Reveen
Castro-Trudeauist
The thing about power fantasy in SB/SV quests that strikes me as different and kind of stupid compared to any other medium is that they usually don't really jive with having an actual failure state no matter what happens. Like in a non-interactive story the success of the protagonist can be inevitable but still feel compelling and earn due to how it's written. In tabletop games the DM can let you get fucked when you screw up and let you suffer the consequences up to and including killing your character.
With how a lot of quests are handled it's like this weird limbo state between an actual story and a game where you have to give the players options but kind of have to keep moving forward without kicking them in the balls or killing the character outright, just keep letting the players do the cool shit they came to vicariously do. You can't just say, oh what you did was really stupid and got the character killed, everyone fuck off and go home because that would just make people mad.
So instead of writing a story that's carefully constructed to make the peril feel real and the power fantasy feel earned, the writer has to ultimately keep the successes and power fantasy going strong out of any number of dumb actions the voters and write ins want taken and to possibly justify them with bullshit and contrivance. So there's a real chance of the character becoming a ridiculous Mary Sue through sheer weight of stupidity.
I can easily see why this would give the power fantasy present in SB/SV a really different feel than in any other story. Where the competent and power fantasy is just taken for granted without necessarily needing to be earned or built up to on a narrative level.
With how a lot of quests are handled it's like this weird limbo state between an actual story and a game where you have to give the players options but kind of have to keep moving forward without kicking them in the balls or killing the character outright, just keep letting the players do the cool shit they came to vicariously do. You can't just say, oh what you did was really stupid and got the character killed, everyone fuck off and go home because that would just make people mad.
So instead of writing a story that's carefully constructed to make the peril feel real and the power fantasy feel earned, the writer has to ultimately keep the successes and power fantasy going strong out of any number of dumb actions the voters and write ins want taken and to possibly justify them with bullshit and contrivance. So there's a real chance of the character becoming a ridiculous Mary Sue through sheer weight of stupidity.
I can easily see why this would give the power fantasy present in SB/SV a really different feel than in any other story. Where the competent and power fantasy is just taken for granted without necessarily needing to be earned or built up to on a narrative level.
Last edited: