Orc Quest; or, A Critical Examination of Agency Through in Interactive Fiction (Warcraft)
- Thread starter FractiousDay
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- Fantasy
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Just to be clear thumbs up on that.
And my problem with the above is that I want to be able to bitch about say Kul Tiras without having to worry that it will influence our character to dislike Kul Tiras beyond his interactions with them.
This is probably always going to be an issue to some extent, but if we've got to make the choice for our character to do something out of character then I want it to be a character moment. Not
But things like turning steadily more down the path of dark shamanism with seemingly only little intentional input from the character. A single choice one that mostly backfired by my recollection, is not enough to send the character down that route especially when in pretty constant contact with other non dark shamen.
Furthermore, a pretty significant issue is that there's just not enough people talking. There was under a page of discussion for a single turn, much of which was voting that is not enough to be worth it. if you're drawing on that for a monologue then it gives a fair disproportionate weight on our PC's internal thoughts out side of actual decision making.
What reason is there that you couldn't do that anyway? You're a good writer (unlike me). The character was created with honourable etc. there is no reason for his desires to vacillate at all without there being a damn good reason. There are quest protagonists who are just empty vessels for the player fantasies, but the best ones do have characterisations that evolve all the time while exposing them to our whims, but those whims are decided by our choices and then arguing about them around them. I get the appeal of the system, but the issue is the dissonance between player intent and QM interpretation, even more so than normal. Something I say I intended as hyperbole could end up influencing the character for the rest of the quest which is fine, but as part of a vote. I'm always fine with decisions coming to bite in the arse, but that's the thing I want it to be an intentional decision.
The above is an example. I don't know if you've taken his statement to inform his internal thought processes, and I personally am not willing to trust that you have not.
Start some self justificationist diatribe because one commentor (who due to the very small number of commentors is one of the only opinions you're drawing from which is another big issue). Maybe you are just joking, I don't know and I don't like that I don't know.
Regardless reaction to this. Correction then we're no longer part of the burning blade then, what with being expliclty told "yeah don't go to the shadow cleft they'll fucking kill ya."
In short right now it seems its going to be a race to see if the Burning blade elders string us up by our entrails, or if Thrall exiles us then they string us up by our entrails.
I stopped actively participating because this thread is just too much effort, but yeah no kidding being a dick, torturing people, consorting with the fel and induldging in stereotypically orcish things of being as evil as fucking possible to everyone would end badly for you who knew!? Its only like its never worked out for the ****ing orcs why would that change now!
- Location
- United States of America
Idk, I think the "Naively idealistic and blind to the consequences of our choices yet still as pragmatic and domineering as FelDad is" has been a pretty fair aggregate of the thread as far as MC agency and subconscious thought has gone. I think it's pretty neat actually.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't see a problem with influencing the character to an extent. The idea, if I understand correctly, is not to pick a random comment as "this is the opinion of the character", but to get a "feel" for things from the discussion. Discussions on in-character motivation or reasoning for a vote should have a bit more weight, but even those they can be countered by other posters. The author can pick any element, or none of them.
Grok'mash acted like a member of a fantasy nation at war with another, without knowing how evil some things used by his side are. Wrong? Of course. Disastrous? Ditto. "as evil as possible?" The BB Elders for sure, we were just dumb more than anything else.
rich powerful quick" schemes can backfire. Characters and motivations and quester ideas are not perfect.
Are there any Elders from Dreadmist Peak left? Methinks not. The last one is the one we kicked forward to allow the Fel demon to fight the Earth elemental. Conclusion: lol, problem solved (possibly).
well, we saw all of this from an Orc-ish perspective. We didn't go out of our way to stop it because: Neeru tells Grok'mash that the Fel is cool; the Elders take their own decision; and we did not really have an idea of the amount of horror that would be unleashed (now we do. And more importantly, the character does. The next decisions will be different).
Grok'mash acted like a member of a fantasy nation at war with another, without knowing how evil some things used by his side are. Wrong? Of course. Disastrous? Ditto. "as evil as possible?" The BB Elders for sure, we were just dumb more than anything else.
