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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 7403726" data-attributes="member: 21169">I think the game contained some Story Before elements, to use the terminology  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] introduced upthread, and most of the journals are Story After. In my view there wasn't any Story Now. The Story Before components take the form of dramatic scenes, such as Pix's clairvoyant visions, and other reveals that Paul must have prepped beforehand. Pix's endpiece, which gives an account of Paul and the Professor's death, and the split between Mark and the rest of the team, is powerfully written. Tragedy or pathos would probably be a more appropriate term for it than bathos imo. I got quite emotional when Pix describes a young child we had previously saved among the mourners at the Professor's funeral.The way I believe Paul preps rpgs is to start from a detailed simulationist base. He then translates that into something that will work as a game (for example he doesn't just have the bad guys murder all the PCs in their sleep) and he also adds some 'units' of storytelling. The really noticeable storytelling - the complete scenes - became more frequent and more dramatic late on in the DGC. Two involved the deaths of members of the Brotherhood at the hands of the Fallen. The most dramatic of all was Paul's death, which had been foreshadowed by a precognitive dream much earlier in the campaign. The in-game Paul attempted to kill several PCs by running us over with a car, then, when he believed he had murdered my PC, took his own life.Paul certainly met us in the middle, in terms of creating content that aligned with our interests and that was a response to our actions, but I think that's true of all rpgs that aren't railroads.I didn't participate in the second phase of the DGC so unfortunately I can't say anything about it. I'd be surprised if it was as dark as the first phase though.</blockquote>

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