Sunday 22 August 2010

Ahead of the Game

I find myself in an interesting situation. The Pathfinder campaign, sorry, "Adventure Path", is going well; we're almost to the end of the first book, and the inevitable confrontation with the mysterious Stag Lord. This fellow is the mastermind behind the local bandit problem, and is the main obstacle to the settling of the area by civilised folk.

The thing is, I think I know who he is. This isn't through having seen spoilers, or even worse, cheating, but rather that the authors of the first adventure book have laid a number of, to my eye obvious, clues. Which wouldn't be a problem, except I think I know, based on those same clues, how the entire campaign, sorry, "Adventure Path", will turn out.

So that's the interesting situation. It's almost as if I've played the scenario before, so I'm going to remain quiet about what I think I know, in part to not spoil things for everyone else, and in part because my character, the tengu monk, is unlikely to have figured it out. And yet it's not quite like having read the scenario, because it's very possible that I've misread the signs, and the whole thing will go in a very different direction. There's almost another game going on here, a bit of narrative cat-and-mouse, as I find myself trying to out-think the authors.

We should meet (and very quickly eviscerate, if our barbarian continues to prove as effective as she has done so far) the Stag Lord in this week's game, and his unmasking will tell me a lot about the accuracy of my predictions. I can't wait!

3 comments:

  1. We shall see young jedi!! Oops - wrong game system! ;) Is this a bad thing though that you are trying to out-guess what next? even let's say if 50% of your guessing is right, and the other 50% wrong/ 1/2 truths.... is that a bad thing/ good thing? I guess if it all becomes too predictable then this is bad (= dull).... but if everything was random and your intellect could not put the clues together, then surely this would get frustrating.... Hopefully, I have managed to foreshadow enough of parts of the bigger plot to get you interested/ curious, whilst keeping a certain level of mystery as to any bigger picture.... but maybe I have not been devious enough. :S WE SHALL SEE ON SATURDAY!

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  2. Whatever happens, I don't think it's a fault of your running of the game. If there is a fault, it's in the writing, but we shall see.

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  3. well - I guess we will find out soon! However, I am all for giving some hints of story as we progress, to allow for such hypothesising, and more intelligent gaming style and involvement in the story (allowing for pcs to use their knowledge/ guesses to advantage themselves before encounters).....

    but the good news is for you, 50% of your guesses were wrong! ;)

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