I was under the impression that Proudpeak was eaten by the Fel demon. If an Earth elemental is going to bother Orgrimmar, it's going to be the other one that the Centaurs summoned IMO
Seconded. Actions have consequences, especially prevarication and destruction, and "get
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- Location
- United Kingdom
So instead of making some specific points I'll try to keep this general as a lot of it's linked. Firstly, I'll say that I'm certainly pretty new to the questing scene in general, so some of this might just be adaption. I do have some specific objectives rather than this being a normal quest, and some of them have succeeded and others not so much.
I do intend to have more character driven stuff in future, rather than necessarily having votes for it, though that'll obviously be dependant on the issue. For example I was considering a scene at some point which established whether Grok takes the fel or not, but I wasn't sure whether to write it or have it voted for.
On the numbers of people voting and talking, I can't really do anything about this, and I do want to take views into account in some fashion though, even if that's from the vocal minority. I would indeed like more people to comment, but that's not currently happening so yea.
I also though won't take views which aren't supported in narrative. I mentioned Kul Tiras, the current actions in the quest wouldn't, for example, merit Grok flying into a rage every time he sees an anchor, nor would I expect to take one person's view and spin that into some core part of Grok's character. So far the main points are those established in character creation, and pursued by the thread, such as being honourable, wanting to be a samurai, wanting to revive the blademasters, wanting to oppose Garrosh and so on. All those have pretty consistently been remarked upon, rather than more minor things like not liking Kul Tiras
Comparably though, Dark Shamanism has been supported extensively in the quest so far. I've written at least 1 infopost on it and had a lot of focus generally in the narrative. At least a few people are aware of shaman in general and would be aware of dark shaman too. I've had two characters (one of them yours from character creation) directly say 'hey youre doing it wrong'. Grok has been reading the Flamebender's Tome, specifically a book written by and for Dark Shaman, he's practiced stuff in it, hung around with the Burning Blade's warlocks and former shaman, as well as been taking tuition from Kardris, who is one of Garrosh's Dark Shaman in a boss battle in Cata, and frequently pursing methods to subjugate elementals such as Proudpeak. Dark Shamanism has to be confronted with any character involved in shamanism as its a notable element of the tradition and has some interesting narrative effects. For example, if Angrais had indeed won as the character created I would have probably pushed toward Mauradon and had some confrontation there where Angrais realises she's been serving the elements for years etc but as it turns out the elements are hostile and are responsible for the centaur being warlike and similar (all canon).
As for the difficulty in participating the quest, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this, so would welcome some more detail. I'm aware this is different and possibly more effort sometimes than other quests, but I'm interested in making it easier to participate in so that people come and join and participate. I've sometimes been leaving bolded notes, such as clear statements in a summary of a chapter, so if this sort of thing is useful I don't mind doing it more, but also in general thanks for your points!
hapcelion
The Abyss gazed back
- Location
- n/a
honestly, at this point, I see Grok as having seen some of the uglier sides of Dark shamanism and fel powers that, after having this crushing defeat and having the elements abandon them, I think it would be in character for him to reflect on maybe reconsidering his approach to dealing with elementals and not having his clan delve too far into the fel arts.
I'm sure we'll have enough time to think about that in our exile. Said exile is also the perfect chance to get a bike and start a punk rock band.
Speaking of which, Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols is a little shorter than average, no? There is our archetype!
- Location
- United Kingdom
Not necessarily blind, but rather unwilling to accept the consequences.
You were in command, you are the heir of your clan and have the greatest social rank. You are aware of demons and knew what they were doing. Sure I turned up the horror dial a bit to emphasise the consequence of the choice rather than just 'oh then a big demon came down and stomped the centaur' but in character you would have known about the consequences, though as above not necessarily wanted to accept them
Haven't decided on this yet. I'm thinking of making it a fairly extreme binary choice between 'forswear any elemental stuff in general as an apology and in horror of what you've done' and 'complete breakdown into evil'. Not quite that extreme I suppose but yea I am wondering whether to write this out in character as the author or to offer it as some sort of vote. But yea, exile is probably around there, certainly when Thrall finds out what you've done
Xilentxium
Existential Crisis Management
- Location
- Temperate Regions
Yeah that had heavy " I like you don't go to school tomorrow" vibes
Grok'mash Silverhand when?
