Building a Prophecy

[Teh_das]

Greetings, Denizens of the Playground.

I'm running a campaign, and my players are currently level 4. They've explored the world for a few levels and gotten a bearing for the major powers in the region, and I want to introduce them to a major piece of plot.

I want to use prophecy to do this, telling the story of an event long passed, but I've never done one before. Any advice would be appreciated.

[Keltest]

Huh? You want to use prophecy to tell a history lesson? :smallconfused:

What exactly is it you want the players to take away from this, once everything is said and done?

[nedz]

Ways of using a Prophesy:

Write it around your PCs and rail-road the game into making it happen

Your chosen one PC may leave the game
They can easily become Mary-Sues
If you are rail roading this much, is it a game you are running here ?

Write it around your PCs and the players make it happen

Your chosen one PC may leave the game
They can easily become Mary-Sues
Good luck with this one — unless you know your player's really well

Write it around your NPCs and make it happen

Player's don't really care about NPC on NPC action
Your NPCs can easily become Mary-Sues or bad DMPCs if they hang out with the party

Have an NPC use a prophesy as a trick — to get the PCs to do what they want for completely unrelated issues

I have pulled this off. It's hard, but you are lamp-shading the cliché here


Also, did I mention that this kind of plot is a cliché ?

[Saintheart]

Take a good leaf out of the Lego Movie:

One day, a talented lass or fellow,
A special one with face of yellow,
will make the Piece of Resistance found
from its hidden refuge underground.
And with a noble army at the helm,
This Master Builder will thwart the Kragle and save the realm,
and be the greatest, most interesting, most important person of all times.
All this is true, because it rhymes.

[Uncle Pine]

A false prophecy isn't difficult to pull off. This is because even though the players thinks that it's real, it's actually only part of a plan that some NPC is using to manipulate the PCs. A false prophecy can be legitimated if it references to historical events and thus be used to tell your players something about the world they're in without railroading them into an adventuring path (because the prophecy isn't real).

A real prophecy requires more preparation. In general, if you don't want to railroad your players (remember that while telling a story might be rewarding for you, playing a game is rewarding for everyone) you probably want to base the prophecy on characters that can easily be replaced. For example, "Bob the Fighter will slay Dork Baron on the 15th day of spring" is a bad written prophecy because it forces you to:
1) keep Bob alive until he can slay Dork Baron;
2) ensure that Bob doesn't change his mind and turn into a Wizard at some point during his career;
3) be sure that Bob deals the killing blow to Dork Baron, altering Dork Baron's combat statistics (hp) if another party member drop Dork Baron into the negatives;
4) hope that Bob's player doesn't leave the game;
5) orchestrate the campaign so that the duel with Dork Baron happens exactly on the 15th day of spring;
6) hope that Bob doesn't join Dork's side;
7) decide from the start of the campaign that the good guys will win.
"On the thousandth year of the Dork Age, four heroes from the West will rise to find a way to the evil king and end his realm of terror" is a much better prophecy to use because:
1) even though the PCs fullfill the prophecy requirements you aren't forced to keep them alive, because it's not written anywhere that they are the heroes of the prophecy, so you can always pull of another guy from the West if one of the player wants to change his character or leave;
2) the prophecy is vague enough to not rely on the heroes' professions;
3) the prophecy is vague enough to not rely on what hero deals the killing blow;
4) you can always replace the character of a player who leaves the game with a NPC from the West;
5) the prophecy is vague enough to not rely on when the heroes will end the Dork Age, because it simply states when the journey will begin (also, in case of a TPK, you can say that the new party of heroes started their journey on the thousandth year of the Dork Age as well);
6) the prophecy is vague enough to not rely on the heroes's alignment, so if the heroes decide to join Dork's side see 8);
7) the prophecy is vague enough to not rely on you ending the campaign in a specified amount of time;
8) it's not written anywher that the evil king in the prophecy is actually Dork Baron, but everyone assumes he is. After killing or joining Dork Baron, the PCs might find out that a more dangerous and evil opponent plots in the shadow, something so Evil that even PCs who joined Dork's side couldn't hope to make a deal with it.

TL;DR: The vaguer a prophecy is, the better. A good prophecy hints everything without actually tell anything, blowing your mind right at the end. And blowing it again when you discover that the "end" isn't the end at all.

[Andezzar]

TL;DR: The vaguer a prophecy is, the better. A good prophecy hints everything without actually tell anything, blowing your mind right at the end. And blowing it again when you discover that the "end" isn't the end at all.The vaguer (or should it be more vague?) the prophecy is, the less impact it will have on the PCs. Making a prophecy that sounds clear when first reading it, but turns out to mean something completely different in hindsight, but still true to the wording, works a lot better in books or movies than in games.

The whole business with prophecies usually revolves around people taking security/fear in something that the prophecy is not actually in the prophecy but that they erroneously deduce from what's written in the prophecy:" Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall."(Glorfindel's prophecy on the Witch-King of Angmar) So people think he cannot be killed, but in fact it only says that he won't be killed by a man. We all know how that ends.

Insuring that the PCs go for the expected interpretation is a lot harder than just writing that everyone goes for the expected interpretation.

[Uncle Pine]

Insuring that the PCs go for the expected interpretation is a lot harder than just writing that everyone goes for the expected interpretation.

The trick is wording the prophecy so that the PCs and their quest giver(s) think that the PCs are the only ones that can fulfill the prophecy, while in fact you have several contingencies in case something goes wrong.

[Jay R]

I recommend making it a contingent prophecy.

"The Prime Material World will be covered in ice, destroying all life on it unless five people pure of heart and stalwart in their purpose do conquer the evil wizard B'beg, at the end of the Trail of Lesser Encounters found by following the Railroad Mountains."

[Andezzar]

Don't forget that the world will also be covered in ice if B'beg is not destroyed, only later. Once the sun does not shine as bright anymore, it will get cold.