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General Tabletop Discussion
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Does the world exist for the PCs?
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<blockquote data-quote="77IM" data-source="post: 7613645" data-attributes="member: 12377"><p>The real actual world is an incredibly broad, diverse setting, and also extremely realistic*. Yet, if you watch a TV show set in the modern day, that show is often set in some corner of world that just happens to be <em>ideal</em> for telling those kinds of stories. Dr. House is always getting weird exotic medical cases; the CSI team is always up against some devious criminal mind; your favorite sitcom family just happens to wind up in wacky situations all the time. The writers of those shows did make the setting "just right" for telling those interesting stories. But to the audience, it looks like it's <em>the other way around:</em> we feel like we are watching those stories, instead of the billions of others in the world, because those are the interesting ones.</p><p></p><p>It's like the age-old question, "Why do the protagonists in a zombie apocalypse movie always miraculously survive, when everyone else around them is dying?" Well, because if they died, <em>we wouldn't make a zombie apocalypse movie about them</em>. Likewise, in D&D, "Why does this village have exactly what a group of adventurers needs to serve as a base of operations?" Well, because if it didn't, we wouldn't be playing the game there; we'd be playing in one of the other thousands of villages which was better suited for being a base of operations for adventurers.</p><p></p><p></p><p>* Usually.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="77IM, post: 7613645, member: 12377"] The real actual world is an incredibly broad, diverse setting, and also extremely realistic*. Yet, if you watch a TV show set in the modern day, that show is often set in some corner of world that just happens to be [I]ideal[/I] for telling those kinds of stories. Dr. House is always getting weird exotic medical cases; the CSI team is always up against some devious criminal mind; your favorite sitcom family just happens to wind up in wacky situations all the time. The writers of those shows did make the setting "just right" for telling those interesting stories. But to the audience, it looks like it's [I]the other way around:[/I] we feel like we are watching those stories, instead of the billions of others in the world, because those are the interesting ones. It's like the age-old question, "Why do the protagonists in a zombie apocalypse movie always miraculously survive, when everyone else around them is dying?" Well, because if they died, [I]we wouldn't make a zombie apocalypse movie about them[/I]. Likewise, in D&D, "Why does this village have exactly what a group of adventurers needs to serve as a base of operations?" Well, because if it didn't, we wouldn't be playing the game there; we'd be playing in one of the other thousands of villages which was better suited for being a base of operations for adventurers. * Usually. [/QUOTE]
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