Were R.A. Salvatore's works inspired by real world D&D campaigns?

Question

I have been reading the Legend of Drizzt series by R. A. Salvatore. I am currently half way through Stream of Silver, which is in book two of the collection. While reading this, I noticed that it almost reads like a novelization of a dungeons and dragons campaign.

If we assume that the main party, Drizzt and his group, are played by the players, then their interactions make a lot more sense. In a campaign, it's sometimes common for players to rarely actually talk to each other in character, as these characters do.

Extending that assumption, every other character is an NPC (non-player character), and it makes more sense that they actually interact more, having had their story fleshed out by a caring dungeon master.

Also, the fights the characters have gotten into are reminiscent of fights characters in a game would get into, having one fight shortly follow another.

So, to me, there's a lot of evidence of these books being heavily influenced by the game.

Has R. A. Salvatore ever come out as stating that he based the book/s on any dungeons and dragon campaigns, either one's he has played in or otherwise?

Answer 1

In this AMA-thread on reddit, we find the questions

I want to know, where do you draw your inspiration from? Do you write about games you've played/ran, or is it straight from your head?

To which R.A. Salvatore answers

Straight from my head, which is a jumble of everything around me: the people I meet, the stories I hear, the music I hear, the sights and sounds of life.

Writers take it all in, chew it up into little pieces, and spit it back out, hopefully in entertaining ways.

Which I would take to mean that while some of the stories he's heard may have been told in DnD campaigns, it doesn't seem like they are a major inspiration for him.