Crown of Thunders and incorporating player ideas into the game

RPGs are an inherently collaborative medium. Often the GM will be put in the position of the authority to shape the world and direct how it responds to players' actions, but that doesn't strictly need to be the case. In Fellowship there is a clear distinction in who can Command Lore about various things, usually giving Players the control over the lore surrounding their people (so an Elf character Commands who elves are in the setting, whether they are pixies, aliens or what have you). While this approach might not be useful in all games (such as games with established lore, like Star Wars), you can still incorporate the players' creativity in how the world works on a smaller level.

In our lengthy Princes of the Universe Exalted campaign we ran into an interesting situation. My character wanted to unite the setting's dysfunctional bureaucratic heaven to work for our characters. To that end, I suggested the character would go on a quest to find an artefact, the Crown of Thunders, and use it as a symbol to rally the bickering gods. The Crown had an important symbolic meaning to the gods and the Exalts, but it wasn't a concrete "this crown makes you a ruler of the heaven and solves your issue" thing. As such, some other players dismissed the idea, but the GM rolled with it without hesitation, and even the various NPCs started reinforcing the idea soon after. It was a nice way of approaching problem solving in RPGs - a player's idea becomes a solution to the problem by the dint of player suggesting it as a solution.

Sol Invictus giving Queen Merela the Crown of Thunders
and establishing the Creation Ruling Mandate

While this might be a no-brainer for some people, it's an approach that I don't see mentioned in too many RPGs or adventure modules - you should be aiming to use players' ideas on how things should work in your game. They might miss hints or clues on how some adventure wants them to approach a problem, not know some part of the setting their character might know, or in general not be in the same mindset as the GM. That shouldn't stop them from suggesting how things should be. You don't need to roll with every single thing, but it's definitely a good conversation starter.

As Fellowship hints, the GM is there to create problems for the players to solve. If they were to create solutions, you would either run into GM-PCs that have the foresight given to them by reading the script, or else they might be forcing the players to figure out their moon logic to solve a problem the way they envisioned. Either solution wouldn't be good. Since you can't expect the players to come up with the same ideas as the GM, then of course you need to allow for some leeway in how things can be solved, how the world will react and so on.

You should be leaning into those ideas as a GM - not only asking your players what they want to do, but also what they want to accomplish with their actions. There is a difference between "I want to beat the guard up" and "I want to beat the guard up to rally the common people to storm the bastille with me" - one sounds like the combat is the end-point, while in the others the violence is a means to an end that might not be clear if it's not spelled out explicitly.

By talking about the desired outcomes you can set the correct expectations and let the players know if their actions won't have the desired outcome. It's best to be up-front about such things than to let players go goblin brain down a dead end. Sometimes that can be a "no", sometimes that can be a compromise ("if you beat this guard, that will work in your favour for convincing the people to rise up"), and sometimes it can lead to some different ideas being worked out ("maybe if you rally the people first and come in as a mob, the guards will actually join your just cause?").

Conclusions

Try  to incorporate your player ideas into the game - you are here to create the story together, and it's good when the world conforms narratively to the player actions and ideas (whether that's reinforcing it, or fighting back against it in a satisfying way ("hey, would you want the system to try crushing you and throwing you in jail for daring to fight the guard to show how the government will oppress you, making your character a martyr?")). Just saying something "won't work" without offering some alternatives isn't as fun as championing even some wacky ideas.

Sidereals, Fate, gods and prophecies - morality of a puppet

Recently, I was playing a character in Exalted vs World of Darkness that was a Sidereal, a troubleshooter of Fate. Basically, his heroic job description was to right the things according to how Fate wills it - uncover secrets that should be revealed, end people that should be ended, bring joy to the people that need it, etc. However, that got me thinking - what decides those things anyway? Unlike in some systems and settings, Exalted's Sidereals are agents of Fate, which is something that exists outside the control of any deities or similar entities. But since it's not controlled by anyone with an agenda, what agenda does it serve? What does Fate really want in the end? What is it's agenda and morality? If that couldn't be established, should my character go along with it and trust in Fate, or should they try imposing their own morality on the world instead?

Sure, in meta terms, Fate is basically "plot" of an RPG - the story wants the characters to get from A to B and kill C, so the Sidereal gets to make leaps of logic to get them there like a Holistic Detective. Even the EvWoD book calls out Sidereals as being GM's best friend because they always have an excuse to get the right people to the right places for the plot to move on. That can be fun if you want to enjoy the ride and don't overthink it, but as writing goes a Sidereal following Fate is like saying people are following the Force to know where to go next - feels a bit like a cop out.

Dirk Gently the holistic detective is basically a Sidereal

If a character leans into following Fate too much, it can also start turning them into a lawful stupid, a puppet, or a Morty on a Death Crystal - basically an automaton that doesn't think much for themselves just follows orders - "this person is supposed to die? Oh boy, here I go killing again!".

Chosen of Endings without remorse

A comparison to D&D paladins and clerics isn't really that far off, although with those at least you know the deity you're following and their view on morality, so you know there is something that dictates that will. That just means you know what you're signing up for though, not that strict adherence to it will make you less of an extremist murderhobo.

Another popular manifestation of the same problem would be prophecies - should a character in a prophecy that they will do something or kill someone, or should they try to defy it? If they are "the chosen one", can they do no wrong because it's their destiny? Do they have a say in the matter, or are they a slave to the whims of Fate?

What all of those have in common is they tend to turn the characters into puppets of whatever they resign their character to. Whether it's a deity, a code of conduct, Fate, philosophy, etc., the characters can become less interesting for it. When you turn yourself into a hammer, you treat everything as nails or something...

