Anyone Thought of Doing This? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Anyone Thought of Doing This? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Rake
03-01-06, 02:17 AM Warning: Major spoilers relating to Steven King's Dark Tower series below.

So I'm re-reading the Dark Tower series, and upon reaching the endgame, as fans of the series know, Mr. King himself makes an appearance, revealing that the characters of the novel actually are characters in a novel. This made me wonder what a D&D campaign (perhaps a 'just for fun' campaign, though still a semi-serious one) in which the PC's realize that they are, in fact, characters at the whim of otherworldly 'players' and a 'game master', and - perhaps more interestingly - at the whim of randomly generated numbers between 1 and 20. An amusing idea, if not a usable one. I'm curious, has anyone ever participated in or run a campaign like this?
InkBlot
03-01-06, 02:31 AM I've always wanted to play a cleric of chaos/chance/luck/law/knowledge/truth/etc. who slowly starts to realize how everything in the universe is ruled by the d20. For example, one day while the party is preparing for the next big mission he realizes how, even in practice against a wooden dummy, the fighter always misses exactly 1 time out of 20. It would be a funny thing used occasionaly to lighten up an otherwise serious campaign, but I wouldn't want to build a campaing around it.

The same could be done with a wizard, but I always prefered to imagine that most wizards already realize this and simply regard it as one of the many bits of esoteric knowledge that allows them to pull the strings of the universe.
Dradjeel
03-01-06, 03:06 AM I don't think it's a very effective hook, really. A sort of one-shot giggle, but no more. It does bring back memories of the "You're in a computer game, Max" bit in Max Payne, though of course the trick of breaking the fourth wall is much older.
Bruunwald
03-01-06, 01:21 PM When I was about thirteen I made up a quick game system for my pals in which we played ourselves in an alternate sort of cyberpunk game reality.

Later, we adapted our D&D game to where the players and the PCs had something of a User/Program personal god relationship, like in Tron.

But it gets to be a bit more complicated than it's worth, I think. It can distract. I still think in the back of my mind, of the player and PC relationship as a sort of mystical one, during the game, but I no longer attempt to make it a game feature.

I do, however, believe that the D&D movie should have been made with this theme. The sort of Neverending Story thing, where the events of the story turn out, in their own way, to be true, but dependent on this otherworldly entity to sustain their existence. That would have been preferable for a game where no two campaigns are alike and any semblance of a solid mythology is taken or left at will: focus on the relationship between the fantastic and the real.
Grand Theft Otto
03-01-06, 05:05 PM Dark Tower Spoilers below, highlight to read.

Actually, the characters are real in the Dark Tower. King is just essentially a radio receiver, getting glimpses of their stories and writing them down. Were it just that, I could ALMOST accept it as being merely lame. However, interjecting himself as some great cosmic importance, while ONCE AGAIN go back to being hit by Bryan Smith cemented it into a black hole of suck. Seriously King, the guy killed himself years ago. Was putting the exact same events in Kingdom Hospital not enough therapy?

I personally HATE stuff like that. Its funny in the Order of the Stick, but thats not meant to be serious. It (and the lame Groundhog Day ending) of the last book nearly ruined the entire series for me. I've always hated the "author's characters"... Lord British in Ultima, and Elminster in forgotten realms stories seem incredibly egotistical inclusions (in particular due to their cheese level of power).

So, unless your storytelling is unto a god, I'd suggest staying away.
DragonDeadite
03-01-06, 05:31 PM Otto got to it before me, but he is correct about the actual book, the OP must not be that far along yet is all! ....and also, if you really look at the way the book is written, the "King" character is still a "character" from an alternate world, rather than the author himself... but that's a bit in-depth for the OPs question. I think anyone who goes with a "fate" concept on their character is doing the same thing, but the idea is pretty nifty. Not sure I'd do it for a serious game, but could be interesting to do.

PS: King even tells you not to read the ending of the book. If you didn't like it, you have no one to blame but yourself for reading it. :P I tell everyone reading the books not to read the ending (per King's suggestion) but I've yet to meet anyone that stopped themselves from reading it.
Wharin
03-01-06, 05:43 PM For what its worth, the first Final Fantasy for the game boy ended pretty much the same way. And for what that's worth, I was pretty deflated after spending that much time on the game just to have the characters fizzle away like that; not to even have the illusion that the characters had their own epilogue after the game.
Grand Theft Otto
03-02-06, 11:51 AM PS: King even tells you not to read the ending of the book. If you didn't like it, you have no one to blame but yourself for reading it. :P I tell everyone reading the books not to read the ending (per King's suggestion) but I've yet to meet anyone that stopped themselves from reading it.

