This book review was part of a podcast discussion.
Listen to the episode here.
Planning a discussion of fantasy with the roleplaying game theme, my mind went almost immediately to an audio book I listened to a few months ago: NPCs by Drew Hayes, first in a series called Spells, Swords, & Stealth. In many ways a satire, this entertaining short story comments on the tenuous aspects of the relationship between RPGs and fantasy.
Like so many other forms of entertainment, fantasy books provide an opportunity to escape, allowing us to step away from our exhausting lives and enter a new world. One thing books can’t provide is a sense of control within this new world we have stepped into—an issue we saw recently with the massive backlash towards the ending to HBO’s Game of Thrones, based on the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin.
Roleplaying games (RPGs) add this critical ‘control’ aspect. Both video games and tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons often allow us to control not only who we play as, but how we play and how the story progresses (or, in the case of D&D, how it often doesn’t). This control is precisely the difference that exists between the two mediums, and the one that NPCs sets out to explore.
The story begins by breaking the fourth wall, but in reverse. We meet individuals playing a tabletop RPG aptly named ‘Spells, Swords, & Stealth.’ The party treats the game world and the people in it as disposable and unimportant—after all, it’s just a game, right? The real story begins when the whole party dies, instantly and anti-climatically. We then shift to the point-of-view of the NPCs (non-playable characters) who just witnessed this party perish.
The way that the book handles this interaction between players and game world is a familiar experience to anyone who has played a tabletop RPG. The callous treatment of the game world as irrelevant can ruin many campaigns, and in the story it literally causes the party’s demise. Further, as we follow the NPCs on their journey, we find it is their treatment of their world as real and deadly that allows them to succeed and ultimately save the day.
The book also comments on the expectations of ‘roles’ or ‘jobs’ in RPGs. Our four main characters are a large, male half-orc; a small, male halfling; a female, human noble; and a male, human guard. The NPCs assume the roles of the dead party, a barbarian, rogue, wizard, and paladin. The NPCs’ characteristics provide an expectation for their roles: the half-orc will be the barbarian, the halfling will be the rogue, the female noble will be a wizard, and the human male will be the Paladin.
The book subverts these expectations. The half-orc stumbles into becoming the party wizard; the halfling is chosen by his god to be a holy paladin; the female noble, in all her rage, becomes a mighty barbarian; and the human guard, finally free of his oppressive heavy armor, finds he is quite nimble as a rogue. This switch serves as a means to take control away from the characters, and in turn, from the reader.
I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot of the story, but I highly recommend you give it a listen. It’s a humorous, fourth-wall breaking story, quick at near eight hours on Audible, and has three sequels in case you can’t get enough.
Cincinnati, OH
Co-host of 'Why is This a Thing?' and 'Fantasy Book of the Month' Podcast. Coffee lover, cat-dad, fantasy nerd and workaholic.
