Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 5404334" data-attributes="member: 26473">Are you confusing tabletop rpgs with video games?I make no assumptions about what the adventurers will do, but many events in the setting exist independent of the adventurers, unless or until the adventurers get involved. A status quo setting can (and in my opinion, should) have lots of stuff going on - it's about creating a living setting for the adventurers to explore, and by 'explore' doesn't mean just filling in blank hexes on a map.Right now in my game a French army is laying siege to Genoa while the king readies another army at home to attack the Huguenots again. The adventurers are not likely to change either of these events right now, so they will follow their historical courses. Neither event may involve the adventurers directly, but one of the npcs who befriended our gallant musketeer last Saturday will be joining the campaign against the Huguenots during the summer, so the event affects his availability as a resource to the adventurer.Video game-worlds do nothing until the players do something; tabletop game-worlds need not be so static.Yes, it may, directly and indirectly - directly, if indeed the npc is a friend or rival, or indirectly, as part of the living setting.It doesn't make it objectively "better" - it makes it different.Your whole post seems to ignore, for whatever reason, the key point of what I wrote however, specifically, ". . . unless the adventurers change the future-history of the setting by their actions."Frex, if Cardinal Richelieu is killed or otherwise removed from his position by the actions of the adventurers, for example, then the duc de Guise may not be forced into exile, and the comte de Soissons may never get shot in the face leading a rebellion against the king.(It's worth noting that in Flashing Blades, a character may rise to occupy the position of first minister to the king, a cardinal, a marshal of France, the grandmaster of an order of knights, and so on - their ultimate ability to affect meaningful changes on the setting is considerable.)In one case you there are events in the game that take place unless or until the adventurers act. In the other case, your 'serving a theme or plot development' case, there are events in the game in which the adventurers are supposed to act by design.First, one can't 'railroad' non-player characters.Second, the adventurers may indeed have the ability to affect the outcome, as noted above and in my previous post. They do not have ultimate power over life and death by their mere presence, however, so the duc de Guise dies of natural causes in 1640, whether or not he's been forced into exile.</blockquote>

Verification