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Is there a lot of drama in your world?
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<blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 542333" data-attributes="member: 812"><p><strong>Re: Re: Is there a lot of drama in your world?</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p>Not interesting == dull. But whatever. Unimportant.</p><p></p><p>The frequent use of ANYTHING devalues its ability to cause tension. If the hero stands on the edge of a cliff, that's dramatic and exciting -- until he's been standing there for an hour without any problem.</p><p></p><p>I haven't been clear. Power issues are one source of tension, with that I agree. Having the characters encounter entities of vastly greater power than they can produce drama. But it is not the ONLY source of drama, I hope you will also agree. Dramatic tension can be created in ways that have nothing to do with power.</p><p></p><p>But if you are using power to generate drama, my point is that it's RELATIVE power that creates the drama, not absolute power. Gods impress characters in campaigns where the characters do not possess equivalent power. Where character possess godlike power, they will be impressed by entities that possess even greater power. You can always come up with something bigger, if you want to generate drama via power. </p><p></p><p>I would say, however that power is not even the BEST source of drama. In my mind, drama is more reliably and effectively created through "character-based" means -- story, emotion, yada yada yada. I use these means regardless of the power level of the campaign I am running.</p><p></p><p>So I am not "substituting" one method for another. I use both, as I am sure virtually all DMs do.</p><p></p><p>Again, you seem to think one can EITHER generate drama by having a dragon appear, or by having a character's sister get kidnapped, but not both. I don't understand. I use both.</p><p></p><p>Actually, my campaign has only ONE dragon, and he's been dead for three thousand years, and the players haven't met him yet, but never mind. My point is two-fold:</p><p></p><p>One: Relative power is the issue, not absolute power. It is entirely possible to come up with big nasties that scare gods, so having lots of gods in your campaign does not in and of itself reduce the available drama in your campaign. If your PCs are the most powerful things around, then yes, of course it becomes difficult to generate drama through power issues, but the absolute power level of the PCs has nothing to do with where they rank on the power scale of a campaign, and thus has nothing to do with how much drama power issues can provide for you.</p><p></p><p>Two: Drama is generated by a host of factors IN ADDITION to power imbalances, none of which are incapable of co-existing. I use as many as I can.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="barsoomcore, post: 542333, member: 812"] [b]Re: Re: Is there a lot of drama in your world?[/b] Not interesting == dull. But whatever. Unimportant. The frequent use of ANYTHING devalues its ability to cause tension. If the hero stands on the edge of a cliff, that's dramatic and exciting -- until he's been standing there for an hour without any problem. I haven't been clear. Power issues are one source of tension, with that I agree. Having the characters encounter entities of vastly greater power than they can produce drama. But it is not the ONLY source of drama, I hope you will also agree. Dramatic tension can be created in ways that have nothing to do with power. But if you are using power to generate drama, my point is that it's RELATIVE power that creates the drama, not absolute power. Gods impress characters in campaigns where the characters do not possess equivalent power. Where character possess godlike power, they will be impressed by entities that possess even greater power. You can always come up with something bigger, if you want to generate drama via power. I would say, however that power is not even the BEST source of drama. In my mind, drama is more reliably and effectively created through "character-based" means -- story, emotion, yada yada yada. I use these means regardless of the power level of the campaign I am running. So I am not "substituting" one method for another. I use both, as I am sure virtually all DMs do. Again, you seem to think one can EITHER generate drama by having a dragon appear, or by having a character's sister get kidnapped, but not both. I don't understand. I use both. Actually, my campaign has only ONE dragon, and he's been dead for three thousand years, and the players haven't met him yet, but never mind. My point is two-fold: One: Relative power is the issue, not absolute power. It is entirely possible to come up with big nasties that scare gods, so having lots of gods in your campaign does not in and of itself reduce the available drama in your campaign. If your PCs are the most powerful things around, then yes, of course it becomes difficult to generate drama through power issues, but the absolute power level of the PCs has nothing to do with where they rank on the power scale of a campaign, and thus has nothing to do with how much drama power issues can provide for you. Two: Drama is generated by a host of factors IN ADDITION to power imbalances, none of which are incapable of co-existing. I use as many as I can. [/QUOTE]
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