Legacy

Before we get into the meat of this, I wanted to take an informal little vote. There are a few different topics I've thought about getting into for a future blog entry, which one interests you?

-Major NPCs
-Unique services in Gallia
-Peri and the Midnight Guild
-Learning skills and skill trees

Back to our regularly scheduled post:

One thing I learned from MotW was that people won't necessarily perceive the themes and commentary in the same way I do. I lost count of how many times I read someone discussing the politics of it and thought "that is not what I was trying to say at all." But there's only so much we can do about stuff like that. The episodic nature of the game didn't help in that regard. Those who turned off Arc II because they were sick of Cade's ranting never got to see the full scope of his character arc take shape in Arc VI and Arc VII.

Opinions vary but I think everyone figured out that when ArtBane and I started that game, I was spoiling for a fight - with the Bush administration, with big business, with the Christian Right and Al Qaeda. But a lot happened during the six years we worked on it. I realized after the fact that it ended up not as a singular product of the Bush era but of the Bush/Obama transition. The preoccupation with holding on to fragile progress, the fear of a resurgence of hate and violence, the question of how much change is feasible at any given time.

Of course, a lot has changed since then as well. Much of MotW feels different ten years out. Recently, a player who goes by Fleshwit completed a mostly text-based LP of the game, the first LP of any sort to actually finish it. In addition to being a nice way to refresh your memory about MotW without having to play it again, it was a chance to see how it looks to people who were kids during the Bush era and don't have strong feelings about it like I do. Many of the folks who followed the LP as it was being compiled made comments like "this game is way too timely for being like 10 years old."

When people learn that I've been working in the Solest universe again, I often get asked "so is this one going to be about Trump?" It's a complicated question to answer. For the most part, no. I am not going to have a story about some self-absorbed moron who comes to power and lets a deadly plague wipe out people across Solest. They've been through enough. But from what I've already written, it's shaping up to be about some of the issues I think are rooted in the Trump era - generational conflict and an unavoidable reckoning with the sins of the past.

Legacy is a fairly common and generic title for a game, but I also can't really think of a better one for this story. It is actually about grappling with the legacy of those who came before us, not just a word slapped on because it sounds suitably dramatic and RPG-ish.

I think (and I may be wrong about this, see the first paragraph) that a big difference between the two games that people will notice is that Legacy is not trying to convince you of anything in the way that MotW was. I'm a different and older man now and somewhere along the way, I lost my faith in the idea that a well-reasoned and thoughtful argument could persuade other people. I don't hunger for debate the way I used to. Probably better for my health that way, but it also sometimes makes me sad.

Anything I write will be applicable to the world I live in. My characters will talk frankly about the issues they deal with since I've found that to be good for building character. That's not going to change. But my goal this time is for all the discussions and debates within the game to be organic to the setting rather than an obvious reach for real world significance. It should all make total sense for those living in Solest to have these discussions. If I can manage that, I think I'll be pleased. Peace bros.