Not The Player of Games' "because of your gameplaying skills, you're in this plot" or the gameplaying culture of Xanthony's "Proton" or the D&D-esque frame of the "Guardian of the Flames" novels, but characters involved in a novel who just happen to play games, like many authors have characters who happen to be musicians, artists, or writers -- like the historical gamers in Scholars of Night or the roleplayers in Growing up Weightles. And despite the roleplayers (so I'm told) in a Jim Bucher "Harry Dresden" novel, that's still -damn- rare.
The fact that the protagonist of another of his novels, _The Last Hot Time_, has a similar relationship with a different non-mainstream *cough* interest of mine doesn't lower him in my estimation one bit, mind.
