overgeeked
B/X Known World
The more I see people throw this out the more I think they simply mean "this goes against my preferences". Both phrases seem to be utterly meaningless at this point. If you have a point to make, make it without throwing out phrases meant to evoke knee-jerk reactions.Okay, a lot to unpack here. To start with your final statement, that feels an awful lot like one-true-wayism mixed with a dose of badwrongfun.
Right. And I get the feeling we're seeing a story unfold with a predetermined ending. Nothing the PCs do matters and whatever they do, the end will be the same. It's like Titanic. Sure, the movie is about the relationship between Jack and Rose, which is...interesting...I guess...but at no point does anyone think they have a chance of averting the sinking of the Titanic. At best Calamity will be the story of how these characters deal with the fallout. There's no chance they'll avert it as it's already started. There's no chance they'll win because it's already a historical footnote in the setting. So what meaningful choices to the players get? How they face death? Gee, awesome.But even that builds off some pretty big assumptions given that we've only seen the opening act of this story. I'll admit that not having seen the rest of the series, this could devolve into a highly railroaded adventure where there was ever only one set of events that happens, but my feeling from the first episode is that we are going to see a story of what a group of local heroes does when the crap hits the fan.
Player agency is having the freedom to choose and having those choices matter. If they can't choose, they have no agency. If they can choose, but their choices don't matter, they have no agency. Why do they have to even potentially be able to stop the Calamity? Because it's epic fantasy.1. What is player agency other than players making choices about the words they say and the actions they take? There are plenty of real things that the PCs care about (their families for example) that they may have interest in trying to help. Why do they have to stop the calamity to have agency?
Can the players decide to go left when the DM wants them to go right (i.e. no bumpers) and that choice matters (i.e. no quantum ogres)? If not, then the players don't have agency. Can the players come up with a wild plan that short-circuits the DM's plans and the DM will roll with it? If not, then the players don't have agency.
The DM saying your characters go here and do these things and stay in this tiny box...oh, but I guess you get to say whatever you want and attack whoever you want during the combats...sorry, no. That's not agency. Not in any real or meaningful sense.
Can the players later kill the dragon, resurrect the queen, and restore the capital city? Can the players later stop new zombies from raising...undo the magic that's causing it? If not, then no, they don't have agency. That's the point about agency. If you can't do X, then X is the limit of your agency. You have agency...except X. The more things you pile into the "you can't" category, the less agency the players have. If everything is in the "you can't" category except "dialogue" and "picking targets"...that's not agency in any real or meaningful sense of the word. Can the characters build and destroy parts of the world? That's agency. Can the players kill the big bad before you want them to? That's agency. Can the players decide to leave the tiny box you have pre-determined will be where your story unfolds? That's agency. If the players can't go where they want and do what they want, they don't really have agency.2, If I start an adventure with a zombie apocalypse or an ancient dragon killing the Queen and destroying the capital city of a realm, and the PCs have no way to stop it, is that a heavily railroaded adventure? Or just a call to adventure?
To me, the whole point of RPGs is player agency. Video games have better graphics and have infinitely better writing than modules and whatever improv dialogue the DM can get out. Film, TV, novels, and short stories have infinitely better writing and story than adventure modules or whatever the DM can cobble together. Trying to emulate those other art forms is a fool's errand. RPGs are not any of those, they are unique. They have strengths. Lean into those strengths. One of those strengths is the ability to go anywhere and do anything. To limit that, to tear that out so you can badly ape some other art form is certainly a choice a lot of people seem to make, but it's a tragically limiting one.
Right. So we already know all the broad strokes of this story. The only thing we can possibly get from this show is 1) minor characters (the PC) RPing how they face the Calamity, or; 2) an alternate reality where the Calamity is averted.3. The Calamity is a decades long event that started when Vespin Chloris released the betrayer gods from their inprisionment. That appears to have already happened in this story (ie it's the triggering event for what we are seeing happen now). The other details we know about is that the betrayer gods attack Vaselheim, and fail, then establish a base of operations in Ghor Dranas, leading to a decades long war between the prime deities and betrayers that wrecks havoc on the land. Great champions are given vestiges of divergence to help battle the gods during this time, before the prime deities finally seal both the betrayers and themselves behind the divine gate, forever separating themselves from their creations. Seems to me like a prime setting for countless adventure of mighty heroes facing deadly perils.
To me, 1 is just about pointless while 2 is infinitely more interesting, though there's about a 0% chance that's where they'll go with it.
RPGs with pre-determined endings are boring. They're the DM reading a story to the players. That's a waste of everyone's time.
RPGs are not stories. They're not fiction. They're games. They're meant to be played as a collaborative effort. Input from everyone. And no, "pick your dialogue" and "pick your targets" is not sufficient input to waste everyone's time getting together to "play" a game. The stuff you're saying absolutely would be interesting...as a story to read. As a comic to read. Because they can make for good stories. RPGs are not stories. The DM is not a storyteller in the same sense that Stephen King is a storyteller. In an RPG the players have agency and self-determination they get to control something the DM does not, the PCs. If King wants a character to run into a burning house, he writes it that way. The DM cannot do the same for the PCs. Not without violating the social contract and the literal reason the players are there in the first place.4. There is nothing in the lore about this floating city (that I'm aware of) giving ample opportunity for the specifics of this adventure to follow it's own path. Was the city destroyed in the initial release of the betrayers? Did the mages of this city screw up and destroy the city on it's own? Was this city around even when Aeor fell decades later? Is the city still in-tact? Joined with it's sister city and put into hiding because of the events? Could these heroes still be alive, in-stasis, waiting to reveal to the new age some piece of ancient history?
Then I'd suggest you play more Call of Cthulhu, then. Because that's not generally how those things go down. Your typical CoC adventure is some form of murder-mystery-horror thing where the PCs are sucked into events beyond their comprehension and they must quickly piece things together to survive...most often don't...and as they gain knowledge they lose sanity...and in the end they more than likely stop whatever small, local evil is going on...at great cost to themselves...or they die at the local evil's hands. It's rare to non-existant that the local Arkham, MA cult has already summoned all the Great Old Ones a few weeks back and now the PCs must deal with it.5. At the very most, I'd think this adventure may be set up like a Call of Cthulu type story, where it is highly likely that most if not all of the PCs will meet their demise, and the forces they fight against will end stronger at the end than the beginning. Those types of stories are specifically about what the characters say and do in the face of impending doom.
Is nihilistic horror not an appropriate style for epic fantasy? Kinda diametrically opposed genres. You'd be far better served playing Call of Cthulhu. D&D will fight you every step of the way...as will the majority of players who are specifically not playing CoC but instead playing D&D...you know, the epic fantasy game of heroes and superheroes saving the day and slaughtering their foes.Is that style not appropriate for a D&D adventure in your mind?
And we're back to the problem of using D&D for everything and thinking every problem is a nail because you refuse to use any tool other than a hammer.