More spoilers below. I dont know how to do the little box thing, so highlight to read.

While I didnt like the ending for Rolad, I could accept it, in a Groundhog Day fashion: he needs to do it "right" and realize that saving the tower should supercede his personal goals. Maybe setting the horn down will give him the sense of completion his personal quest needs, maybe not. What ****** me off about the book most was the colossal letdown of the Crimson King, Flaag's death (which just felt tacked on, like King forgot he needed to kill Flaag off, so cranked out a couple of pages during lunch), and most of all Susannah's ending. I really hate it when a character's experiences fade away. It basically makes their struggles and sacrafices pointless if they no longer remember them. I would have preferred her died and gone to Jake, Eddie and Oy in the clearing than what occured. All of those went down before King tells you to stop. :/
Bruunwald
03-02-06, 12:40 PM Otto got to it before me, but he is correct about the actual book, the OP must not be that far along yet is all! ....and also, if you really look at the way the book is written, the "King" character is still a "character" from an alternate world, rather than the author himself... but that's a bit in-depth for the OPs question. I think anyone who goes with a "fate" concept on their character is doing the same thing, but the idea is pretty nifty. Not sure I'd do it for a serious game, but could be interesting to do.

More Spoiler Stuff from Dark Tower...

Actually, no, I think you got it, but Otto missed something (no offense, Otto).

I think King took great pains to illustrate Eddie's dread at realizing he and his companions were not "real" people, but characters in a book. In fact, he obssessed so long over this that it began to bore me. I think King was being literal there. It wasn't a misunderstanding. Eddie was getting it. So King is not receiving bits of information of factual events, he is actually creating the factual events of another Universe. More evidence of this, is that King's subconscious gets things wrong sometimes and they show up in the story. Also, that works of others authors, comic books and movies are influencing everything. Again, King's subconscious at work.

The focus then shifts to Eddie's realization that King must complete what he is doing in order to make sure that Eddie and his friends can continue their quest. Our Earth does not hang in the balance, but the world of King's works - being shown at this point as a real place - does hang in the balance, as does the Earth that King's stand-in in the books inhabits.

It's like Poe: E.A. Poe liked to expound on how words might actually create worlds through some existential, unconscious ability of the author. To us, they are merely ideas, but on some plane, they come to be.

In the Dark Tower, King's books have created a series of interconnected worlds that exist separate from ours. The King in the books is not our King, but a stand-in for the real King, who exists in the world that is the hub of the Dark Tower worlds. It's not the real Earth, just the "realest" Earth Roland can hope for.

I personally got bored and a bit miffed with the last couple books, as well. I got tired of King being in there. I felt there were a bunch of missed opportunities, where he could have gone down some mind-blowing alley, but instead, took a more bland or obvious turn. It's tough for a lot of us, who loved Roland and Co. for those first four or five, then watched the whole things wrap up in such a seemingly rushed manner.

But enough of me hijacking the thread.
Nytmare
03-02-06, 06:05 PM When I was younger I did something kinda like this in a Rifts game as a throw away joke.

We were knee deep in a kinda silly time travel and dimension jumping story and they ended up on what they quickly saw was modern day Earth outside the building we were gaming in. The characters (of course) rushed inside and charged to the room where we were playing.

What the players weren't expecting was that a bunch of our other friends, who weren't playing in the game, were waiting just outside the door and came crashing into the room wearing bathrobes and cardboard armor and armed with water guns.

Ah my misspent youth.
DeadKeepWalking
03-02-06, 09:00 PM In a few of my games, I have created a group of deities called The Lords of Fate; one for each die type used.
They are tasked with deciding the fate of each being in the world.
One of the Clerics in one of my games, who didn't have a deity, decided to commune with the Lords of Fate. He was surprised to get a "beat around the bush" answer from them, leaving him with the impression, of "Uh... They didn't answer my question." The players figured it out that the Lords of Fate were just the dice, with personalities, and began to think of themselves as the Lords of Fate for their characters, focusing not on "I rolled good/bad," but that they decided to have the character succeed/fail/avoid/suffer whatever happened.
zenlike
03-03-06, 02:42 AM I stopped reading the Dark Tower series with about 150 pages to go. I found the story just becoming more and more rediculous and I just lost interest. Put it down and never picked it up again. Reading this post I'm glad I never finished it.

