Macguffin quest without a macguffin, how would you respond?

[Nail]

Basically, changing the goal is cool, rendering my actions meaningless is uncool.

Agreed.

 

[Zad]

What Nifft said.

Ye Olde Ancient Evil (YOAE) simply rises and falls on a schedule unrelated to humanoid efforts.

This would definitely not be cool with me. I am ok with moving the cheese right up until this point, but with this premise, you basically say that everything I did was a waste, and nothing I can do in the future matters. So why am I trying? My character is now not motivated to do anything but get really drunk waiting for the end to come. Not fun.

 

[Felix]

Ye Olde Ancient Evil (YOAE) simply rises and falls on a schedule unrelated to humanoid efforts.

No MacGuffin is OK.

Not being able to influence the word I adventure is isn't.

Perhaps that's not what you meant, but just in case.


EDIT: Zad, you're a clever fellow. And because I have a pair of them, I think your Olidimarra's Dice avatar is the sweetness.

 

[mfrench]

What they find instead when enough information is known is that there was no weapon last time, Ye Olde Ancient Evil (YOAE) simply rises and falls on a schedule unrelated to humanoid efforts.

When I first read this, I actually thought of the Matrix trilogy. Good job, you're The One, hooray . . . we're going to crush your rebellion, you'd better go help humanity survive.

As long as there was some way of doing that (i.e., helping people survive the time of evil and prepare them to rebuild afterward), that would be cool. Very different than the standard Find MacGuffin - Kill BBEG campaign.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

This would definitely not be cool with me. I am ok with moving the cheese right up until this point, but with this premise, you basically say that everything I did was a waste, and nothing I can do in the future matters. So why am I trying? My character is now not motivated to do anything but get really drunk waiting for the end to come. Not fun.

A lot of folks seem to be interpreting my orriginal description in this way, so just to clarify - what I meant by the rise and fall of YOAE on their own schedule was to distinguish the legendary past from the actual past, not to say that humanoid events would never be able to effect the current rising.

The people know - YOAE rose once before, and Great Hero King Bob sheltered his people in the magic fortress. YOAE is now sealed under the earth and has not troubled us for a thousand years. The people therefore assume - YOAE was defeated by Great Hero King Bob who sealed them away and we just need to find out how he did it. The truth is - Great Hero King Bob did manage to shelter his people and some version of his realm weathered several generations in the magic fortress until YOAE went back underground, where they actually prefer it, until conditions next forced them to deal with us ugly monkeys on the surface for a while.

The Macguffin is "how YOAE was sealed away". The real questions, which the PCs can possibly answer and use to their advantage are "Why did YOAE rise to begin with, and why did they go away again the first time?" "How does YOAE live and how can they be eliminated?" and possilby "if we do figure a way, should we wait for YOAE to do a number on those smug jerks trying to make us a vassel state first?"

 

[redwing]

well this may be a little off topic, but has anyone played Final Fantasy X? The YOAE was Sin which came and went every so often. The world starts in a time of peace and its peoples believe Sin was stopped by this group of adventurers using a McGuffin. However, there is quite the twist in the end. This could be used for some inspiration in this situation. It is kind of the middle road where you still get the useless MacGuffin and the evil rises and falls on schedule, but the characters have a chance to affect YOAE, albeit with a choice of great sacrifice.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

I guess the question for me is really "what is the point of the campaign?"

I mean.. besides getting togather with friends and having fun...

Is it to find the MacGuffin?
Is it to actually defeat YOAE?
Is it to help inocents survive YOAE?

If I thought that the point of the campaign was to find the MacGuffin, and too much of the campaign seemed to point to this only to have it point at me and laugh? I'd be miffed to say the least.

(How much is too much? To be honest I'm not sure.)

However, if say... the first act of the campaign (a couple of levels or so) were spent finding the MacGuffin and then the vast majority of the campaign turned to out to be something else (finding a different way to defeat YOAE and saving innocents) then that would be fine. Don't make "The Entire" campaign - or even the "Vast Majority" of the campaign about finding the MacGuffin and then not have it be there. That makes too much time feel like it's wasted.

 

[jdrakeh]

Is it to find the MacGuffin?

Ostensibly, it seems that way -- but it's not really about this, as there is no MacGuffin.

Is it to actually defeat YOAE?

Again, it seems that way -- but it's not really about this, as it can't be done.

Is it to help inocents survive YOAE?

This seems to be what the campaign should be about, as PCs can actually accomplish it -- but instead Kahuna Burger is steering them toward chasing the first to (unobtainable) goals.

Really, the more I think about this, the more horrible it sounds. It's easily a 'worst scenario' bait and switch by the DM, wherein days (if not weeks) of game play are suddenly rendered meaningless by the amazing revelation that there is no MacGuffin.

This might work well in a novel, though I suspect that it will kill a game outright.



If I thought that the point of the campaign was to find the MacGuffin, and too much of the campaign seemed to point to this only to have it point at me and laugh? I'd be miffed to say the least.

(How much is too much? To be honest I'm not sure.)

However, if say... the first act of the campaign (a couple of levels or so) were spent finding the MacGuffin and then the vast majority of the campaign turned to out to be something else (finding a different way to defeat YOAE and saving innocents) then that would be fine. Don't make "The Entire" campaign - or even the "Vast Majority" of the campaign about finding the MacGuffin and then not have it be there. That makes too much time feel like it's wasted.[/QUOTE]

 

[Mallus]

But I'm curious how folks here would feel about this sort of switch.

The MacGuffin itself can turn out to be irrelevant. The PC's actions, however, cannot.

It would make a great campaign moment; the PC's discover that the Sword of Resolution was not, in fact, responsible for the defeat of the Prince of Insufficient Light, sometime after they acquired it.

The trick, of course, is then to lead them into a final act where a believable substitute MacGuffin is found, preferably something related to their own courage and ingenuity (in other words, not MacGuffin-like at all) , which enables their victory.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Ostensibly, it seems that way -- but it's not really about this, as there is no MacGuffin.

Again, it seems that way -- but it's not really about this, as it can't be done.

This seems to be what the campaign should be about, as PCs can actually accomplish it -- but instead Kahuna Burger is steering them toward chasing the first to (unobtainable) goals.

It would probably help if you read my posts.