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alpaca-clouds · 10 months ago

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The DnD Lore Problem - Accessibility and Characters (and how BG3 might not help)

You know what? I am gonna talk about DnD Lore and the accessibility of that lore. I talked about this exessively before. But to summarize that long blog very shortly:

Wizards of the Coasts currently makes the mistake of putting basically most DnD Lore behind a paywall, rather than offering official ressources. This leads to a lot of tables actually playing with their original worlds, rather than Toril/Faerûn, which in turn also means, that they are not spending money on official products. While my anti-capitalist ass things that the lore should be accessible just so that people can enjoy it, I also think that this inaccessibility actually costs WotC A LOT OF MONEY.

Today I want to talk about another aspect of this inaccessibility, that is kinda linked to some of the stuff I talked about before, but also is linked to the things WotC is currently not doing in terms of both Honor Among Thieves and Baldur's Gate 3. A thing, that also might not quite work with BG3, though.

See, the core problem of this inaccessibility is, that a) there is no official place where you can just get base information about the world and the timeline, b) this world has grown organically for about half a century, which lead to clutter, but also to the fact that things are at times showing their age.

I might actually make a post on the gods and religion in the world at some other point - but for now let me talk about something else: Extended universes and access points.

The Problem with Extended Universes

Okay, let's talk about how a lot of the big franchises for the longest time have told their meta stories - including DnD - and how it kinda struggles to find its audience. The extended universe.

I am frankly not entirely sure what franchise has started this. I am assuming it was Star Trek? But that is just a guess. But at some point in the 60s oder 70s someone had the idea that: "Hey, we could totally give the fans more to chew on by making official tie-in comics and novels!"

And that was how it worked for very long. Like a lot of the big franchises had at times around 10 novels and comics (if not more) releasing per year that would just explore other parts of the universe and allow the very engaged fans to... well, learn more about the world. Now, I am not going to talk about all the drama connected to the Star Wars stuff, but if you know, you know.

DnD did this too. (As did a lot of the big TTRPG systems, like Shadowrun and WoD as well.) Having a lot of tie in stuff - in the case of DnD mostly novels - that told more stories on the world and also established like some big player characters within the world. Elminster Aumar is probably one of the best examples here.

Those established some characters that play a big role within the world and also told just more stories of those big world changing events. In the recent DnD history that would be stuff like the Time of Troubles, the Spellplague and the Second Sundering.

Now, here we have one big issue. And one issue where I am not entirely certain where it arose from. But the fact is: In recent years, people invest way less into those kind of books. This is just a fact.

It is the reason why those big universes went from publishing like ten novels a year to often not more than three. We saw that in the failure of the extended Universe Disney tried to pull off for Pirates of the Caribbean (though I will still maintain that another big problem was that they barely marketed that at all - hi, everyone, who did not know there were extended universe novels for PotC). We also saw that with League of Legends, who really, really tried to tell a lot more stories with short stories and then also some novels set in Runeterra, before finally giving up, because most people didn't care.

In terms of Dungeons & Dragons I can totally see that a lot of people will also say: "I do not care what some other people's characters do within the world." Buuuuuut...

Stories actually can help you understand the world. Which brings me to...

The Elminster Problem

Okay, I do not know how to put this, but... If you look at the novels coming out for DnD literally half of them focus on either Elminster Aumar or Drizzt Do'Urden. Characters that have pretty much been around since the very beginning and. Look, I don't know how to put it but... It shows.

I am currently reading some of the newer novels and the fact is, that they do not really feel like fantasy books from the 2010s and 2020s. Because Elminster and Drizzt are very clearly characters originating in a very different time when stories were told very differently.

I mean, just look at Elminster. He is a wanna-be Gandalf character. He is from the early, early days of fantasy and... Look, I personally just really am unable to identify with a character like this.

And while Drizzt is a bit better as a character, but even he... How to put this delicately? They are both very much characters written by white cishet men for white cishet men. There, I said it.

I am noticing this a lot with reading Salvatore's books currently. Like, female characters are not overly sexualized, which is a plus. But they also very much exist most of the time in service to a man or at least in relation to a man. There is not a lot of female characters running around that have their own agency.

Which kinda leads to another thing. I actually saw this one brought up by one of those very cliché nerdy Youtube channels talking on DnD, who recognized the problem as well: There are basically two large groups of DnD players who barely intersect. One is the cliché nerds, the other is a largely queer and largely diverse group. And the youtube guy, who was very in the white cishet nerd group, suspected that actually the later group makes up more of the player base by now.

