Post
by thingsicantdo » Sat Jun 30, 2018 7:50 pm
alright, i'm going to pick apart the plague macguffin (because that's what it usually is. "plague" makes an awful plot, but an adequate way to push characters towards a real plot).
Plague in DnD: first off, it's the same macguffin in NWN chapter 1 (with the actual plot being "find the cures which have inexplicitly been scattered to four of the five districts of the city. oh, and the central hub is conveniently where you turn in your quests"). Now, as people have mentioned, it's cheesy to have gres not fix it. why the hell shouldn't it? it's a disease. cure disease on its own should work unless it's magical.
but, here's the thing. if it were curable through gres or cure disease, it wouldn't be a plague. it would be some weird disease that gets axed in a few hours by some cleric, and forgotten by most in a few more (except for "hey, bob! remember that time you had slugs coming out of your nose and it was hard to breathe? good times!"). a plague setting has to be something that can't be cured with [common] magic, because we start off written into a corner by the setting. one way out is cheese.
ultimately, an inexplicitly incurable plague serves to push the characters towards a plot (fetch this/these object(s), or retrieve this person from a far away land because they're the only one who can fix it, for example). or, it could be a setting shift, if it's not meant to be cured, since it can easily be used to wipe out a large population center that give the main characters too easy of a time.
now, it has some good points and bad points. a good point is that it's a slow acting "end of the world" scenario (EotW doesn't actually have to end the world. it just has to end the world as we know it. wiping out the major city is 'good enough' for that purpose). We can't gauge how long it'll take, but we can push the characters and inspire a sense of urgency with a few deaths. like watching an hour glass deplete, but the top half is opaque, we only know that we have a time limit. this allows the storyteller to give the characters as much time as is needed, without the audience (in this case, the characters are dual roles with the audience) knowing how much or little leeway is given to them.
the bad point is, in this case, is how far reaching it is, while simultaneously not allowing a lot of interaction. it's a disease. you can't fight it. you can't reason with it. you can [seemingly] randomly contract it, but there's no way to really do anything interesting with it. This is mitigatable with a good plot. "gather the ingredients for the cure!" works. It could even be something that involves a lot of people since cordor is a big place and they'll need lots of cure. of course, this requires certain events to transpire, and then role players to actually share the spotlight... that's not a bet i'd put money on, personally, but i'm a bit jaded after doing some "big events" that ended up being server wide, but focused on the same handful of people, anyway.
so, this could still be good. i'm curious how Chiliad handles it, but i won't find out unless it's on the forums. when i see a DM event, i run (not walk) the other way. let other people get the attention instead.
though i do want to note the particular silliness of people who have super-ailments that can't be cured. it's cringy at best. annoying at worst. but i did have a hell of a laugh when i saw a crowd around some mellodramatic character lying on the streets of cordor with 5+ others fawning over her and blocking the roads. some high level cleric got sick of it and cast gres on her and i started laughing. apparently she got a ton of angry tells after that for "ruining the RP." Still, you do you, and have fun
EDIT: i want to apologize specifically to DM Chiliad. i'm mean, and he didn't deserve it. Sorry
Last edited by
thingsicantdo on Sat Jun 30, 2018 10:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.