How to Game Out Your Novel to Supercharge Conflict
Let me save you a few years of heartache and frustration.
Most modern writers have no idea how to write actual conflict. They know how to describe characters. They can paint a setting. Some can even set a halfway decent hook. But when it comes time for their heroes to think, talk, or fight their way out of trouble, the story flattens like a punctured bouncy castle.
Why?
Because too many authors have either been …
trained by writing workshops to worship character psychology and worldbuilding while treating conflict like a check-the-box exercise
indoctrinated by osmosis from film, TV, and video games that fight scenes should read like head movies.
That’s not to say other media are totally useless to writers. Because here’s a trick—one I’ve used myself, and one you won’t hear from your favorite YouTube writing guru—that will teach you to write conflict as friction, not a formula. If you want your characters to make decisions that feel real; if you want tension that flows organically from the setup, then game out your novel.
And no, I’m not talking about consulting beta readers. That comes later. I mean adapt the premise from your notes for that big fight scene/daring escape/vault heist into a tabletop roleplaying game scenario. Sit down with a group of players—or even go solo—and run your story through the brutal, impartial engine of a TTRPG.
“But I wouldn’t even know how to approach an undertaking like that!”
Relax. I’ve got you covered. Let’s break it down point by point.
RPGs as Conflict Simulators
What’s the fundamental unit of a good story? It’s not scene. It’s not theme. It’s conflict. Conflict arises from opposing wills. Character A wants something. Character B—or the environment—won’t let him have it. Now we’ve got a story!
And what’s a tabletop RPG if not a conflict production and resolution engine? Dungeons & Dragons, Vampire: The Masquerade, Traveler—pick your poison. The specific mechanics will vary depending on your genre needs. What matters most is that the system forces your characters to act under pressure, make decisions, and face consequences.
In other words, the exact dynamics that modern fiction is missing.
Realted: Could Elon Musk Revolutionize Wizards of the Coast?
Spend three hours over the course of a week configuring that infiltration scene from your notes into a D&D session. All of a sudden you’re not trying to imagine how your rogue smooth-talks his way past a suspicious guard. Because the rogue’s player just did it. How does that approach beat reading through the scene with alpha readers? By having rules that keep playacting from straying off into left field. Charisma scores and skill checks are there to keep the proceedings honest. And that gives your story the coveted ring of versimilitude. That’s accurately simulating the scene, rather than taxing your Coke Zero-addled brain to conjure it from whole cloth.
Suddenly dialogue tightens up. Descriptions get grounded in concrete terms. The stakes attain clarity. Because the system makes you account for all of the moving pieces. A good RP session doesn’t just hand your protagonist a win; it lets him show you what he’s willing to risk to get it.
Make sense? Good. Let’s cover how to turn your Call of Cthulhu investigation notes into a readable manuscript.
From Dice to Outline
Let’s say you run a session based on a scene from your novel’s second act. The party enters the villain’s stronghold under false pretenses. They’re trying to rescue a captured friend. What can go wrong does, as always. Maybe the bard’s deception roll fails. Maybe a careless player gets a case of loose lips. Either way, combat breaks out.
Now stop.
What just happened? Describe it in writing.
Those aren’t just game notes. That’s your rough outline, right there on the table.
The skeleton of your second act wrote itself; not because you followed Save the Cat, but because your characters acted in character under stress.
The interrogation you ad-libbed as that inquisitor NPC? That’s the seed of dialogue. The decision to split the party to buy time? That’s a mid-act pinch. The moment your wizard’s player threw a tantrum and decided to hurl a fireball in a crowded room? That’s a plot turn.
And better still, it came from your character.
Related: Do You Really Need a Character Reference Sheet?
“But Brian!” I hear you object. “Didn’t you just say that writers don’t need character reference sheets?”
Don’t misunderstand. I didn’t advise authors to have no written account of their characters at all. What I lobbied against were the kinds of fictional FBI files advocated by r/novelauthors. Specifically, I did say that pro authors keep the following character info close to hand:
Name and Age – Sometimes with notes on pronunciation or origin
Physical Traits – Just enough to keep continuity from scene to scene
Personality Overview – Lighthearted, dour, driven, greedy, compassionate, you get the idea
Motivation and Conflict – What concrete goal is the character seeking? What is he trying to avoid?
