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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dungeonman" data-source="post: 6293294" data-attributes="member: 6775975">I was watching Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and a character said "I thought there was a 97% chance we were going to die". If she wasn't genre blind she'd assume closer to a zero percent chance (they're both main characters whose death at that point would be meaningless and random to at least two developing subplots.) Even if she didn't break the fourth wall entirely, if she was rational and self aware, she'd at least recognize that the team's survival rate has been extraordinary.I think that characters aren't "blind" if their range of possible motivations/actions is not collapsed to suit conventions for the readership or audience.For example, comic Batman's range of motivations/actions (including his no-kill code) is constrained to conform to the serial comic format requirements of recurring villians. If Batman questioned whether his no killing and his no gun philosophy was warranted balanced against the untold suffering and death in Gotham caused by villians that have escaped over and over and over and over and over, then perhaps his range of motivations would expand. He might follow a police code of sorts when it comes to shooting. He might kill The Joker dead and incinerate his body and dissolve the ashes in acid and then toss the DNA fragments into a volcano. He might pour his wealth into funding better security for Arkham Asylum and lobbying for the death penalty. Seriously, though, instead of pouring a gazillion dollars into Bat toys, just use that money to turn Arkham Aslyum into the best prison in the world with execution facilities, and no one will have to be physically and mentally tortured by the likes of The Joker again.But I do love what you wrote about divine providence and destiny tokens. You're allowing the characters to be rational and consider the implications of events around them. If there was a series of "coincidences", the players are free to have their characters be aware of that possibility. Even if their range of actions is collapsed to suit D&D conventions, at least the characters have a fuller rational range of motivations, and so they're more relatable to me than a character whose motivations are utterly slave to the genre or other tropes.</blockquote>

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