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Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Character-driven stuff is one thing, character development is quite another. Yes often times we are given choices which are essentially foregone conclusions because the questers can be relied upon to do one thing, but its the choice which is important. I get that one of the things you're trying to examine is agency and connections, but we still need that agency and we need to be in control of agency at least to making a major choice like "do we embrace pure evilum" no matter how in character it is.
I'm not saying you can do anything about it, I'm bringing it up as a reason for why I don't like it and why I think it exacerbates the issues already present.
And I think that's missing the point, just because I express annoyance with something myself does not mean I want him to reflect my annoyance! I am trying to play for things I want, but I also want to do that by playing as him. As you said those things were established at the start of the quest, good they do not need reaffirmation by quest concensus if there's a reason for him to change them due to the story then we will also pick up on that. That's the advantage roleplaying experiences rolls good or bad can send it off in random directions and the consequences of choosing to stick to the path or bend with the wind are well just that.
As for the dark shamen stuff yeah I noticed. Its on me to an extent I suppose I did stop engaging for reasons I'll come to in a bit, but I guess I assumed people would also take advantage of our own advantages. Then again I remember the **** show of another quest where the same assumption was made so I guess the take away is always assume that people will blithly take the evilium when its not shouted in their faces "HEY THIS IS FUCKIN EVIL GUYS!"
I am being hyperbolic above yes and I apologise its not directed at anyone person in particular and I'm certainly not innocent in this regard, but its still face-palm-inducing!
Alright, participation, yes its much more of a chore to actually get the correct answers to the questions you are tying to pose, it is also rather frustrating to then get a listing of all things we could have done differently. The Darkstorm thing springs to mind, where you dumped everything with few specifics, and practically tutted about all the things they didn't think about because they didn't know they were options! They didn't mention Mak'gora well I certainly wouldn't have assumed that was an option with a traitorous goblin warlock, didn't consider asking the other locals one person considered them likely for the reason that nobody would have thought the guys who hate the orcs with a passion would be interested in helping them on this one demons or no.
These are things we the people behind the screen making the deceisions do not know, but I'm assuming they were things Grok would have it would have been nice to know the possibilities even if Grok's character means he does not think they're likely to work like Mak-Gora. Surely the honorable one would at least consider it, but no it was not part of his inner monologue.
Then for me personally pretty much every option so far has been extraordinarily unsatisfying because we are always fucking wrong. Stay and help the trolls, dad's pissed at us, try the elements we're evilly so its not only shit it and evil, try to beat a goblin, we won because not because of any good performance on our part we won because he sucked. It sucks motivation out of me wanting to engage in something where every good thing we do is "oh but you also failed XYZ."
To clarify I know we win, but obviously, we do. Thing is about winning verse loosing, I at least tend to focus on the negatives way more than the positives, especially when put side by side as the negatives taint the positives almost beyond repair. Meanwhile the only unambiguous victories we've had are generally training which are miniscule boosts and even those are usually screwed over by "ahh if you weren't using it for EVULLLL" and "AHH, but the power you got from it is shiiiiiiiiit." Exaggerated for effect, but the point stands.
And let me explain I like how the peak went down, I'm happy with it but I'm fine with how it went down it felt like things spiraled out of control its consequences for actions and something we bought at quest start for shines (which is another issue, but long time ago now) came into effect. I don't mind this loss, I mind that we loose even when we in.
This is not helped by the fact that you are rolling, but the rolls are completely meaningless. The reason we have DCs is so we can gauge what actions we should take. Its one thing to not tell us what they are when the consequences are small like the individual rolls in a fight where one roll may not kill the PC its another thing to do them for the main turn actions, its even worse when you set the DC's after you roll them. I am trying to do this casually, so I am not interested in using my brain to estimate "how likely are these people to want me dead if I try to talk them rolling an unaltered d100." DCs are helpful numeric summaries of the narrative which helps inform people how best to develop it going forwards (as an aside note I'm just the kind of person that gets anxious seeing stuff rolled in thread, but that's not a problem I'm just a weirdo like that.)
Which speaks to another issue TIM. Yes its very impressive you can keep it all in your head, and you do your best to communicate it, but the fact remains its neat to have summaries to refer back too. Like a character sheet, however it is one that is near devoid of information on the characters, character and when names of other characters turn up I don't goddamn idea who they are. They may have been introduced before, but on average I won't remember them.* To clarify TIM of stuff we're supposed to remember, TLI of stuff we could use to make decisions.
