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The importance to "story" of contrivance
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<blockquote data-quote="werecorpse" data-source="post: 6964540" data-attributes="member: 55491"><p>You are absolutely right, mea culpa.</p><p></p><p>In the case of the latter battle the set up is that Gandalf had:</p><p>1. Convinced the Rohirrim to ready to march to help Minas Tirith</p><p>2. Caused a signal to be sent from Minas Tirith asking for help </p><p>3 worked to keep the morale up of those holding the wall </p><p></p><p>So if I call for help and it arrives and helps that's what I hoped would happen. Would Lotr be a "worse" story if Minas Tirith had been sacked and the cavalry arrived too late? Different, darker but Aragorn would still have lead his ghost buddies on an Orc killing spree.</p><p></p><p>I guess my view is that after the fact everything looks like contrivance but history and fiction are both made up of hundreds of these sort of things. Iirc the non French forces won the battle of Waterloo because a force of Prussians turned up just in time in the late afternoon & turned the tide of battle; & the battle was still going because rain had delayed the French from starting until midday or thereabouts and Napoleon was worried about his artillery. Rain + Prussians arriving in the nick of time contrived to end the reign of Napoleon. </p><p></p><p>If the rain hadn't happened or the Prussians arrived the next day we would talk about how that was an amazing coincidence. But maybe speaking French.</p><p></p><p>Luck and coincidence happen all the time. But when they don't, that's a lucky coincidence too.</p><p></p><p>From a gaming point of view having the good guys figure out what's going on and either</p><p>1. Arrive early and set up a trap</p><p>2. Arrive in the nick of time to stop the event</p><p>3. Arrive too late and have to follow the freed demon/mummy or rescue the doomed city, help the refugees etc</p><p></p><p>Are all good stories, you could say any of the arrival times were contrived.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="werecorpse, post: 6964540, member: 55491"] You are absolutely right, mea culpa. In the case of the latter battle the set up is that Gandalf had: 1. Convinced the Rohirrim to ready to march to help Minas Tirith 2. Caused a signal to be sent from Minas Tirith asking for help 3 worked to keep the morale up of those holding the wall So if I call for help and it arrives and helps that's what I hoped would happen. Would Lotr be a "worse" story if Minas Tirith had been sacked and the cavalry arrived too late? Different, darker but Aragorn would still have lead his ghost buddies on an Orc killing spree. I guess my view is that after the fact everything looks like contrivance but history and fiction are both made up of hundreds of these sort of things. Iirc the non French forces won the battle of Waterloo because a force of Prussians turned up just in time in the late afternoon & turned the tide of battle; & the battle was still going because rain had delayed the French from starting until midday or thereabouts and Napoleon was worried about his artillery. Rain + Prussians arriving in the nick of time contrived to end the reign of Napoleon. If the rain hadn't happened or the Prussians arrived the next day we would talk about how that was an amazing coincidence. But maybe speaking French. Luck and coincidence happen all the time. But when they don't, that's a lucky coincidence too. From a gaming point of view having the good guys figure out what's going on and either 1. Arrive early and set up a trap 2. Arrive in the nick of time to stop the event 3. Arrive too late and have to follow the freed demon/mummy or rescue the doomed city, help the refugees etc Are all good stories, you could say any of the arrival times were contrived. [/QUOTE]
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