As I said in a previous post titled “Logical
Illogical”, there was no story continuity when I used to play my Greyhawk
ranger, back in the day. But now, it’s all about time-scheme and filling in
whatever blanks there may be. So I’m already writing what the PCs did after the
end of our last AD&D, because I know they’re gonna ask about this at
the beginning of the next session.
Why is that?
In my opinion, it is the cultural influence
of TV shows: we now know much more about our favorite characters than we did
back in the heyday of movie heroes. Really, nobody
knew what 007 did between the end of Casino Royale and the beginning of Dr.
No, or between Octopussy and A View to a Kill. Movie
franchises are very much like the old school
modules. We play Dwellers of the Forbidden City. Next we tackle White
Plume Mountain. What did we do in between? Nothing?
Those Silver Age
games introduced continuity in RPG campaigns – is it good, or is it bad? I don’t
know, but it’s very similar to modern TV shows with their tight plots, web
episodes, flash forwards / backwards / sideways, and interlocking season premieres and finales.
Sooner or later we learn everything there is to learn about the heroes: blanks
get filled in quickly, and it makes a lot of sense... except with Lost.
So, players come to expect that.
You can’t pluck them from a tropical island
one week and throw them onto a snowy mountainside the next week without any
explanation, like in a James Bond movie. Damn, our HBO era is not like the old MGM era: there is a heck of a lot more stuff to
write and prepare, now!
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