*Its a similar problem for people like dark shamen person, as I have learned the hard way access to resources like a wikia does not mean that people will actually take advantage of them if they realize they're a canon character at all.
There's more, but I'm droning the hell on.
TLDR: To me at least the quest is overly complicated because it has very little in the way of mechanics but relies on players having a good grasp of the setting's lore and what's going on in the game at that very moment, requires too much focus and concentration for what is essentially a hobby. Its a game that is reliant upon information, but also seems to not give us that information either IC or OOC, instead keeping it bare bones and for me worst of all constant negative reinforcement.
I'm fine playing a game that I loose I hate playing a game where I loose despite or because I win.
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- Location
- USA
It's rare in a quest for consequences like this to happen.
I for one am finding it a breath of fresh air!
I for one am finding it a breath of fresh air!
Indeed. Like, we nuked a mountain. At what, level 2 or 3? That's p. impressive.
Huh.
I wonder if we can use that to put a positive spin on this whole story.
- Location
- Pee Pee Poo Poo
So that fel thing will fix the main characters muscle deficiency right? The dad seemed kind enough and skilled to do this harmlessly.
Annatar
Lord of Gifts
- Location
- Pittsburgh
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Possibly. It might just mutate us into a Fel Orc if we aren't lucky. It might also require us to drain the souls and life force of others to increase our own. Which I think we should avoid right now.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
No you're wrong.
A lot of quests do consequences, they do em very well. This quest is not unique in this regard and I am eternally annoyed that so many people go on about how quests don't ever give people consequences.
Yes and probably turn him into an evil sea cucumber, or did you just miss how to get use out of fel required the sacrifice and torture of around 12 people to make a monster which proceeded to back fire magnificently.
No no no. There are no harmless uses of fel, it is not an option it should never been on the table to begin with.
What do you mean right now. It should be an option full stop.
Its pretty common sensical that the stuff which fuels the army of the apocalypse should not be shoved into your body, especially when it was responsible for turning your entire species into even bigger monsters than they already were, doubly so when its use requires the mutilation of others to fuel itself.
Its almost like its hecking evil and using it never ends well in the end.
So no lets not take the evil routes to power that the shit that took the already existing mess and has made it 20* worse.
For the idealism of wanting to "not be like Grommash" currently we're managing to speed run his worst traits and more (at least he had the common sense to kill the warlocks) the main difference is we are not even 1/100th as competent and are slightly more polite.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Maybe, but if the name Hakaar is uttered lob their head off.
And again, mr expert in tainted gifts, not just to drain life force use full stop.
Annatar
Lord of Gifts
- Location
- Pittsburgh
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
I mean I defiantly don't want to even approach actually using the Fel. Learning about it and it's capabilites yes but not using it.
Yeah no interacting with Hakkar or Gahuun would be bad. But blood magic can also be used on yourself, sacrificing some of your own blood for a big boost in strength or speed would be really useful. And would combo well with our existing skill set as a Blademaster. Too bad we don't have Troll regeneration for better sacrifices, but I suppose potions and healing magic will have to do...
- Location
- United States of America
Are you salty because we lost the battle or are you salty because you feel like we didn't have enough player agency? I'm getting some major Marked For Death Killbox aftermath flashbacks rn. I ask this non-judgmentally as it's totally ok to feel salty.
If it's bc player agency I feel like a lot of what happened was a natural result of our long-term choices:
We frequently chose to personally abstain from the Fel but normalized it's use in the clan
We wanted to take on more responsibility, but decided against burning political capital to be more in charge in favor of letting people do what they wanted
We deliberately chose to channel the elements a different way than everyone else we talked to in favor of our own clan traditions.
As per the battle, war doesn't limit itself to level-appropriate Challenge Rating. For as green as we were I think we actually did pretty respectively for 1 person in a huge brawl.
Edit: I actually think we did fantastically well. We facetanked the enemy front line for hours, wrecked centaur champions, managed to not immediately get ganked by the army-killer demon while exhausted, and cultivated enough personal loyalty and honor to try and save blade bro instead of running away and have him choose to save us at cost of his life
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- Location
- PA
...In as far as Lore goes...My understanding of Warcraft's Lore is mostly locked to the WC3 era. And...
