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Derpy

7:33 AM

@trogdor at least made me think about something

I wonder how you would play out that plot in a rpg tabletop game while still including safety tools

trogdor

8:04 AM

a plot where no one has agency?

4 hours later…

Derpy

11:58 AM

@trogdor sorry for the late answer, was caught up in a meeting

short version. The game I was talking about is a game called The Witch House. The premise is that you are a young girl that is trying to escape from an infested house of a witch. In the end you discover that actually you never had any agency in the outcome of the story.

I can elaborate further if you want but since the chat spoiler "support" is abysmal, please tell me if I can safely comment on the plot of said game.

Derpy

12:28 PM

Anyway, without giving out further details about the plot the idea is that basically:

a) the story is an horror story, so you expect scary things
b) you are given the illusion that what you do will achieve a result - you think that your actions have agency on the outcome.
c) right at the end you discover you never had the ability to change the outcome
d) the outcome you get is disturbing in a way you never expected (even if you knew it was an horror story) and if you knew it would have come to that you would never had played the game

So, the point is that the whole story is built around a central plot twist that is given only at the end but totally changes your agency - and role - in the story.

Now... this is a videogame like I said...

But suppose it was a tabletop rpg game.

I could easily see someone to be perfectly fine with the plot up to the twist, and then get very disturbed by the final outcome.

But I am not sure you can still do something if you played the X card at that point... basically the story is over and there is no room for turning back now.

at the same time, if you talk with your players before to try and see if they are fine with the plot twist... you basically have to give out the twist beforehand.

I guess you could try some vague allusions to "test the water" before you start the game but....

trogdor

1:08 PM

I don't mind spoilers for that

also, yeah the X card might not really do it for that, but there are actually a bunch of other safety tools, some of which let you rewind what happens and change the outcome of something you didn't like

obviously it doesn't fix how you feel about the original outcome but it does allow catharsis and control

Derpy

1:51 PM

@trogdor could do, but I am still uncertain.

Let me explain then.

As I said before....

> The premise is that you are a young girl that is trying to escape from an infested house of a witch. In the end you discover that actually you never had any agency in the outcome of the story.

So, initially you are presented with a scenario: you are a good girl that is trying to escape from an evil witch.

You expect that the horror component of the game is found in the a)infested house and b)the witch.

But then you discover that since it seems that downer ending should be taken for granted with indie horror game, the author decided to totally flip the scenario right in the final scene of the game

You see... You discover that actually the witch and the girl were "friend", and the witch tricked the girl into a body exchange ritual. She did this because the witch is actually very ill, and so she planned to steal the young girl body.

So, basically, you played all the game as the evil character - who in the end wins.

You were given the illusion that you played a role to save the girl, but you never had one. The girl was already lost, by playing the game you are making the evil character win (actually the game goes an extra mile: it is implied that if you DON'T play, the evil still wins by just waiting).

So, if we imagine this as a tabletop game, I am not sure a safety tool can do anything for you since apparently the whole purpose of the game was to make you fell betrayed.

Derpy

2:30 PM

I guess that the anser is that you shouldn't had came to that point in the first place. If you build an entire plot that linger onto "betraying" your players and making them think they are good while in reality they are evil and you only realize they will be annoyed/hurt by this during the game... probably to late and hoping that safety tools will save you is a bit too much?

4 hours later…

V2Blast

6:51 PM

...Oh my

3 hours later…

trogdor

10:02 PM

@Derpy I mean, that is really bad

but also sort of what I am saying is, safety tools are for situations like this

that certainly doesn't mean you should make an RPG scenario like that

but in similar situations the right safety tool will make more difference than you might think

I mean, with some of them, they explicitly allow you to rewind and change a scene

and all you need for that to work is the group not to fight you on it

obviously if they are going to do that the saftey tool doesn't matter but

if not then you don't have to allow endings that you really hate or that even hurt you specifically because of closeness to trauma or wtv other reasons that exist that I can't necesarily think of

but I mean, yeah that kind of stupid ending sucks

and it's not like you can change it in a video game where they literally only made the one ending

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