Fate and the players

[ChaosArchon]

So yesterday I was thinking about how interesting I found the Fae courts from Kingdoms of Amalur (small tangent but I really wish that game had sold better, I quite enjoyed its lore) and how they had these roles called Ballads and their lifes predetermined by the Great Cycle and knew about these roles. One hero knew he wad destined to save the girl just in time, and in the same vein the "villain" of that story was forced to kidnap the girl, even though she knew it was her fate to lose. I found this extremely interesting, and kind of tragic as well that you knew how your life was destined to go but no matter what you did, you can't fight fate.

Now to my question, I was considering making a campaign world were this is a thing, and each of the players has a Role, which would be vague enough for them to create whatever character they wanted but it would still mean eventually they would race certain obstacles, but each Role always ends in a tragic twist, for instance the Lover Role (WIP) would be a person wholly dedicated to love and its affect on the mortal condition and would fall in love with another. They would create grand works of art in the name of their partner and for a time they would be happy, but eventually their partner would leave them for another. Another Role I came up with was the Leader Role, where a person would decide to lead their people in a glorious revolution which would improve their lives and the person would be loved by all their people. However one of their closest friends will betray him, directly causing their death.

I know that sounds sad but here's how I'm hoping the players react, after learning that they are fated to follow one of the mythic Roles they decide to say, "Screw fate, I'm not going to let this happen!" and have the campaign be about them trying to subvert the tragic ending of their story.

Sound interesting? I wanted to run it by people because while in my head it sounds really interesting, I'm not sure how well it would work as a campaign. I'm worried how knowing they will be successful until that end will affect player agency and remove any tension so I came to the Playground to bounce ideas of you guys.

[Grod_The_Giant]

You'd need players who were on-board with that sort of thing, but I bet you could find 'em-- the idea sounds pretty cool.


Also, +1 to Kingdoms of Amalur. I've put waaay too many hours into that game.

[ChaosArchon]

Thanks I like it too, I'm just wondering how it would work out given that they're guaranteed to not die in combat because they have to be alive for their tragic ending

[Grod_The_Giant]

Ah, true. I think you'd need some kind of alternate penalty. Perhaps when you're "killed," you instead take some kind of serious injury that'll hamper you for an extended period of time?

[Kol Korran]

This can work, but under certain conditions:
1) The system needs to be narrativistic in nature, and have a way of avoiding death. This can't work in a gamist or simulationist game for example, since then you constantly need to change the challenges till the players can read their "Fated event". For example, the lover might die of kobolds in the first encounter, or by the evil wizard a few levels onwards, never reaching their fated event.

Simulationist systems don't' work for similar reasons. You need a system that is focused on telling a story more than anything else. I don't know the game you've mentioned, but FATE core can work nicely for this, and even have a mechanic for "conceding"- losing battles but with less serious effects, thus avoiding death or other events that make the fated event impossible.

2) You need players who are on board with the idea from the get go, before you start creating the game. The concept involves some amount of railroading, due to the "influence of the fates" or whatever. Many players dislike this, so you better get their cooperation in this scheme in advance.

3) You as a host/ game master/ story teller need to be able to improvise and adjust quite quickly. Many "fated events" can be quite easily circumvented. The guy who is supposed to rescue the girl just... doesn't do so. The kidnapper as well, and more and more... You need either very strong character/ personality mechanics in play, or be VERY creative. This kind of thing usually works for story writers, since they control everything. You don't. And players will easily put new things in your game.

The most basic of example of things going wrong? I once had a campaign with five players, so I made up a prophecy of a "hand of heroes" fighting bla bla bla... One player left, two others changed characters, a third died quickly and so on. It's not advisable to set up fated events when you cannot easily control the events leading to them.


I believe it can be done, but the key here is players' cooperation. Good luck to you!

[Sartharina]

I know that sounds sad but here's how I'm hoping the players react, after learning that they are fated to follow one of the mythic Roles they decide to say, "Screw fate, I'm not going to let this happen!" and have the campaign be about them trying to subvert the tragic ending of their story.

Exactly like the Villain of that arc in Kingdoms of Amalur did? That somehow resulted in a Non-Fey taking up the role of one of the knights, doing stuff his knight wasn't entirely supposed to, then becoming king, and all sorts of stuff that was off-script but eventually got it back on script?