Dead Dungeons: The OSR and Fan Fiction

I'll admit it in public. I enjoy reading and writing fan fiction. There, I said it.

I know fan fiction gets a bad rep on the internet, and I'll admit it is sort of deserved because a good chunk of fan fiction of any kind is utter crap (Sturgeon's Law and all that) but I do like the idea of writing fan fiction and I love to read the good fan fiction that is out there.

Yeah, I know I should be only writing "original" stories but I write for enjoyment and not for employment, goddammit!

Originality or the lack thereof does not bother me. There is nothing new under the sun and all that. And I like seeing my favorite anime and video game characters involved in new scenarios not covered by the canon. I especially like Alternate Universe fics, more commonly known as AU.

AU fan fiction is essentially placing your favorite pop culture characters and placing them in an entirely different context or setting. Common AU's include High School AU (arguably the most common AU and definitely the most cliche one), Post-Apocalyptic AU, Historical AU, and even AU's based on popular works such as Star Wars and Harry Potter.

I've always liked the idea of AU fiction directly based on the settings of tabletop role-playing games (such as a D&D AU, a World of Darkness AU, a Traveler AU, or a Shadowrun AU) or alternately, a "Role-Playing AU" where the characters in question are actually playing an RPG and the fic is a "Story Within A Story" with the canon characters' game forming the framing story for the in-character events of the campaign itself, which would be the actual main story.

I've attempted to write fan fiction in the past, and my endeavors always sort of sputter out due to a severe case of creative ADHD on my part and I have experimented with both types of RPG-based AU fan fiction. Some of these I have attempted to post online in the past, only to delete them out of frustration and a sense of not being satisfied with my work or because I keep getting distracted by another idea for a fan fic with a similar RPG-based AU premise.

Well, I figured I'd try yet another time to write RPG AU fan fiction on yet another venue. But rather than try to attract an audience on a mainstream fan fiction site such as Fanfiction.net or Archive Of Our Own and try to compete for views and feedback with more popular types of stories, I figured I'd try and directly cater to my intended audience by posting fan fiction chapters here on this blog.

Ah, fan fiction chapters in blog post format. Probably isn't the first time such a thing has been done, but if I was aiming for originality, I probably would not be writing fan fiction at all in the first place.

In fact, I do have a vague outline of a story I want to write that falls into the category of an RPG AU.

It is a crossover of old-school Dungeons & Dragons and the video game franchises of Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive as both Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden are set in the same universe and feature many of the same characters.

The premise is that four characters from the Ninja Gaiden/Dead or Alive universe are re-imagined as typical first-level adventurers in an old-school D&D game, most likely based on Basic Dungeons & Dragons, Holmes Basic in particular, with some influence from Rules Cyclopedia as well.

I shall call this fan fiction project Dead Dungeons and it will feature four characters from the Dead or Alive video game franchise, listed below with their character classes listed in parentheses.

Ryu Hayabusa (Fighter)
Kasumi (Magic-User)
Ayane (Thief)
Momiji (Cleric)

Of course, I will try to post the first chapter later this week, hopefully soon. I hope you all will enjoy it.