Hey! You got a quibble in my prophecy!

[MarkB]

I've been planning a prophecy-based game for a long time, about a world where everybody knows that Fate controls everything. Prophecies are very clear and always happen exactly as written. Until the PC's come along. It's an idea inspired by Sparhawk (a.k.a. "Anakha") from the Elenium; the PC's, for whatever reason, are simply invisible to the Fates. They are a wildcard in the prophecies: the only way one can change is if one of the PC's (or a few other such individuals in the world) get involved somehow.

I've thought about doing something similar - having the PCs plane-shifted into such a world, the first outsiders ever to enter it and the only ones whose fate cannot be seen.

But I was going to add the twist that, through Chaos Theory effects, once their presence starts unravelling a few prophecies, it has a knock-on effect that, pretty soon, spreads to spoil all prophecies - and since this world used divination in almost every aspect of peoples' lives, from the choosing of alliances between nations down to minor daily predictions that tell people whether to bring an umbrella to work that day, the world's whole society starts spinning out of control, and the PCs are pretty much the most unpopular people on the planet.

 

[the Jester]

Re: the Witch-King

Something that vague still has plenty of wiggle room, especially in a FRPG. It could mean death via woman, death via non-Human, death via an accident (falls off cliff), death via carelessness (his own magic misfires or is bounced back at him, the PCs convince his minions to redeem themselves and turn on him, a summoned creature kills him, there is divine intervention prayed for by a cleric...

It doesn't screw the PCs unless you, the DM, have ONLY ONE meaning to the prophecy.

Assuming the party is partially but not entirely composed of male humans, it certainly means that some of them are unable to take him out in combat while others may be able to. It's the disparity between pcs that I don't like here. (Among other things.)

 

[Psychotic Jim]

Also, conditional prophesy is your friend. Consider the prophesy from The Dark Crystal:

When single shines the triple sun,
what was sundered and undone
shall be whole; the two made one,
by Gelfling hand, or else by none.​

This prophesy sets the conditions in which it might be fulfilled, without mentioning whether it actually will be, or not. In this case, it does not even specifically say what the consequences will be if it does not come to pass (although it infers another thousand years of the status quo presented in the film).

THIS here is how I do it. Prophecy as a series of if-then statements. If this and/or this and/or this happen, then this is what is likely to happen. And it's up to gameplay to see if things transpire as the prophecy comes to pass.

This also opens up the possibility of my favorite type of prophecy, the self-fulfilling kind.

Also, prophecy as a series of if-then statements can be used to provide inquiring pcs of several different alternate ways of dealing with a problem for them to pick and choose from, if phrased correctly. That's how I usually handle pc divinations in my games.

Also note, not all prophecies should be genuine. At least a few should be bogus, just to mix things up a bit.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Assuming the party is partially but not entirely composed of male humans, it certainly means that some of them are unable to take him out in combat while others may be able to. It's the disparity between pcs that I don't like here. (Among other things.)

Reread my examples- even a male human could cause the death of the Witch-King if he convinced the other Nazgul to turn on him to redeem themselves; if he tricked the Witch-King into destroying himself, through an answered prayer and so forth.

Girdle of Gender change? Reincarnated as non-human? Takes levels in a PrCL that makes the PC non human?

 

[MarkB]

Reread my examples- even a male human could cause the death of the Witch-King if he convinced the other Nazgul to turn on him to redeem themselves; if he tricked the Witch-King into destroying himself, through an answered prayer and so forth.

Girdle of Gender change? Reincarnated as non-human? Takes levels in a PrCL that makes the PC non human?

Sure, but it's still the case that if they happen to encounter the Witch-King in combat, and the male human party member happens to be the one who's in a position to deal the final blow, then something will intervene to make him fail, just because prophecy says he has to.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Also, conditional prophesy is your friend.

This.

Also:

- Not all prophecies have to be true.
- Not all prophecies need to pertain to the PCs.
- Prophecies can be vague.

In my last campaign, the PCs encountered several dozen prophecies.

One particular scenario resulted in them finding a manuscript page which listed literally two dozen prophecies. Roughly 2/3rds of these were written to relate directly to stuff that the PCs were either involved in or which I expected that they would get involved in. The other third were prophecies about stuff that had nothing to do with them, many of which were essentially events that they were unlikely to hear about. (They might have even been completely wrong. I dunno. Doesn't really matter.)

