19 - Destiny
“I don’t have a destiny. I’m destiny-free, really.”
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Becoming Part 1
Characters having destinies is obviously easier in games with big narrative pushes and low random death.
Sort of vague destinies are available in the middle.
(Coming up with a prophecy that was pretty specific but could apply to one of our heroes and her arch-enemy - “The Watcher’s daughter will fall and rise and hold the world in her hand.” - was one of my proudest moments running The Watch House.)
(Also why one of the trailers for the final season was scored by Destiny Calling by James.)
Characters being revealed to have had destinies can be added later when retelling a campaign.
Do they accept it, refuse the call for a Hero’s Journey story beat, seriously refuse the call and make that their main deal, or find their own way?
Many non-RPG settings with a Chosen One narrative already have one in place. You’d have to take the place of Luke and/or Leia to be one in classic Star Wars, for example, though it doesn’t mean there’s nothing else to do.
But the Buffyverse is nice enough to have multiple Chosen Ones and prophesised champions and more.
See story games designed to end a certain way with little or no wriggle room for specifics, as well as games like Apocalypse Keys inspired by dark destinies like the arc plot of Hellboy. The characters there are called Omens, reminding me of the idea to run a take on the Antichrist protagonist.
(And as its grand title which sort of connects to the main story being Chosen One ish despite the number of players, I have long been perplexed that Bungie’s action MMO Destiny doesn’t have an official RPG, as the setting seems like a better fit for it than an action MMO.)
19a - 2, 4, 7
What, Enthusiastic, Person
A Buffy-ish prompt - someone gets mystically chosen and they’re super keen! Keener to start than the amount they have to learn would allow. Keen enough to annoy people in the know. Maybe keen enough in terms of apprentice upstaging tutor to go a bit Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
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