FrozenNorth
Hero
As a side-issue, I wonder if the different responses to these issues don’t stem in part with how different people process inconsistencies in the campaign.
The way I see it, there are two axes to process inconsistencies in the campaign:
1. The egregiousness of the inconsistency (What? You’re telling me it’s been -40 C for 2 years and there are still humans alive?)
2. The ease of fixibility of the inconsistency (The simple, obvious solution to the problem proposed by the party not only makes everyone who didn’t find it look like idiots, but ends the campaign at level 3).
Personally, I care less about the first type of inconsistency than the second, though I could see why the first type would be annoying in a professional product you pay for.
Again, to me, the duration and the severity of Auril’s winter and the human sacrifice by Lawful Good villagers fall into the first type of inconsistency rather than the second.
Player: Shouldn’t everyone be dead if winter has been going on for 2 years and it’s -40 C most of the time?
DM: You’re right. It’s hasn’t been two years and the person who told you so was mistaken/lying/critically failed their Perception/Persuasion check/had lost touch with reality (aren’t we in like year 5 of a pandemic?). But the situation really is desperate. There’s no food and if winter doesn’t end soon, there really won’t be anyone left.
Likewise, I don’t play with alignment, so the desperate turn to human sacrifice didn’t bother me.
The way I see it, there are two axes to process inconsistencies in the campaign:
1. The egregiousness of the inconsistency (What? You’re telling me it’s been -40 C for 2 years and there are still humans alive?)
2. The ease of fixibility of the inconsistency (The simple, obvious solution to the problem proposed by the party not only makes everyone who didn’t find it look like idiots, but ends the campaign at level 3).
Personally, I care less about the first type of inconsistency than the second, though I could see why the first type would be annoying in a professional product you pay for.
Again, to me, the duration and the severity of Auril’s winter and the human sacrifice by Lawful Good villagers fall into the first type of inconsistency rather than the second.
Player: Shouldn’t everyone be dead if winter has been going on for 2 years and it’s -40 C most of the time?
DM: You’re right. It’s hasn’t been two years and the person who told you so was mistaken/lying/critically failed their Perception/Persuasion check/had lost touch with reality (aren’t we in like year 5 of a pandemic?). But the situation really is desperate. There’s no food and if winter doesn’t end soon, there really won’t be anyone left.
Likewise, I don’t play with alignment, so the desperate turn to human sacrifice didn’t bother me.