Some of these prophecies had already come true (thus nicely cementing the document as accurately oracular).

Others were stuff that the PCs really had no ability to prevent ("the seal of black onyx will be broken by the demon with three horns"), but when they later learned that, yup, the black onyx seal of the Dread Emperor had been broken by the demon that was previously trapped inside the prophecy came true.

(What if they had gone to investigate the black seal, figured out what it was, and then broken it open? Well, maybe the demon claims responsibility. Or it turns out that the translation was wrong and it should have more properly read "the seal of black onyx will be broken, releasing the demon with three horns". Or the demon planted this prophecy and is, thus, responsible for the PCs breaking the seal. Or the prophecy was just wrong.)

Other prophecies encoded factual information, some of which the PCs figured out and were able to pursue. (For example, the location of a villain they'd been looking for.)

In many ways, these prophecies worked just like prophecies in the real world: With 20/20 hindsight, you tend to pick out the prophecies (or parts of prophecies) which were true and ignore the rest. By making the other prophecies sufficiently vague and interpretive, the "misses" will either be reinterpreted until they have a kind of truth; assumed to describe something else entirely; or ignored.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Sure, but it's still the case that if they happen to encounter the Witch-King in combat, and the male human party member happens to be the one who's in a position to deal the final blow, then something will intervene to make him fail, just because prophecy says he has to.

Appropriate responses include:

- Huh. Guess it was wrong.
- Right, can't be killed by man. He was killed by your sword.
- Huh. That's weird. I wonder why the Fates don't think you're human?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sure, but it's still the case that if they happen to encounter the Witch-King in combat, and the male human party member happens to be the one who's in a position to deal the final blow, then something will intervene to make him fail, just because prophecy says he has to.

You're assuming they haven't already laid the groundwork to fulfill the prophesy before that combat.

You're assuming that the Witch-King isn't destined to die due to an "act of nature" like catching a meteor to the dome while he's kicking ass on the battlefield.

You're assuming the Witch-King has an answer for the elemental the human male Druid summoned.

You're also assuming that the prophesy has to be fulfilled at that very moment.

Look at Dragonslayer- the young apprentice was told he'd have to destroy the amulet, but was never told when...and the when was key.

So the party is facing the Witch-King in battle...that doesn't mean that THAT battle is the one in which he is destined to fall. Indeed, the Fellowship faced him once and drove him off without destroying him. By the vagueness of the prophesy, there were those in the Fellowship who could have defeated him. Heck, even Aragorn might have done it if he'd trapped his foe in a ring of fire somehow...

 

[MarkB]

You're assuming they haven't already laid the groundwork to fulfill the prophesy before that combat.

You're assuming that the Witch-King isn't destined to die due to an "act of nature" like catching a meteor to the dome while he's kicking ass on the battlefield.

You're assuming the Witch-King has an answer for the elemental the human male Druid summoned.

You're also assuming that the prophesy has to be fulfilled at that very moment.

Look at Dragonslayer- the young apprentice was told he'd have to destroy the amulet, but was never told when...and the when was key.

So the party is facing the Witch-King in battle...that doesn't mean that THAT battle is the one in which he is destined to fall. Indeed, the Fellowship faced him once and drove him off without destroying him. By the vagueness of the prophesy, there were those in the Fellowship who could have defeated him. Heck, even Aragorn might have done it if he'd trapped his foe in a ring of fire somehow...

So basically, if the party have the smarts to find a way to come at the big-bad with enough guns to have a decent chance of killing him, you're saying they should be out of luck no matter how hard they try or how well they roll, unless they manage to kill him in a way that matches the prophecy?

I'm not talking about the party that does its best to run along the rails of prophecy, or even the ones who come up with creative ways to bring it to fruition - I'm talking about the party who decide to go ahead and get the job done regardless of what some prophecy says is the one true way.

 

[Kingreaper]

Sure, but it's still the case that if they happen to encounter the Witch-King in combat, and the male human party member happens to be the one who's in a position to deal the final blow, then something will intervene to make him fail, just because prophecy says he has to.

Or their final blow won't be killing.

"You strike the witch king down, and he lies on the floor, looking near death, but you can see he will recover 'No man can kill me' he shouts"

He's not dead (yet) but assuming a non-human or non-male, or adolescent, or elderly, party member is present he can now be finished off.