It’s not so much a problem plaguing fiction in general, but fiction that runs a long time.
If it’s a contained story with defined end that comes relatively soon enough, the stakes can be relatively fixed, arcs can run through to a logical conclusion, etc.
If you have unending, soap-opera like story, then you hit problems. Characters can never actually be fully realized, they have to have their development paused. Any romantic ‘will they/won’t they’ gets ludicrously drawn out. You usually get tougher plot armor because fans are really attached, or a revolving door of characters that you don’t get attached too, or people inevitably managing to be alive after having died. You have power creep where insurmountable challenges get overcome through progress and then something has to reset the new capabilities to table stakes.
Hmm, that is an interesting point, because I do also prefer roguelike videogames to RPGs. They compress the whole character development down into a much shorter timeframe.
And while it’s still a factor that it’s just your stats growing vs. your enemies’ stats growing, you do have a pretty clear goal to reach.
You also most definitely have no plot armor either, as a single death is the end of that story. And the randomization of the levels certainly adds to that, too, as I can’t get the feeling that I should be able to manage anything the game throws at me.
My favorite roguelike !dcss@lemmy.ml has these historic quotes on items and spells. And the Swiftness spell has verbatim this text as its quote:
…which is the best gameplay advice for that game, for any situation. 🫠
It’s not so much a problem plaguing fiction in general, but fiction that runs a long time.
If it’s a contained story with defined end that comes relatively soon enough, the stakes can be relatively fixed, arcs can run through to a logical conclusion, etc.
If you have unending, soap-opera like story, then you hit problems. Characters can never actually be fully realized, they have to have their development paused. Any romantic ‘will they/won’t they’ gets ludicrously drawn out. You usually get tougher plot armor because fans are really attached, or a revolving door of characters that you don’t get attached too, or people inevitably managing to be alive after having died. You have power creep where insurmountable challenges get overcome through progress and then something has to reset the new capabilities to table stakes.
Hmm, that is an interesting point, because I do also prefer roguelike videogames to RPGs. They compress the whole character development down into a much shorter timeframe.
And while it’s still a factor that it’s just your stats growing vs. your enemies’ stats growing, you do have a pretty clear goal to reach.
You also most definitely have no plot armor either, as a single death is the end of that story. And the randomization of the levels certainly adds to that, too, as I can’t get the feeling that I should be able to manage anything the game throws at me.
My favorite roguelike !dcss@lemmy.ml has these historic quotes on items and spells. And the Swiftness spell has verbatim this text as its quote:
…which is the best gameplay advice for that game, for any situation. 🫠