Buuuut... that is also the group who really do not get catered to by the canon lore so far. That was until 2023 with DnD:HAT and BG3 - both catering actually a lot to those groups.

Honor Among Thieves and the undermarketed books

Okay, here is the thing: Honor Among Thieves had two novelizations (one for young readers, one for older readers) and two tie-in novels. One featuring Edgin, Holga, Forge and Simon before the stuff with Sofina went down. And the other featuring Simon and Doric taking place at the time while Ed and Holga are in prison.

I am honest: I really, really liked the Ed and Holga novel. It was super cute and charming and really gives a better understanding of the characters.

But of course once again there is the thing: The books - just like the Pirates of the Caribbean books - were super undermarketed. Like, most people I know off do not even know that there were books released. Heck, even within the actual active fandom there are again and again people who will be surprised that those books exist.

And... I actually also think that the books waste one big ass opportunity, by not at all tying into the broader lore. They are super self-contained.

And that is actually just a waste. Because the place were Edgin lived in? Yeah, that place was super affected by the Second Sundering. Heck, that might have had to do something with his troubles.

Why is that an issue? Well, because... there was not a lot going on there that was inviting you to further interact with the world and learn more abotu what is happening. For once, again, because I think it is a super fun and interesting world. But also, because... WotC wants to make money and is so bad at it, that it really boggles my mind.

See, here is the thing: They could've used those characters - that really are fun and sympathetic characters - to create an accesspoint into that world.

Alright, so what about Baldur's Gate 3?

Which brings me to Baldur's Gate 3 and the thing that a lot of people have noticed: The other Baldur's Gate games - as well as some of the other games releasing around 2000 - had their own tie-in novels going into the characters, their background, but also what they were doing in the future.

Something that so far BG3 has not done, which some fans have already critized. Because a lot of people have actually gotten really invested into those characters. A lot of the kind of people especially who so far are underserved by a lot of the tie-in stuff: Queer and generally diverse audiences.

Like, I think there would be a lot of people, who totally would read a novel, about...

Astarion getting drawn into some sort of political intrigue in Baldur's Gate while serving Cazador

Karlach's time in Avernus

Some Adventure Wyll got dragged into while being the Blade of the Frontier.

Shadowheart going onto a mission for Shar (maybe together with Nocturne)

Whatever Gale was doing during the Second Sundering

Lae'zel's youth among the Githyanki

The Dark Urge and Gortash starting up the entire conspiracy

... whatever Halsin had been up to in his long live

Heck, people would eat that stuff up. And you could not only use it to worldbuild but also once more create some access into the world and what happened there. And they are kinda wasting a lot of potential by not bringing out those novels.

Of course, there is one big problem: BG3 makes it kinda hard to write about anything happening after the ending. Because as it is right now, someone is gonna be pissed if a novel set after the game does not go with the decision for a character they go for. Like, Ascended Astarion fans are gonna be pissed, if they go with Spawn Astarion - and the other way around. Same goes with every other character where you have those big decisions happening.

This is something they will have to tackle eventually if they plan on doing something with the characters in the future (no matter if we are talking Larian or WotC), but it is definitely an issue that just arises from the structure of the game.

Bonus of course is, that you just cannot define a canonical Tav. But without a Tav, you also gotta act as if the story of the game happened without a Tav, which still is not ideal. I am honestly not sure with how they are gonna deal with this on the long run.

Access via Characters

Alright, but what is the actual issue here?

Well, basically there are two hurdles to overcome for the accessibility of the lore. The first is the physical accessibility - aka, what I talked about in the last long blog post. The second meanwhile is more related to making the lore engaging. And that happens through characters.

It is for me what happened last year. I actually tried to engage with the lore as the movie came out - but only when BG3, that tied a lot more into the actual lore was released I actually found proper access to the lore. Because I had concrete things I could now look for because the game hinted at so much both through characters and major story events happening.

Here is the thing: If you just have the lore on its own, it is about as engaging as reading a history book. Sure, as your local history nerd I find reading history books fun, but most people really do not want to read a history book to engage with a hobby.

People will however engage with stories and characters that interest them. Which is where we get back to the thing I talked about at the beginning: Right now most canonical novels and stories still cater to an audience that is male, cishet, white and also, let's be frank, definitely over 30 years old. Leaving behind a lot of potential fans that theoretically make up a big part of the player-base, but actually do not engage a lot with the lore for this exact reason.