Making it interesting - cutting the strings

Now that is all not to say you can't have interesting and thought provoking ideas some from those tropes, but you have to approach them the right way.

A character that follows some morality 100% of the time is a bit dull. Sure, RPGs encourage you to see how many problems you can solve with your hammer of choice ("I want to see how a good and naive person would fare in Ravenloft! That sounds like a fun game!"), but challenging the character's beliefs can lead to some powerful moments. Try focusing on that - start with the character believing one thing and then make them re-examine their stance when confronted with what Fate wants them to do - would they kill baby Hitler if they were Minority Report? Or would they re-evaluate their stance and vow not to kill people that are innocent save for that they might commit future-crime? Make your character have doubts and define their own morality consciously. Similarly, reward your players for doing so and don't punish them for not being lawful stupid. Screw what the gods might want from your paladin, a paladin with a crysis of fate is much more interesting than one that's an automaton! Don't punish them for it!

You could similarly involve the players in defining what is the will of the Fate. Don't hand them a script telling them what to do, whatever they end up doing might be exactly what Fate wants. To borrow a phrase from Fellowship - let them Command Lore about it and tell you what Fate wants of their character (with room for negotiation as with all things of course).

When it comes to prophecies specifically, they are probably best played as mundanely self-fulfilling - characters believing in them and putting stock in them are inevitably causing them to come true with their actions. A person believing themselves to be a hero rises up to the legend and becomes a hero. However, if you reject the prophecy, there is no other shoe that drops - there is no magic here, the prophecy was always just a fable and a guess. As long as both the players and the GM are on-board and aware of this, such prophecies might not take agency away from the characters and the game.

Finally, you could have the character's morality explicitly affect Fate - someone's fated to die not because the unknowable cosmic force willed it, but because the player character wants them dead and therefore they spin that Loom of Fate and make it a reality with their actions. This retains the character's agency and makes their actions and decisions have meaning in the game and the setting. They are no longer only the puppet, but also the puppet master.

Conclusions

Making your character beholden to an external system of morality or something else that dictates their choices can take away agency from the character, the player, and make the game a bit less interesting. On the other side, confronting the character's morality and making them actively engage with it can be more engaging. Embrace it.

Burglars attract locked doors - how character builds shape the game

Burglars want to burgle

My group and I have been playing some Fellowship recently. One of our characters was the Heir, a noble face of the group. Usually our GM plays most NPCs very respectfully since we don't like being mean to one another. However, when the Heir took a Move called "How Dare You", things had to change.

How Dare You lets the Hair do some cool stuff, but in order to trigger the Move, they have to be insulted to their face. This now meant that in order to facilitate the player being able to use their cool new Move, the GM had to have the NPCs insult them semi-regularly, not to be mean, but to let them use How Dare You and shine when they do it. This is a simple example of how character classes, builds and so on should shape the game.

Letting your players shine

One advice I don't see often brought up in books is the idea that you should help your players shine by tailoring the adventure to what their characters are good at. Sure, you hear it in the large sense of having player-driven games, but less so for sprinkling something for the characters to ace.

When you have a burglar character in your game, you want to give them locked doors to unlock more often than if you had a party without a burglar. If you have a character that invested heavily in linguistics, you want languages to be an important part of the game. If you have an Heir that has some cool Moves for when they get insulted, you want to insult them.

Introducing new struggles

Just as some powers may introduce cool new ways for a character to shine, there are also character builds that may introduce new struggles into the game. A Fellowship Remnant can take the Move Boogeyman that's all about being a horror to anyone that's not in the light:

When a player takes that Move, they essentially communicate to the GM that light is now an important part of the game, and whether some encounter takes place at day or night can make a large amount of difference to them. This Move can be rather powerful, so there may be some push and pull between the GM and the Remnant as to whether the situation favours them or not, and how they can manipulate the environment to their advantage.

Similarly, the Heir may take Parry! Counter! Thrust!, which will make them really strong at one on one melee duels:

Now the player will want to engage in more duels, while the GM will want to push against that a bit to make it harder for them to get into duels than if they didn't have that Move so as not to make things too easy.

Of course, you do want Boogeyman and Parry! Counter! Thrust! to trigger every now and then to once again let the players shine, but because they are so strong you don't want them to be a default for every encounter, hence why the GM ought to do some pushback against them every now and then for the players to get their way.

Being mindful of their foibles

Just as various characters have their strong suites, they also have their foibles one should be mindful of when GMing. For example, if you want to stump Fellowship's Swamp Ogres, challenge them with fire:

Other foibles and weaknesses might be less explicit - maybe the party doesn't have a burglar, so presenting them with a locked door is enough to create an issue for them. Maybe a character doesn't have any strengths when it comes to talking with people, so you might want to Put Them On The Spot in some situation where they have to talk their way out of a situation.

Of course, you don't want to do this all the time. Being challenged with a weakness should be a way for the character to shine or maybe for someone else to step in and take the spotlight, it shouldn't be an excuse to do some arms race.

Keeping it all in mind

One of our takeaways from realising the above concepts in our Fellowship games was that it would be useful for the GM to have a handy spreadsheet listing everything the players need to shine, what struggles they are engaging in, as well as how to stump them as needed.

Of course some idealised version of a GM would always remember such things, but we are all human and everyone needs help sometimes managing their mental loads with handy references.

Conclusions

Keep in mind (or on a reference sheet) ways various characters in your games want to shine, what struggles they bring with them to the game, and how to stump a given character as needed. Refer to those things often, give your players opportunities and challenge them as appropriate to get the most out of the game you're playing.