The Long Narrative Anti-narrativism
Created: 2025-06-10
For example, concealing that the big bad is planning to overthrow the kingdom is usually a waste of time. If the PCs don’t know what the villain’s overarching goal is, they will rarely be invested enough to care about preventing it. Under this model, the surprise is played not in revealing the plan, but in confounding player expectations about what they can do about it. An appropriate scene for this kind of “revelation” would be something like when the players go to the king and tell him about the plot, expecting him to crush the big bad (who is say, an evil minister). Instead, the king refuses to believe them, and insists they stop harassing him with these wild tales unless they have solid proof.