I believe that as a story element in D&D, unless it is done extremely well, it could be a bad idea.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Rake 03-01-06, 02:17 AM	Warning: Major spoilers relating to Steven King's Dark Tower series below. So I'm re-reading the Dark Tower series, and upon reaching the endgame, as fans of the series know, Mr. King himself makes an appearance, revealing that the characters of the novel actually are characters in a novel. This made me wonder what a D&D campaign (perhaps a 'just for fun' campaign, though still a semi-serious one) in which the PC's realize that they are, in fact, characters at the whim of otherworldly 'players' and a 'game master', and - perhaps more interestingly - at the whim of randomly generated numbers between 1 and 20. An amusing idea, if not a usable one. I'm curious, has anyone ever participated in or run a campaign like this?
InkBlot 03-01-06, 02:31 AM	I've always wanted to play a cleric of chaos/chance/luck/law/knowledge/truth/etc. who slowly starts to realize how everything in the universe is ruled by the d20. For example, one day while the party is preparing for the next big mission he realizes how, even in practice against a wooden dummy, the fighter always misses exactly 1 time out of 20. It would be a funny thing used occasionaly to lighten up an otherwise serious campaign, but I wouldn't want to build a campaing around it. The same could be done with a wizard, but I always prefered to imagine that most wizards already realize this and simply regard it as one of the many bits of esoteric knowledge that allows them to pull the strings of the universe.
Dradjeel 03-01-06, 03:06 AM	I don't think it's a very effective hook, really. A sort of one-shot giggle, but no more. It does bring back memories of the "You're in a computer game, Max" bit in Max Payne, though of course the trick of breaking the fourth wall is much older.
Bruunwald 03-01-06, 01:21 PM	When I was about thirteen I made up a quick game system for my pals in which we played ourselves in an alternate sort of cyberpunk game reality. Later, we adapted our D&D game to where the players and the PCs had something of a User/Program personal god relationship, like in Tron. But it gets to be a bit more complicated than it's worth, I think. It can distract. I still think in the back of my mind, of the player and PC relationship as a sort of mystical one, during the game, but I no longer attempt to make it a game feature. I do, however, believe that the D&D movie should have been made with this theme. The sort of Neverending Story thing, where the events of the story turn out, in their own way, to be true, but dependent on this otherworldly entity to sustain their existence. That would have been preferable for a game where no two campaigns are alike and any semblance of a solid mythology is taken or left at will: focus on the relationship between the fantastic and the real.
Grand Theft Otto 03-01-06, 05:05 PM	Dark Tower Spoilers below, highlight to read. Actually, the characters are real in the Dark Tower. King is just essentially a radio receiver, getting glimpses of their stories and writing them down. Were it just that, I could ALMOST accept it as being merely lame. However, interjecting himself as some great cosmic importance, while ONCE AGAIN go back to being hit by Bryan Smith cemented it into a black hole of suck. Seriously King, the guy killed himself years ago. Was putting the exact same events in Kingdom Hospital not enough therapy? I personally HATE stuff like that. Its funny in the Order of the Stick, but thats not meant to be serious. It (and the lame Groundhog Day ending) of the last book nearly ruined the entire series for me. I've always hated the "author's characters"... Lord British in Ultima, and Elminster in forgotten realms stories seem incredibly egotistical inclusions (in particular due to their cheese level of power). So, unless your storytelling is unto a god, I'd suggest staying away.
DragonDeadite 03-01-06, 05:31 PM	Otto got to it before me, but he is correct about the actual book, the OP must not be that far along yet is all! ....and also, if you really look at the way the book is written, the "King" character is still a "character" from an alternate world, rather than the author himself... but that's a bit in-depth for the OPs question. I think anyone who goes with a "fate" concept on their character is doing the same thing, but the idea is pretty nifty. Not sure I'd do it for a serious game, but could be interesting to do. PS: King even tells you not to read the ending of the book. If you didn't like it, you have no one to blame but yourself for reading it. :P I tell everyone reading the books not to read the ending (per King's suggestion) but I've yet to meet anyone that stopped themselves from reading it.
Wharin 03-01-06, 05:43 PM	For what its worth, the first Final Fantasy for the game boy ended pretty much the same way. And for what that's worth, I was pretty deflated after spending that much time on the game just to have the characters fizzle away like that; not to even have the illusion that the characters had their own epilogue after the game.
