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A brief rant about Rime of the Frost Maiden, farming, logistics, and ecology
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<blockquote data-quote="p_johnston" data-source="post: 8107002" data-attributes="member: 7016849"><p>So when I read the book for the first time it took me about 5 minutes to go "well that doesn't make sense" and decide that if I were to run the module winter would only be a few months late. I actually decided that I was going to have the players come in at what was supposed to be the end of winter and see the effects of the never ending winter over a few months as they level up. </p><p></p><p>It is perfectly acceptable to have things that don't make perfect sense in a story. The problem comes when the things that don't make sense are central to the story being told. When telling a story it is expected that the audience (in this case the players) are going to engage with, think about, and ask questions about that story. When basic questions about that story fail to have any sort of logical answer it makes the audience disengage with the story and stop caring. </p><p></p><p>The central conflict is that the two years of darkness and winter have driven the region to the brink of despair. People are terrified and desperate, willing to sacrifice their fellow man to try and appease a cold and uncaring god. So a very reasonable question to ask as a player is "why are the people desperate?" because of course you want to know what kind of horror you as a hero are saving them from. The obvious answer is "they are running out of food and fuel and will soon starve/freeze to death." The problem is that this brings up the next very obvious question "why now? Why are they running out now and not a year or 18 months ago?" To which the module gives no obvious answer. So now because the players know that that question has no satisfying answer they are more likely to ask other questions that also don't have any answers. "If they can survive two years with no obvious explanation whey can't they survive 2 more? or 10 more?" "If they were able to survive two years through presumably magic why are they so desperate that they started to sacrifice people? "If things are that desperate why aren't people leaving? If people can't leave how did we get here? If we were always here why haven't we done something about this problem in the last two years?" "Wait if Auiril can just freeze an entire region why is she doing so now? Also what's to stop her from doing so again whenever she reforms? Also why is she freezing an area full of people instead of a random abandoned area on the spine of the world?" "Wait isn't Drizzt like native to this region? If it's been two years why are we dealing with this and not him?" Next thing you know they players have gone from having fun and engaging with the story to not caring because nothing makes sense.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="p_johnston, post: 8107002, member: 7016849"] So when I read the book for the first time it took me about 5 minutes to go "well that doesn't make sense" and decide that if I were to run the module winter would only be a few months late. I actually decided that I was going to have the players come in at what was supposed to be the end of winter and see the effects of the never ending winter over a few months as they level up. It is perfectly acceptable to have things that don't make perfect sense in a story. The problem comes when the things that don't make sense are central to the story being told. When telling a story it is expected that the audience (in this case the players) are going to engage with, think about, and ask questions about that story. When basic questions about that story fail to have any sort of logical answer it makes the audience disengage with the story and stop caring. The central conflict is that the two years of darkness and winter have driven the region to the brink of despair. People are terrified and desperate, willing to sacrifice their fellow man to try and appease a cold and uncaring god. So a very reasonable question to ask as a player is "why are the people desperate?" because of course you want to know what kind of horror you as a hero are saving them from. The obvious answer is "they are running out of food and fuel and will soon starve/freeze to death." The problem is that this brings up the next very obvious question "why now? Why are they running out now and not a year or 18 months ago?" To which the module gives no obvious answer. So now because the players know that that question has no satisfying answer they are more likely to ask other questions that also don't have any answers. "If they can survive two years with no obvious explanation whey can't they survive 2 more? or 10 more?" "If they were able to survive two years through presumably magic why are they so desperate that they started to sacrifice people? "If things are that desperate why aren't people leaving? If people can't leave how did we get here? If we were always here why haven't we done something about this problem in the last two years?" "Wait if Auiril can just freeze an entire region why is she doing so now? Also what's to stop her from doing so again whenever she reforms? Also why is she freezing an area full of people instead of a random abandoned area on the spine of the world?" "Wait isn't Drizzt like native to this region? If it's been two years why are we dealing with this and not him?" Next thing you know they players have gone from having fun and engaging with the story to not caring because nothing makes sense. [/QUOTE]
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A brief rant about Rime of the Frost Maiden, farming, logistics, and ecology
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