Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9531145" data-attributes="member: 6790260">TL;DW: Captain Sheridan goes to the Big Bad Evil Faction's planet and blows up their capital city with some nukes. He escapes the blast by jumping into a nearly-bottomless pit, where an ancient, powerful alien has been living in seclusion for a very, very long time. While he's stuck in there, his friends try to come to his rescue, but fail, and find good evidence that he's dead (namely, the nuclear craters.) The powerful alien guides Sheridan into accepting death without giving up on life, and is thus able to restore him to life--meanwhile, his friends are looking at their efforts to stop the BBEF rapidly unravelling in part because Sheridan is (believed to be) dead.There's nothing any of them could do to bring him back--as far as they're concerned, he's just dead and that won't change. (Indeed, some of the allies in their splintering alliance accuse them of mounting an assault solely on the vain, pointless hope that Sheridan might be saved, which is their reason/excuse for why they want to back out.) However, with the powerful alien (Lorien) present, Sheridan's death was never going to entirely stick, at least for the foreseeable future. It still has consequences, he lives a dramatically shorter life as a result of all this, but he's able to get done what needs doing.Hence, it's a death that the players cannot do anything to fix (irrevocable), but it isn't a death that stays dead (non-permanent). A similar sort of thing might occur even in a D&D context where, for example,That is not the only way to build story though. That's the point. You can also have "story before", which is what "trad" play generally favors. It features heavy worldbuilding from the author-style DM, to which the players are merely reactive respondents. Dragonlance is a pretty archetypal example of "story before." The controversial "metaplot" of the 2e version of Dark Sun is another example of "story before."Further, you can have "story now", which is what Dungeon World and other Powered by the Apocalypse games (those modeled on the original, called Apocalypse World), as well as other systems in the same vein but doing different things, e.g. Blades in the Dark and relatives (games "Forged in the Dark"), Ironsworn, etc. "Story now" is when the process of playing your character IS the process of telling a story. Rather than having a story already written to which the player responds, or no story at all until after the players have taken many actions and reflect back on them, "story now" makes the actual process of play into storytelling and protagonism. (4e D&D also contained relatively primitive, but still fully real, tools for "story now" play. Wise, engaging use of Skill Challenges and fluid, responsive "off-label" usage of powers were major components of this approach.)They are a fact of life. That doesn't mean they need to be a fact of game. Repeat: that doesn't mean they need to be a fact of game. We do plenty of things as part of gaming that are not reflecting the real world, in ways large and small.Yes. But it is boring to constantly spend time focusing on the 57.9% of bricks that did nothing, got nowhere, had no impact, and were completely forgotten along the way. That's the whole point here. We game in order to get something interesting out of it. Spending genuinely much more than half of our time focusing on things that accomplish jack-all is not interesting.You say "we are not writing a novel here," but the problem with that assertion is that kinda is what some folks want. They don't want a novel proper, sure, but they DO want to be telling an ongoing, meaningful story with impactful characters who matter and who effect change (good, bad, or ambiguous) along their journey, changing themselves, one another, and the world around them.More or less, in your strident rejection of anything even remotely novel-like, you have rejected something a LOT--and I really do mean a LOT--of players genuinely, deeply love. And, more importantly, it's something that cannot, even in principle, be acquired from computer games nor MMOs. There simply aren't enough resources to get video games that do this kind of tailored storytelling. It has to be pure "story before" with video games, but a lot of people really actually do love getting some "story now" play.Again, the critical word: can. Further, you leave out the serious flaw: some people can have that story. Others can't. It just won't work for them. That was my whole point. Just because SOME people can do it doesn't mean everyone can, nor that even all of those who "can" do it would enjoy doing it. It is one flavor among many. Forcing it upon everyone would be an egregious error.I don't understand how you can possibly get this out of what I said. I am specifically saying that players NEED the history in order to feel invested--and if their characters keep dying, they don't have that history! Every character that dies is deleting history they've been invested in!</blockquote>

Verification