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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7432117" data-attributes="member: 6696971">[MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] , let me wander around my head aloud for a minute.  This is kind of where my brain was going:*  I was thinking about the parallels of Blades in the Dark and the Mexican Drug Wars particularly in the states of Sinaloa and Durango (which has also spread plenty elsewhere).  I was thinking about how when a vacuum of power emerges (where a cartel which has dominated the drug trade without rival in a particular area suddenly has the head of its snake cut off or is defaced/defanged), the place goes from a (very) relative order and placidity to an eruption of sustained barbarism, violence, and destabilization.  The locals are besieged emotionally, physically, and economically due to the cartel warfare.  That is how you end up with the extreme transformation of Ciudad Juarez in only a few short years.* I was thinking of parallels in Blades in the Dark where Bluecoats, Council-members, and Magistrates can be bought off in order to (a) get in on the action and (b) "keep the peace (status quo)" by ensuring that the dominance hierarchy of a certain place remains intact (and the eruption of violence/destabilization via a power vacuum doesn't emerge).Blades in the Dark's premise, thematic and machanicaly machinery depends on these tropes.So here is what I meant by the below:Conversely, 4e's thematic impetus depends on the above paradigm being flat untenable.The Dragon's (or whatever stand-in) protection racket compared to the encroaching darkness (due to the vacuum of power) MUSTN'T yield the citizenry or the heroes doing the math and coming up with "its better this way."  The fallout of the Dragon's despotism must be punitive enough (when compared to the alternative bad) that it emboldens rebellion.  Otherwise, the entire impetus for the sort of romantic heroism that 4e pushes toward becomes less charged (or it loses its charge completely).With Torchbearer and Beyond the Wall, the desperation and related impetus for moving beyond the sanctity of the city's walls into the foreboding, deep, dark wilds in becomes rather (but not fully) muted because the Dragon (as happens with overwhelming apex predators/power-brokers) will have driven out that encroaching darkness, thereby artificially expanding the local (and solely relevant) "Point of Light."  The important themes of desperation and claustrophobia become subdued.</blockquote>

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