Fortunes and Fate
Fortune Cookie of the Day: "A long time admirer thinks highly of you."
Gosh. Really? I guess that's good. I'd hate for a long time admirer to not think well of me, they might stop admiring me.
So I'm finally testing the waters in the whole New Creation/god campaign on Furryfaire. At the request of one of the players involved, I've made up a new character to act as their mortal "chosen." That should keep me below the firing line of divine ego clashes, I hope, and gives another option of what to do on the MUCK, as things have been often quiet with so much attention diverted to that game.
The campaign started with a bunch of characters getting shunted/pulled/whatever to an infant world and shortly thereafter giving divine power. They started shaping the world and defining the rules of reality there. Then the Elohim were "found" by someone and made their appearance.
I thought it was the sense of "well, you're gods, but there are more powerful ur-gods" that bothered me. And it does, to some extent. It makes things all hazy and begs the question of ur-ur-gods, or just how high the hierarchy goes. Also, people running an "experiment" tend to ruin it by telling the participants what they're doing and what they're looking for.
But I think what really bothers me is the shift in the style and atmosphere of the campaign. Power being thrust upon the unexpecting is interesting. And the campaign opened with a sense of "okay, now you all get to define what's right and wrong amongst yourselves." Okay, that opens the door for a lot of ego-stroking and self-centered creations, but that's part of what makes it so interesting. As an example, someone who's malicious can become a genuinely evil god, and the only counter to it is the other gods.
When the Elohim came and gave their spiel, the whole thing changed. Suddenly, what's "right and wrong" is defined by higher powers of the GM, not the players anymore. "Rules" have been added to what the players do. Those who toe the line are rewarded (with DP). Those who don't may not be punished directly, but the lack of reward is a certain punishment itself. And suddenly there's a threat that anyone who is too subversive or destructive might be smacked down not by peers, but by superior powers. To follow the "evil character" example, now they either have to forgo rewards to continue to be evil, or change their outlook to something more Darwinistic (inflicting hardships for the betterment of the whole). An attempt to destroy everything could potentially result in being killed/depowered by ur-god smiting outright.
The game shifted from giving the players ultimate freedom to something much more normally framed (albeit at a higher tier of power). I'm disappointed because I'll never get to see how the former would really have played out "long-term." Were I actually playing one of the PC-gods, I'd probably be even more let down.
The everything you knew is wrong twist can be good in some stories. It's usually bad policy to introduce it one a rules-level in an RPG, though.
Gosh. Really? I guess that's good. I'd hate for a long time admirer to not think well of me, they might stop admiring me.
So I'm finally testing the waters in the whole New Creation/god campaign on Furryfaire. At the request of one of the players involved, I've made up a new character to act as their mortal "chosen." That should keep me below the firing line of divine ego clashes, I hope, and gives another option of what to do on the MUCK, as things have been often quiet with so much attention diverted to that game.
The campaign started with a bunch of characters getting shunted/pulled/whatever to an infant world and shortly thereafter giving divine power. They started shaping the world and defining the rules of reality there. Then the Elohim were "found" by someone and made their appearance.
I thought it was the sense of "well, you're gods, but there are more powerful ur-gods" that bothered me. And it does, to some extent. It makes things all hazy and begs the question of ur-ur-gods, or just how high the hierarchy goes. Also, people running an "experiment" tend to ruin it by telling the participants what they're doing and what they're looking for.
But I think what really bothers me is the shift in the style and atmosphere of the campaign. Power being thrust upon the unexpecting is interesting. And the campaign opened with a sense of "okay, now you all get to define what's right and wrong amongst yourselves." Okay, that opens the door for a lot of ego-stroking and self-centered creations, but that's part of what makes it so interesting. As an example, someone who's malicious can become a genuinely evil god, and the only counter to it is the other gods.
When the Elohim came and gave their spiel, the whole thing changed. Suddenly, what's "right and wrong" is defined by higher powers of the GM, not the players anymore. "Rules" have been added to what the players do. Those who toe the line are rewarded (with DP). Those who don't may not be punished directly, but the lack of reward is a certain punishment itself. And suddenly there's a threat that anyone who is too subversive or destructive might be smacked down not by peers, but by superior powers. To follow the "evil character" example, now they either have to forgo rewards to continue to be evil, or change their outlook to something more Darwinistic (inflicting hardships for the betterment of the whole). An attempt to destroy everything could potentially result in being killed/depowered by ur-god smiting outright.
The game shifted from giving the players ultimate freedom to something much more normally framed (albeit at a higher tier of power). I'm disappointed because I'll never get to see how the former would really have played out "long-term." Were I actually playing one of the PC-gods, I'd probably be even more let down.
The everything you knew is wrong twist can be good in some stories. It's usually bad policy to introduce it one a rules-level in an RPG, though.
Actually, if the PCs do something right, everyone gets rewarded, not specific people. So either all the gods are rewarded, or all the gods are denied their reward. It would be really bad to do partial rewards.
ReplyDeleteAh. Hmm. Well, that does change things some, though not my general feeling of the situation. There's less carrot, still a hint of stick (though I don't know how likely it actually is for any of the gods to be stripped/killed), but there's still a sudden "right and wrong" provided by superior powers.
ReplyDeleteOnly on the overall arc of things. The gods are fully allowed to ignore this if they wish. The stick part is a lot more subtle than being killed. :)
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, the Elohim provided a GM-given framework of right and wrong, and a goal of sorts. That shoots in the foot any chance for the players to make those decisions. Oh, they still can do what they want for the most part. But take something like totally destroying spirits before souls are reincarnated. Before the Elohim, that might have been "right because we're gods and we said so." Now it's "wrong but we're going to do it anyway" (or "OMG, we should go back and change that"). The PCs still have freedom of action, but they do so within the Elohims' definition of reality instead of their own.
ReplyDelete