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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6399723" data-attributes="member: 42582">For me there is a tension here, because the I find the notions of "very real horror" and "legitimate disaster" to be at odds with "the power to be right by making the multiverse conform to my ideals".This is what I have describd upthread as the relativistic aspect of Planescape.The Xaositect can make the riots either go away, or become the right outcome, by imposing his/her beliefs on the world. As I also said upthread, with reference to existentialists such as Camus, Sartre and Nietzsche, I don't think this is a hopeless basis for dramatic conflict, but I think it is challenging, hard to pull off in an RPG, and not that appealing to me personally.Solving a crossword puzzle has real-world emotional payoff (ie satisfaction). But it doesn't achieve that payoff by engaging with other values. It is not narrative fiction, it is a puzzle.Tomb of Horrors is not narrative fiction either. Nor is White Plume Mountain. ToH is analogous to a crossword puzzle. WPM is more like a board game - I compared it upthread to Talisman. (I think it is too wahoo to be a crossword puzzle.) Both are RPG scenarios, and so both involve fictional positioning - ie the adjudication of player moves, which (in an RPG) take the form of action decarations for PC, by reference to the ingame fiction. But they do not involve narrative.None of the previous paragraph is a criticism. (Sometimes on my train ride home I read a book. More often I do a crossword puzzle.) It is an analysis.Narrative fiction provides entertainment in a different fashion from crossword puzzles and board games. And different narratives provide different sorts of entertainment. A James Bond movie, for instance, involves no dramatic conflict. There is purely procedural conflict (ie how will Bond get out of this one?). The emotional payoff is in terms of anxiety and release.Casablanca has elements of this - eg when Strasser is racing to the airport to stop the plane - but the bulk of the film is dramatic conflict. When Rick has to decide whether or not to let the band play the Marseillaise, the conflict is not purely procedural (how will Rick get out of this one?). It is dramatic (will he choose self-interest or loyalty to Ilsa and to liberty?)It's a little late in the day to play the "You're doing it wrong" card, isn't it? (In my case, over 25 years.) And I've already pointed in this thread to a D&D setting that does what I want it to write off the page - namely, 4e's PoL. In other thread, incuding ones I'm sure you've participated in, I've also pointed to 1985's Oriental Adventures.I don't see why these threads have to resolve with those who don't like Planescape, or do like 4e, being told they should be playing another game.</blockquote>

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