Archetype/Role – How the character fits into the larger story (mentor, rival, love interest, etc.).
Which, mirabile dictu, is just the information a typical TTRPG sheete contains!
And don’t get me wrong. You won’t just transcribe a game session and slap “Chapter Twelve” on it. What you will do is preserve the logic of the interaction; the chain of cause and effect. And that, more than any three-act beat sheet, will keep readers turning pages.
The bigger hiccup in this plan is if you have no friends or beta readers willing to throw dice.
But don’t worry, that’s a technical problem with a technical solution.
Solo Play: A Lonely Man’s Game
No gaming group? No problem.
You can run the sim solo. Do a search for “solo roleplaying,” and you’ll find plenty of digital solutions.
But you don’t even need fancy tools. Just grab paper and a pencil and roll some dice. Ask yourself questions. Let fate intervene.
Think of solo play as structured improvisation. Instead of dictating all the action yourself, you introduce controlled chaos. You roll to see if your hero notices the ambush. You flip a coin to decide if the merchant lies. You get into the heads of the NPCs. And then you react, as the protagonist, with the information he has.
This method lets you test the integrity of your plot the way a smith checks a blade—by banging it against solid object. It’s easy to say your character is a cunning warlord. It gets real when he botches a diplomacy roll and has to bluff his way out of a Mexican standoff with four crossbow-packing mercenaries.
You’ll find out what your characters are really made of; not who you hope they are.
“But what about plot armor?”
That’s the best part. When you game out a novel scene, your characters can fail.
And failure is good.
Not only does letting characters fail at the right moments build plot momentum, failing in real life imparts vital lessons you can’t learn anywhere else.
Too many modern protagonists come off like spoiled children who are entitled win every fight, always say the coolest lines, and contantly be right.
Don’t know about you, but I can’t stand people like that.
Related: Sanderson’s Flaw: The Trouble With Constantly Dynamic Characters
When your characters have to earn their victories or suffer the consequences of their mistakes, you get richer fiction energized with hard choices and last-second sacrifices.
And most importantly, you get truth.
Because a story shaped by game mechanics reflects the real-world logic of risk and consequence.
Every writer knows that releasing a book is one of the biggest risks there is. Not only are you fronting a not insignificant monetary investment, you’re laying your heart and soul on the line.
Uncomfortable conversation time: The advice you see in #amwriting along the lines of “Don’t expect compensation for your hard work; just write for your muse, and if the money comes, it comes” is 99% cope fueled by fear of failure.
For that matter, so is Infintie First Draft Syndrome.
Here’s the hard fact every author has to face: If you’re selling a book on Amazon, you’re a professional. So you need to think and act like a pro.
That means …
Writing, finishing the writing you start, and publishing what you write
letting the market decide (with all reasonable prep work on your part) if the book plummets or soars
in either case, studying the results to learn what worked and what didn’t, then refining your tactics accordingly and starting again from step 1.
One thing you can be sure of: I wouldn’t advise you to do what I wouldn’t do myself.
Examples from the Trenches
Yep. I’ve used the techniques laid out in this post.
In my mecha series Combat Frame XSeed, I ran major mech battles using a custom RP-wargame system. I needed to know how a character like Eiyu Masz would command an elite CF team. Turns out, he’s a holy terror on the battlefield. And the dice backed up the tactical decisions he made that had the players ready to flip the table.
This approach works for a simple reason: Good fiction isn’t made up, it’s discovered. I’ve always told anyone who asks that I don’t create characters, I meet them. And there’s no better crucible for revealing character than a situation where high-stakes choices and controlled chaos intersect.
That’s what tabletop games give you: an unpredictable, reactive story engine; a way to surprise yourself. And that’s how you make your plot feel lived in instead of assembled from scraps of other people’s stories.
So next time you get stuck outlining, don’t slavishly follow fornulas. Don’t hammer out phonebook-sized character ref sheets. Definitely don’t ask your critique partner if the villain is “relatable.”
Instead, roll initiative. Let the dice show you what happens.
And be sure to get it in writing.
The literary equivalent of Elden Ring
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