Personally? I think it depends on what comes next, and HOW the fall of this clan base goes down. Thrall likely will exile us because we took the Leadership slot, we upset the Elements to the point that the Centaur could lean on their Earth Connection, to fight against us.
...But I suspect the ACTUAL problem is...Well...
Most people don't pay attention TO WoW lore to begin with. So it's an unfamiliar world to the playerbase, and thus one where we don't entirely understand what we're talking about.
Like...Being a Peon. I mentioned that awhile back, but I'm trying to recall if it was JUST a job or something deeper, because I think there were Chargen options for that, if we wished to go down that route...On second check- no, it's a social class sort of thing but like...
I suspect the problem was being an Unfamiliar setting, or at least unfamiliar in the sense that most people don't think about the day-to day but think about highlights like Arthas's Homecoming post-Northerend, we weren't really in a great position to pay attention and LEARN properly what Horde culture/how to think around politics. And for most people, they'll need the time to get up to speed...And more problematically, while we weren't keen on Falling, at least not at first, I suspect we started going with the flow towards Fel because hey, it sure seems like we're falling flat or not getting respected for some reason, maybe we DO need the boost?
But...What I think really was going on was the Burning Blade successfully...I think the term I want is brainwashing us? Constantly mocking and deriding us for trying to walk an 'honorable' path, when we ask about Shamanism we got fed Dark Shamanism, with Proudpeak, Baneshadow's blade being broken, and that fire elemental getting snuffed as a result...Like we HAD the tip-off that trying to do Shamanism wouldn't go well due to the Burning Blade upbringing, but we just took it as local to that area and didn't think about it further...
Like, I think we mostly failed to really consider what it MEANT for us to try learning Dark Shamanism where and when we did. I maybe half-understood we should get away from the Burning Blade clan, but didn't have great plans for doing so that wouldn't basically be farting off from our responsibilities. It didn't help that FelDad was making a Point of exerting his influence on us whenever he could, cleverly bouncing us between him and the clan to erode our desire to seek out other sources, after we very much went Rouge on him earlier.
Personally? I think it depends on what comes next, and HOW the fall of this clan base goes down. Thrall likely will exile us because we took the Leadership slot, we upset the Elements to the point that the Centaur could lean on their Earth Connection, to fight against us.
...But I suspect the ACTUAL problem is...Well...
Most people don't pay attention TO WoW lore to begin with. So it's an unfamiliar world to the playerbase, and thus one where we don't entirely understand what we're talking about.
Like...Being a Peon. I mentioned that awhile back, but I'm trying to recall if it was JUST a job or something deeper, because I think there were Chargen options for that, if we wished to go down that route...On second check- no, it's a social class sort of thing but like...
I suspect the problem was being an Unfamiliar setting, or at least unfamiliar in the sense that most people don't think about the day-to day but think about highlights like Arthas's Homecoming post-Northerend, we weren't really in a great position to pay attention and LEARN properly what Horde culture/how to think around politics. And for most people, they'll need the time to get up to speed...And more problematically, while we weren't keen on Falling, at least not at first, I suspect we started going with the flow towards Fel because hey, it sure seems like we're falling flat or not getting respected for some reason, maybe we DO need the boost?
But...What I think really was going on was the Burning Blade successfully...I think the term I want is brainwashing us? Constantly mocking and deriding us for trying to walk an 'honorable' path, when we ask about Shamanism we got fed Dark Shamanism, with Proudpeak, Baneshadow's blade being broken, and that fire elemental getting snuffed as a result...Like we HAD the tip-off that trying to do Shamanism wouldn't go well due to the Burning Blade upbringing, but we just took it as local to that area and didn't think about it further...
Like, I think we mostly failed to really consider what it MEANT for us to try learning Dark Shamanism where and when we did. I maybe half-understood we should get away from the Burning Blade clan, but didn't have great plans for doing so that wouldn't basically be farting off from our responsibilities. It didn't help that FelDad was making a Point of exerting his influence on us whenever he could, cleverly bouncing us between him and the clan to erode our desire to seek out other sources, after we very much went Rouge on him earlier.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Yeah that's good lets do that.
