in the text afterwards--referring to the weapon as 'your firearm' or 'your weapon'. Due to the necessary generalizing later on, I wanted to offer the player a good look at their companion weapon in the form of text and imagery in the item selection paragraphs. I wrote up descriptions to the best of my knowledge, drew some companion art, and moved on to write the rest of the book.

Midway through the draft I happened upon an episode of Brandon Sanderson's 'Writing Excuses' on Youtube which centered on 'Guns in Fiction'.

It's quite an interesting video if you're a writer or heavy reader (as are most of Brandon's Writing Excuses episodes) and it made me think twice about how I was portraying guns in my gamebooks. While I ultimately decided to keep the descriptions basic and gamebooky, I made sure to take the time to research each type of weapon and catch myself in what would have been some rather glaring errors. I spent an entire afternoon reading up on miniguns for an optional sequence near the end of the book, getting sucked into the history of the forms of weaponry that descended from the original designs of Richard Gatling during the American Civil War. I even added a few tidbits to the sequence based on my research.

Future books in the series will focus more on the protagonist's electrical powers, with Book 3: The Lords of Benaeron falling more into the classification of low-fantasy dystopia than post-apocalyptic western, but guns will still play a part. Their influence is spreading slowly but surely across the wasteland and not even the might of the Technomancers can fit the technological genie back into its bottle now!