Look. DnD right now is fairly close to being an actual mainstream hobby, due to the recent proliferation of formerly nerdy stuff. And yet WotC is bleeding money, especially in regards of DnD.

If you ask me, sure... DnD should go into public domain. But it doesn't. And given that there are so many creative, skilled people working on this - no matter how dumb Hasbro is and how shitty of an employer they are - I actually do want them to succeed. I have really become engaged with this world now. And I think it is a pity that they clearly do not know how to market this stuff.

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romavitae · 4 years ago

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Ending a trilogy : Star Wars IX vs Pirates of the Caribbean 3

Before we start I wanted to apologise for my English, it’s not my native language and I honestly think I did many mistakes, so I’m really sorry, I hope the general idea will be clear enough.

Also, I will be using abbreviations for the movies so here’s a list for you to understand what I’m talking about if you are not familiar with them : potc = pirates of the caribbean, tros = the rise of skywalker

I recently did a rewatch of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and strangely I couldn’t stop thinking about the Star Wars sequels, especially about The Rise of Skywalker. Now that the sequel trilogy is finally over, I thought it would be interesting to compare the two endings of these trilogies produced by Disney and see what differences we can notice in the general storytelling. To be more precise, there is something that the fandom pointed out very well when TROS came out, it’s the fact that the story ends almost like it began : with Rey completely alone in a desert without a family. And this is something that really broke my heart at the end the film, I thought that ending a story this way was simply bad storytelling. But then I watched Pirates of the Caribbean and I noticed something that I had forgotten, the story also ends almost like it began, but I actually love this ending far more than the ending of TROS, and I started to wonder why.

So in this post i will try to compare the two endings and what they mean to the trilogies. (And in fact, I will try to explain why in my opinion At World’s End was better written than The Rise of Skywalker).

The end of the film, but not the end of the story

Let’s go to our first point. Here I will start to compare two of the most important characters of each trilogy : Rey and Jack Sparrow. If there are some potc fans here, I know it’s far more complicated for this saga to determine who the main character is, but let’s consider Jack as the main character for now.

So the very last scenes are the most revealing for me in terms of storytelling, and it’s here that I see a difference that changes everything. If you don’t remember, Jack lost the Black Pearl again and we find him on a tiny boat after leaving Tortuga ; and Rey ends up alone again, on a desertic planet with BB8. But here’s what for me what makes the ending of POTC better than the ending of TROS :

Jack did not lose what he loves forever, Rey did. Here I’m talking about the Black Pearl. It’s a hypothesis that we can make at the end of the potc trilogy, and it’s confirmed in the next films. Yes, Jack lost the Black Pearl at the end of POTC 3 but the audience knows (almost for sure) that he’s going to find it again, because he has everything he can potentially need to find it : the compass and the maps, and he already did find the Black Pearl after losing it in the first film. Now with Rey, not only she is completely alone like she feared most, with no way to potentially see Ben Solo again, but the environment where she is also very important to understand how hopeless this ending feels : we guess she’s not even waiting for anyone, she has no family with her, just ghosts, in the ruins of a past era, it’s like she doesn’t even belong to the living world anymore. Of course, we can imagine that she will try to find Ben for example - and damn every reylo knows how talented the writers of the fandom have been to write fix-it stories - but what clues are we given to develop this idea ? None. It’s a little bit in the novelization with the last sentence about Ben, but that’s the problem, it’s in the novelization, not in the film. The ending of TROS seems so hopeless because what we see is only Rey alone in a desert, surrounded by the ghosts of the past, there is no future there. There is no clue showing that she’s not going to stay here and that maybe she’s going to live some new adventures.

Saving the ones we love

Now, I want to talk about something that is in my opinion at the very heart of the story. Let’s talk how the scenario deals with the death of the characters.

In POTC 3, an important message can be understood through the death and saving of Will Turner, love saves us (or love will save us). To be a little more precise, Will is almost killed by Davy Jones who stabs him, but he is saved. He is saved by Jack Sparrow. And the whole battle is actually very important for the development of the 3 main characters : Will fights with Elizabeth by his side, yet he is saved from a deadly wound not by the woman he loves but by Jack, the very one who brought him in the huge adventure. Will is protected and saved by two persons who really care about him. It’s also something that help to better understand Jack and his motivations. He betrayed Will many times, but we see that he is clearly in shock when Will is almost killed by Davy Jones, and until the very end Jack has hope for Will to return with the Flying Dutchman (he keeps waiting for him before the Flying Dutchman actually rises from underwater). I think it’s safe enough to say that Will is saved by love.

