Thus Spake Zaraborgstrom/TheGameWorldWorks

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/27/2003 13:51:40

Hm.

For a moment, strip out every Sidereal but the NPCs you want, and take out *their* role as explicit agents of fate.

Look at the world you have remaining.

With the exception of the NPCs you want to use, that's the best the Sidereals can do. After the Bronze and Gold wrestle with one another, with free will, and with the forces (sentient and otherwise) seeking to unmake fate, that's what they've accomplished. That's the "their world" you're living in.

Do you roll 3 successes on 20 dice? Those damned Sidereals. Do you roll 17? Ha! Score one for (the Gold) or (free will).

You can interpret this as Solar powerlessness. Or you can interpret it as Sidereal ineffectuality. The dice don't care.

**

More to the point, it's like this. It looks like you can make a case that certain things in Sidereals are a detriment to a campaign. It looks like you can also make a case that they're not. It looks this way because such cases appear above. :) What's the truth? Basically, that it could go either way. One interpretation is probably more justified than the other, but both have justification. Which is more true? Frankly, it only matters in debates online.

That given, I highly recommend starting with the assumption that the game world works, and saying, "Why?"

For example: "Chejop Kejak doesn't wreck my game. Why?"

I suspect you'll have a much quicker time reaching an answer---even a canonically supported answer---that satisfies you, than if you start by wondering "Will Chejop Kejak kill all my PCs and wreck my game?"

If you're answering the "Why?" and find yourself saying, "But but he'll do this and that," you're making your own problem. No. He won't. He'll dig himself deeper and deeper into a blind void of pointlessness, all the while thinking he's got everything absolutely under control. Feel free to use him as a smart, effective antagonist, but if you don't know how to do that without overwhelming the PCs, then *don't*.

Yes, the book portrays them as smooth, ruthless bastards who've got it under control. That's their shining, positive side. That's the hope of Heaven. You and any Sidereal PCs decide how much it comes out. It doesn't trump epic fate-defying heroism, glorious barbarism, or the unstoppable advance of death unless that's how things play out.

Rebecca