Why is it so hard to change a world?

[S'mon]

Stargate SG-1 (Protagonists kill loads of System Lords and change the destiny of the Galaxy) and Blake's 7 (Protagonists struggle against the Terran Federation but get squelched anyway) are both good shows, but for an RPG I don't want to see success or failure totally mandated in the system. Of course it's far harder to 'win' in Paranoia or Call of Cthulu than in Marvel Superheroes or Space Opera (old game). To me D&D comes in-between, genre-wise: it's the perfect system for putting control in the hands of the players with equal chances to succeed or fail by their own efforts. I love DMing generations of PCs in my homebrew world and seeing them shape the world in all sorts of ways. DMing at the highest level for deity PCs like Thrin, almost every session changes the destiny of countries, empires, often the entire world, occasionally the multiverse. I love that. Static, stagnant universes suck.

 

[Nightfall]

Smon,

True but you do have such places. I mean Ravenloft is the perfect example. While there might have been power struggles, and the PCs might have PUSHED things on occasion, most of the time the place stays the same.

 

[Trainz]

I was reading the Midnight forums over at againsttheshadow.org, and noted a phoenemon I have seen several times before. Several of the DMs there were arguing that the Night Kings should basically be demigods who the PCs could never hope to confront.

My question is, why? Why is it that no matter how great the quest, how noble the deeds, or how impressive the party may become, DMs will not let you change the campaign world in any meaningful way? The best DMs I have ever observed not only allow this, they encourage it. It is so tiring to finish a campaign in a world with the only difference being the DM now has a few more high level NPCs walking around the world.

Well rest assured there's one DM here that doesn't act like that.

If my PC's, through their action, change an aspect of my world, in a logical and obtained way, I let it happen. In a game I did once, one of the PC's actually had his NPC brother become king of the most important kingdom, and changed quite a few things through his politics. This happened after a very long and extensive campaign, which also had an important war somewhere down the line.

IMHO, doing otherwise, like you stated, disrupts the illusion that the world is real and happening.

 

[Nightfall]

Trainz,

While I don't mean to start a fight, I do think there is something to be said about a "static" world. Just ask the people that play in Kalamar. No matter what they do, they can't kill off the Hobgoblin Empire. I mean yeah your players CAN...but all that means is it only happens in your campaign.

 

[S'mon]

Ah, but where do you draw the line with this? If the GM said 'You can never kill the Gods, period" would that bother you? Theoretically, a good campaign, rule system and GM should be flexible enough so that you could find a Sword of Divine Evisceration +47, but if most people were GMing, the chances would be so miniscule, the path necessary so long and treacherous, that saying "never, period" is simply a linguistic short cut.

I base my campaign approach to the gods primarily on Moorcock's Eternal Champion series, where the gods are super-powerful but definitely killable when they take physical form. Many Earth mythologies have similar approaches, unless you're using a Judaeo-Christian type mythology it's perfectly reasonable. Looking at Tolkien say, the elf Fingolfin severely wounded Melkor, the most powerful non-Overgod in the pantheon! A minor deity like Sauron cowered before the mortal Beren. In a Middle-Earth setting only the overgod Iluvatar should really be unkillable, and Iluvatar is highly abstract - you're not going to meet him physically even on the Blessed Isle.

In another sort of campaign though, deities may be more abstract concepts than 'real'. In REH's own Conan novels there's no evidence that the gods really exist beyond the minds of their worshippers. Conan can't kill Set, because Set (or Mitra) don't really exist, at least in the sense that you and I exist. He can kill any number of demons and monsters that claim to be gods, though.

IMC you can kill the pysical forms of Ilmater, Isis, Aphrodite and any number of fertility-goddesses, but you can't kill the fertility _principle_ with a sword. The beliefs of the people will manifest new incarnations (deities). Same goes for gods of death, war et al - you can kill Ares but you can't kill War (except by ending all war).

 

[LuYangShih]

I do not think any player really expects to change canon for any world, unless they are playing in a campaign with the writers DMing. The campaign you are playing in is the only one that really matters, after all.

Getting back to Midnight and the Night Kings, as examples, I really dislike the stance that certain DMs take that equate to "Your character never can achieve the great deeds or status of characters like these". Why can't the PCs be just as heroic/wicked and great as the prime NPCs of a campaign? I can understand if it is difficult, or even nearly impossible, but the possibility should be there.

 

[Nightfall]

Smon,

This just illstrates the differences in some places as well as people's feeling on god killing. For me, it is a case by case setting. I mean if someone wants to kill Vecna,I say go for it. If however they wanted to kill "God" in Testament...might be a tad more difficult.

 

[Nightfall]

I do not think any player really expects to change canon for any world, unless they are playing in a campaign with the writers DMing. The campaign you are playing in is the only one that really matters, after all.

Getting back to Midnight and the Night Kings, as examples, I really dislike the stance that certain DMs take that equate to "Your character never can achieve the great deeds or status of characters like these". Why can't the PCs be just as heroic/wicked and great as the prime NPCs of a campaign? I can understand if it is difficult, or even nearly impossible, but the possibility should be there.

Lu, that is so, but some players DO want the opportunity to break stuff.

Also while the possibility might be there...the chances are far greater of inspiring someone to act on the PCs' noble instincts and have them soar to greater heights. But hey if you want them to run a kingdom, you go right ahead.

 

[S'mon]

Smon,

True but you do have such places. I mean Ravenloft is the perfect example. While there might have been power struggles, and the PCs might have PUSHED things on occasion, most of the time the place stays the same.

What matters is the (apparent) possibility that the PCs can effect some kind of meaningful change. I'm not a big fan of the general concept of Ravenloft. I did enjoy GMing Masque of the Red Death, but I kept making up stats for the Red Death and thinking of ways the PCs might be able to defeat/banish it (thus Saving the World). In GMing Call of Cthulu I kept thinking of ways the PCs might be able to drive back the Old Ones (of course it'd be Insanely difficult). If I ran a game in an Orwellian universe like Blake's 7 or Paranoia I'd never tell the players "No, you can't defeat the Federation/Computer", I'd let them try and 99% they'd die trying, but you never know. Real people on Earth have done equally amazing things, after all. It might not seem so in hindsight, but during the 'August coup' in 1991 it seemed highly unlikely that Boris Yeltsin could prevent the return of Soviet dictatorship and save the world from a new Cold War. I think most people thought he'd be killed. He did it anyway.

 

[Nightfall]

Smon,

True, but also in 1991, people didn't think much of a guy named Saddam that US had put up in Iraq in the 70s...and now look were we are.

But I do agre outright telling people you can't do something, isn't up to the DM. The possiblity should be there...but I guess for me, you also come to realize after you get the door slammed in your face a few dozen times, you get the idea they aren't going to let you in... That's how I see the whole ordeal with the Night Kings.