So what is love for if it cannot even save the ones you love in Star Wars ? What’s the point of the whole trilogy ? Rey is saved by Ben, just for Ben to die for her a few moments later. Did she really won the war if she lost her soulmate ? The thing is, it didn’t even had to be a happy ending where everything is perfect. Potc is not, Will is bound to the cursed Flying Dutchman and will have to live far away from Elizabeth for ten years. But what’s the point of bringing Ben Solo back to Rey if he cannot even live long enough to face his destiny ? It just send a very negative message for the audience, as if Ben Solo was written as an unredeemable characters and had the necessity to die because of the errors he made in the past and that haunted him already.

The prophecies and their importance in the story

In both trilogies, there are two prophecies that catch our attention. But in fact, they are treated quite differently in the last film. The prophecy in potc actually makes a lot of sense in the last film, but the prophecy in Star Wars doesn’t make sense at all at the end, and it’s the whole trilogy that doesn’t make sense.

“You have a touch of destiny about you, William Turner.” - Tia Dalma

“Whomever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back, but there's someone who still could. The belonging you seek is not behind you... it is ahead.” - Maz Kenata

In POTC 2, Tia Dalma, also known as the sea goddess Calypso, says a prophetic sentence to Will Turner the very first time she meets him. She sense that destiny will greatly influence his life. And it actually makes a lot of sense after POTC 3, because Will becomes the captain of the cursed Flying Dutchman after very umpredictable events (aka his near death). And in general, we can imagine that his whole adventure was led by destiny. The destiny that led Jack Sparrow to his workshop, the destiny that interrupted his wedding with Elizabeth, the destiny that led him to his father on the Flying Ducthman.

In the Star Wars sequels, destiny can also be considered as very important element in the story that binds the characters together, but a different prophecy than the one of POTC was made in The Force Awakens. Maz says to Rey that she will find the belonging she was seeking. So I’m very sorry if you don’t like my opinion but for me the person Maz was talking about is clearly Ben Solo, the one who came back to the light at the end and who was the only person who fully understood Rey in this whole story. Indeed, she found her belonging with him and shows him how much she loves hin the scenes on Exegol, but then he had to die. What becomes of all this prophecy and promise of a bright future at the end of TROS ? How did she found what she was seeking if she is alone all over again ? She is missing her dyad, she is missing half her soul and the very one person that was destined to come back for her, to complete her.

At the end it’s very odd to watch The Force Awakens again and wonder what this prophecy was all about became it makes no sense anymore at the end of TROS. And if it’s not bad storytelling, I don’t know what it is.

Writting a female leading character

If you are still with me I would like to make a general remark about Rey and the problems with her character’s arc in TROS.

For me, it’s mostly about her powers and her legacy. Yes, having powerful and inspiring female characters is really important in a story. But wanting to include such empowerment in your film doesn’t mean that you are doing it the right way. It is not because a female character is very powerful that she is actually well treated in the story.

Something that really bother me in TROS is the way Rey was treated by the writers. She was denied so many things, including her power.

Before TROS, it had been established that Rey was very force sensitive and that the force itself had clearly an influence on her and her story. She is not the chosen one, but she is a chosen one. The force brough her to Anakin’s saber in TFA, the force bound her to Ben as her dyad. She is indeed very powerful, she develops impressive skills very quickly in TFA, and she continues her path in TLJ, this time making more her own choices and choosing her own path. All this to finally end up in TROS where she is denied of her own power.

“You have his power, you are a Palpatine”

I actually think Abrams and Terrio did not write this line with a bad intention, but the result is here, it’s insulting. It’s insulting to deny a female character of her own power by saying it’s not even hers, and that all she has, she has because a man gave it to her. And it’s actually the way it is done that is hurting. TROS refers constantly to this idea that she has to prove to men that she is worthy. The saber that obviously called her in TFA suddently doesn’t belong to her anymore, and she has to wait until she is worthy enough. She is not even treated as a person of her own when it comes to defeat Palpatine, she is a vessel for the jedi, and they don’t even care if she will die or not at the end. She is a vessel for all the ruins of the jedi heritage.

I think Elizabeth Swann is a character that is far better written. Yet, it is also a man that gives her more power in potc 3. It is Jack that makes her king of the pirates when he calls for a vote with the other pirate lords. But what is different is that it’s not a big deal in the story, she is not constantly reminded of the fact that she received her power from Jack, and even the pirates lords don’t mind about the fact that she is a woman, in fact they are annoyed by Jack’s decision because they wanted to be at her place.

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