Nope. As I said I liked the battle.
I agree 100% we did fantastically for what it was. If it weren't for mr kneevil turning up then we may have been able to turn it around and we brought him on ourselves ages ago. I'd have been a little annoyed if I didn't know something was coming from that quarter and it genuinely had come out of no where, but as you said challenge rating appropriate stuff isn't natural. This has its caveats, but in this case those do not apply.
Anyway, point is no I have many more issues with things that came before this, but the battle is one of the only times where our choices mattered and the ending was "good" because it was just a defeat. Its not a put down kidney punch disguised as one it was just fundamentally a fuck up.
The munchkiner in me is annoyed that we've basically lost all the progress we've obtained since the start of the quest in a single stroke and then some cause we're going to be punished additionally by losing access to all resources if we even get out of this alive from either the burning blade or Thrall, but with luck this will get us TF away from the horde.
Not sure about the first one I'm not sure we have any control over the clan's use of the fel, but the other two certainly.
If I had been more engaged I would have also argued hellishly against the dark shamanism, but well that's on me. This in part the result of the dumb decision to keep go along with the obviously evil and less powerful thing and not committing.
Also what is the Kill Box? Cause I don't play that quest...
You're damn right they don't. Hell I thought I knew a fair amount about it and I seem to have unintentionaly blinded myself to the fact that the orks are essentially irredeemable as a culture/species.
This is an issue that applies to a lot of quests, how many people where here for Marienberg in Dynasty? And not only do people do things because they're unfamiliar with the lore, even when it is very readily available they then double down on the decision rather than admit they were wrong.
As for the rest I 100% agree, that the agent of the burning legion was indeed attempting to successfully gas light and brain wash us into becoming his pawn who knew. When combined with the generally toxic culture of the horde in general and the burning blade in particular.
In general its the kinda thing that is obvious either with hindsight or thought in the moment, but the issue is a lot of the time we're not here to exercise our grey matter like that and sometimes even you scream it in people's faces they won't notice it.
Thank you very much for helping to explain in words I could not why I disliked so much of the burning blade segments.
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- Location
- Italy
I have to agree with Doomed Wombat on some of those criticisms,
I am actually fine with our comments being used to create internal monologue and drive character thought, It's an experiment to be sure but I'd like to see what can be done with the idea, although you have to keep in mind that we're not in Grok'mash's head like you are as the writer so our opinions might not always make sense in character.
And yes what I agree the most on is: DCs are important, we cannot really make good choices consistently or even on purpose if we don't know the likelyhood of success, at the same time this makes making bad choices feel even more frustrating because we don't even know if things could have gone differently, for example could slightly better dice rolls have resulted in a good outcome in the previous battle? Keep in mind that doesn't mean we need to know (or indeed should know) the likelyhood of EVERY possibility, there are some things one cannot reliably know in advance after all, but the lack of a DC would be a warning sign in itself atleast, rather than the norm.
Now I understand that DCs can get in the way of the narrative, and they do a bit, but they are a necessary evil if you want to use a dice rolling system.
Alternatively DCs and Dice rolling could be scrapped altogether in favor of a more narrative system but that would turn the quest into something different and I'm not sure that's what you'd like and I admit that that would take away some of the fun of the quest by taking away randomness and some of the suspense and I'm not sure the quest would be better off for it.
I am actually fine with our comments being used to create internal monologue and drive character thought, It's an experiment to be sure but I'd like to see what can be done with the idea, although you have to keep in mind that we're not in Grok'mash's head like you are as the writer so our opinions might not always make sense in character.
And yes what I agree the most on is: DCs are important, we cannot really make good choices consistently or even on purpose if we don't know the likelyhood of success, at the same time this makes making bad choices feel even more frustrating because we don't even know if things could have gone differently, for example could slightly better dice rolls have resulted in a good outcome in the previous battle? Keep in mind that doesn't mean we need to know (or indeed should know) the likelyhood of EVERY possibility, there are some things one cannot reliably know in advance after all, but the lack of a DC would be a warning sign in itself atleast, rather than the norm.
