BREAKING: Local man’s problems solved by zine

 

In June, I wrote the following about the common O/NSR assumption that PCs’ primary motivation is to help townsfolk and other friendly NPCs:

The "problem," if there is one, is that you have to present a setting where all significant problems can be solved by a handful of strangers with swords.
Let me give an example… I was designing an adventure where the PCs would fight a wizard who’s part of an oppressive regime, but then I kept thinking, “actually, if you’re trying to present a realistic world here, wouldn’t fighting this one wizard who’s part of this regime do absolutely nothing and maybe actually make things worse for the people who live here?”

On Discord, RKaitz suggested…

[I]f you're trying to help someone, it doesn't have to be that you're saving the whole country. You're just saving your spouse or village. No one else capable will care to do that, and so yeah, you're the only ones who can do the job.

I thought that was a good point. But it was difficult to see, if the PCs are only solving small-scale problems, what role they play in the larger picture of the setting. Until I read this passage in Dungeons & Dilemmas:

There is the GM dream of the epic campaign that builds to some final climactic confrontation against a big bad…

However, I’d like to offer an alternative option: Start small, stay small. There is no mastermind or ultimate evil. There are only innumerable haunted houses of human tragedy leaking suffering into the world and every time one is plugged, a new leak springs somewhere else. The world is just an unending sandbox of sorrow. You can’t fix it entirely. You can’t solve humanity with blade, book, and blessing. So when do you stop? Let the players decide.

And… yeah. That feels right. Suddenly I can see in my mind’s eye the broader social context of the world the game takes place in: the PCs aren’t the sole heroes upon whose shoulders the fate of the world, or even the local area, rests.

The world is doomed… or at least, adventuring isn’t going to save it. All that adventurers can do is delay and mitigate the creeping disaster. And that, unlike “all significant problems can be solved by a handful of strangers with swords,” feels real and relevant to today.

To put it bluntly, the world in 2024 is defined by compounding crises and creeping disaster, and individual scientists and experts can work to mitigate those crises, but there will be no solution outside a broader social and political movement.

In July, I wrote:

I'm just not sure what beneficial side-effects OSR D&D has beyond hanging out with friends and generating silly anecdotes about that time you persuaded the goblins to rebel against the bugbear. And maybe that's okay! Maybe that's all OSR D&D needs to be.

But again, Dungeons & Dilemmas provides the answer:  The game isn’t just about hanging out and silly anecdotes, it’s about making complex moral decisions about how to resolve problems. It’s about interacting with and dealing with heavy themes.

So yeah. The advice in this zine seems like the right direction for me to start heading in.

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