Plot Armor vs. Player Agency
This post is inspired by the discussion I just read ("Mythic Bastionland: strong combat and atmosphere, but the structure felt disjointed and hard to connect with")
So anyway I Referee'd my first session last night and it wen tok but I am working to wrap my head around some aspects of the game and how they work for my (virtual) table. I had a similar challenge with Pendragon and in that game I thought of it as the "Plot Armor" problem wherein Arthur, Merlin, etc. have plot armor - as in they don't get killed because if they do you're no longer able to use any of the other settings and whatnot. (I'm sure it could be cool to run a campaign where you break this very thing, but you get my drift). And this is cool but is by definition a part of the world your players can't shape by their decisions, for better or worse. So in other words they don't have total player agency.
Last night I was feeling the same way about the Myths. The Omens happen whether the Knights head North, East, South , or West. And to make this illogical fairy tale vibe work the game just kind of has to insist "The Mountain blots out the sun". Doesn't matter if it's morning and you are East of it or Afternoon and you are West of it.
So ok fine -this is what we are working with now how do we deal with it. Asking for advice and ideas etc. I saw in the discussion I read some ideas people suggested:
- Moderate the amount of randomness so that at least players and Ref can work together to improv a more coherent story by a) fudging some of those wilderness travel rolls on an as needed basis b) fudging in a more systematic way by rolling a d8, or d10, etc. - either so that Omens appear less often - or so that they "turn out" to be all from the Myth that is furthest along.
- Come up (in advance I think) with ways to tie the Myths together into some more coherent tapestry (that's a big ask - but maybe even a little bit helps)
- Ponder in advance, keeping player-knights' abilities in mind, ways the Myth could turn out totally differently if the players act to fend off what is happening.
But that last one gets to the rub - between the plot armor that the myths have and the agency the players crave. While the play advice in the book very clearly pushes the idea that the actions of the knights take precedence, the myths are very much presented as is - and their logic is so inscrutable that it is hard to know how they work and therefore how they can be disrupted. The example given - of cutting off the Wyvern's wings and therefore it cannot fly - is good but maybe oversimplifies the challenge presented by the bizarre it-just-happens-this-way logic of most of the myths.
Your ideas solicited!