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General Tabletop Discussion
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The importance to "story" of contrivance
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<blockquote data-quote="Mishihari Lord" data-source="post: 6962784" data-attributes="member: 128"><p>I very much dislike excessive contrivance in fiction, whether it be a movie, novel, or RPG session. Someone famous said that in SF you get one impossibility free, any others you have to work for. For me at least, coincidence is similar: I'm willing to accept an extremely unlikely event as the basis of a story, but an additional one makes my suspension of disbelief start to go. </p><p></p><p>As an example, I recall two movies about climbing Mount Everest. In the first, every single bad thing that can happen when mountain climbing happened in a single climb. In the second, the coincidence was that a climb was hit by a freakishly bad storm, but everything else was a reasonable extension of that event <em>(It was based on a true story. Dunno if that factors in somehow)</em>. In the first movie, I became disconnected with about the third disaster: "Really, an avalanche now? I suppose there's going to be a meteor strike next ..." The second kept me engaged until the end. </p><p></p><p>And if there must be a contrived event, I strongly prefer that it be very early in the adventure or a background even before the adventure starts. That way players' plans are less likely to be affected, and there's not such a feeling of a dues ex moment.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mishihari Lord, post: 6962784, member: 128"] I very much dislike excessive contrivance in fiction, whether it be a movie, novel, or RPG session. Someone famous said that in SF you get one impossibility free, any others you have to work for. For me at least, coincidence is similar: I'm willing to accept an extremely unlikely event as the basis of a story, but an additional one makes my suspension of disbelief start to go. As an example, I recall two movies about climbing Mount Everest. In the first, every single bad thing that can happen when mountain climbing happened in a single climb. In the second, the coincidence was that a climb was hit by a freakishly bad storm, but everything else was a reasonable extension of that event [I](It was based on a true story. Dunno if that factors in somehow)[/I]. In the first movie, I became disconnected with about the third disaster: "Really, an avalanche now? I suppose there's going to be a meteor strike next ..." The second kept me engaged until the end. And if there must be a contrived event, I strongly prefer that it be very early in the adventure or a background even before the adventure starts. That way players' plans are less likely to be affected, and there's not such a feeling of a dues ex moment. [/QUOTE]
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