Grand Theft Otto 03-02-06, 11:51 AM	PS: King even tells you not to read the ending of the book. If you didn't like it, you have no one to blame but yourself for reading it. :P I tell everyone reading the books not to read the ending (per King's suggestion) but I've yet to meet anyone that stopped themselves from reading it. More spoilers below. I dont know how to do the little box thing, so highlight to read. While I didnt like the ending for Rolad, I could accept it, in a Groundhog Day fashion: he needs to do it "right" and realize that saving the tower should supercede his personal goals. Maybe setting the horn down will give him the sense of completion his personal quest needs, maybe not. What ****** me off about the book most was the colossal letdown of the Crimson King, Flaag's death (which just felt tacked on, like King forgot he needed to kill Flaag off, so cranked out a couple of pages during lunch), and most of all Susannah's ending. I really hate it when a character's experiences fade away. It basically makes their struggles and sacrafices pointless if they no longer remember them. I would have preferred her died and gone to Jake, Eddie and Oy in the clearing than what occured. All of those went down before King tells you to stop. :/
Bruunwald 03-02-06, 12:40 PM	Otto got to it before me, but he is correct about the actual book, the OP must not be that far along yet is all! ....and also, if you really look at the way the book is written, the "King" character is still a "character" from an alternate world, rather than the author himself... but that's a bit in-depth for the OPs question. I think anyone who goes with a "fate" concept on their character is doing the same thing, but the idea is pretty nifty. Not sure I'd do it for a serious game, but could be interesting to do. More Spoiler Stuff from Dark Tower... Actually, no, I think you got it, but Otto missed something (no offense, Otto). I think King took great pains to illustrate Eddie's dread at realizing he and his companions were not "real" people, but characters in a book. In fact, he obssessed so long over this that it began to bore me. I think King was being literal there. It wasn't a misunderstanding. Eddie was getting it. So King is not receiving bits of information of factual events, he is actually creating the factual events of another Universe. More evidence of this, is that King's subconscious gets things wrong sometimes and they show up in the story. Also, that works of others authors, comic books and movies are influencing everything. Again, King's subconscious at work. The focus then shifts to Eddie's realization that King must complete what he is doing in order to make sure that Eddie and his friends can continue their quest. Our Earth does not hang in the balance, but the world of King's works - being shown at this point as a real place - does hang in the balance, as does the Earth that King's stand-in in the books inhabits. It's like Poe: E.A. Poe liked to expound on how words might actually create worlds through some existential, unconscious ability of the author. To us, they are merely ideas, but on some plane, they come to be. In the Dark Tower, King's books have created a series of interconnected worlds that exist separate from ours. The King in the books is not our King, but a stand-in for the real King, who exists in the world that is the hub of the Dark Tower worlds. It's not the real Earth, just the "realest" Earth Roland can hope for. I personally got bored and a bit miffed with the last couple books, as well. I got tired of King being in there. I felt there were a bunch of missed opportunities, where he could have gone down some mind-blowing alley, but instead, took a more bland or obvious turn. It's tough for a lot of us, who loved Roland and Co. for those first four or five, then watched the whole things wrap up in such a seemingly rushed manner. But enough of me hijacking the thread.
Nytmare 03-02-06, 06:05 PM	When I was younger I did something kinda like this in a Rifts game as a throw away joke. We were knee deep in a kinda silly time travel and dimension jumping story and they ended up on what they quickly saw was modern day Earth outside the building we were gaming in. The characters (of course) rushed inside and charged to the room where we were playing. What the players weren't expecting was that a bunch of our other friends, who weren't playing in the game, were waiting just outside the door and came crashing into the room wearing bathrobes and cardboard armor and armed with water guns. Ah my misspent youth.
DeadKeepWalking 03-02-06, 09:00 PM	In a few of my games, I have created a group of deities called The Lords of Fate; one for each die type used. They are tasked with deciding the fate of each being in the world. One of the Clerics in one of my games, who didn't have a deity, decided to commune with the Lords of Fate. He was surprised to get a "beat around the bush" answer from them, leaving him with the impression, of "Uh... They didn't answer my question." The players figured it out that the Lords of Fate were just the dice, with personalities, and began to think of themselves as the Lords of Fate for their characters, focusing not on "I rolled good/bad," but that they decided to have the character succeed/fail/avoid/suffer whatever happened.
zenlike 03-03-06, 02:42 AM	I stopped reading the Dark Tower series with about 150 pages to go. I found the story just becoming more and more rediculous and I just lost interest. Put it down and never picked it up again. Reading this post I'm glad I never finished it. I believe that as a story element in D&D, unless it is done extremely well, it could be a bad idea.