Now I understand that DCs can get in the way of the narrative, and they do a bit, but they are a necessary evil if you want to use a dice rolling system.
Alternatively DCs and Dice rolling could be scrapped altogether in favor of a more narrative system but that would turn the quest into something different and I'm not sure that's what you'd like and I admit that that would take away some of the fun of the quest by taking away randomness and some of the suspense and I'm not sure the quest would be better off for it.
hapcelion
The Abyss gazed back
- Location
- n/a
If, as I assume, we've had our eyes opened to the flaws in our clan and society a bit more from this instance, we should do what we can to prevent others from falling into the same pitfalls, perhaps reflect philosophically/politically on what we can do to change the current social status quo.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Indeed. It's actually one of the quest elements I liked.
Yes, we've been told this is not how you shaman, but then others told us "hey, it's just, like, their opinion, man", and that there exist different schools of shamanism. Our frustration with learning more traditional methods (where people took one look at us and refused to teach us), coupled with the luck of finding an entire instruction manual on the subject, led us smoothly down this path. Sure it may be a tome with some capital E stuff, but it comes with the territory of being of the Burning Blade, and you don't look a gifted and time-restricted shiny in the mouth.
Combine it with traditional orcish deference to authority and respecting strength no matter where it comes from (it was a part of the speech we gave to our father!), and breaking the Elements upon our knee because our dad's book and clan traditions said so in order to compensate for our deficiencies elsewhere was just a natural conclusion.
That said, is it actually something we did "wrong"? Is our current predicament because we mistreated the Elements somehow? I don't think it even makes the top 5 list of our issues. Even after the battle going the way it did, I am inclined to look elsewhere for the reasons, and not sure if I want to foreswear the practice. I don't know if we are even capable of getting there in a different way anymore.
I would agree with not being aware of the available options impeding my participation in the quest, despite me still being interested enough to keep reading it. Being presented with "here is the list of the assets you have, now go forth and use it" is not particularly appealing. Most write-in options are built upon pre-existing choices that the players understand enough to know where they fall short.
As for the last few chapters, I think we were made to deal with a problem that is massively above our pay grade, both as characters and players. I don't feel too broken up about it. I am not even sure what we could have done to tackle a legion of Kolkar. I mean, it all stemmed from this action which we were more or less required to take.
We have forced them to attack us alright, and the rest is history. Literally.
Edit: also, did our dad just kill off the leadership/elders that were opposing him while conveniently taking a
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- Location
- PA
As I see it, our mistake could be argued as MY mistake-namely, I came up with a plan for ProudPeak that was standard Shamanism, but not DARK Shamanism.
That's an important difference, and one to pay attention to- it means no ProudPeak/Demon Kaiju-fight, leaving us with nothing but Akinos when that Dark Hunter Jube'thos came for our heads. Instead, maybe enough of the Burning Blade survives that we could fight back against the Dark Hunter, Yes we'd have FelDad, but the fact that we got through that with No Fel means we've genuinely earned power and respect on our own, instead of simply getting to ah, 'clean up an unfortunate situation'. Because that fight with Dark Storm?
That I think was 100% rigged. That's why it was so easy. He was out there, with insufficent supplies and men, so he could be easily knocked over to ensure we'd feel satisfied with our martial prowess. I saw the desiring of the prisoners as Sacrifices partially as him trying to make sure the bodies are buried and the dead orcs could not tell their tales.
Well.
FelDad got what he wanted, I think.
That's an important difference, and one to pay attention to- it means no ProudPeak/Demon Kaiju-fight, leaving us with nothing but Akinos when that Dark Hunter Jube'thos came for our heads. Instead, maybe enough of the Burning Blade survives that we could fight back against the Dark Hunter, Yes we'd have FelDad, but the fact that we got through that with No Fel means we've genuinely earned power and respect on our own, instead of simply getting to ah, 'clean up an unfortunate situation'. Because that fight with Dark Storm?
That I think was 100% rigged. That's why it was so easy. He was out there, with insufficent supplies and men, so he could be easily knocked over to ensure we'd feel satisfied with our martial prowess. I saw the desiring of the prisoners as Sacrifices partially as him trying to make sure the bodies are buried and the dead orcs could not tell their tales.
Well.
FelDad got what he wanted, I think.