Let’s say you get into a book club. It’s a pretty interesting set up, where you get a tremendous number of new books (40 or so), for about forty bucks.
The only catch is you have to indicate *at the signup stage* which books you’re going to want to read during the course of the run. It doesn’t have to be books that are published at the time (you’ll be getting books regularly and about bi-weekly for… let’s say a year and a half), but of course the list is all going to be based on your preferences and interests that you have at that moment in time.
About halfway in, maybe less, you realize your preferences have changed. The first half-dozen books were great and exactly what you were hoping for, and you’ve found some wonderful and interesting bits here and there since then, but there’s also some things you’re getting that really don’t work for you at all, plus you’ve been reading some other stuff on the side and found out about a newer style of book club where you pay a bit more but get smaller batches of books, which lets you switch your preferences much more easily.
Basically, at this point, despite some great experiences, you’re ready for the last of the books to show up so you can read it and move on. You just want to get it over with, and that’s no way to read a book.
That’s pretty much where I am with the Nobilis game. I love the players, love the characters, and even like the storyline (such as it is), but I’ve taken the whole thing someplace that I don’t really find that engaging and basically I simply want to wrap things up as well as I can and move on; this one ran too long and tried to do too much: in retrospect I should have stopped after session six — that’s really where it stopped being a story and started being meeting minutes, a bunch of things I’m just not that proud of. Regardless, I’ve come to believe that shorter campaign lengths result in a much leaner and cleaner story arc overall and help keep the excitement level up at a higher level.
So… I love the game, and I think I need to finish it up cleanly and more importantly quickly, because it deserves the kind of concise attack that it came in with. Time to move on.
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Yup, I’d have to agree. There’s been a certain feeling of “…okay…what are we doing now?” Personally, I think a quick, painful death for the other characters, and a glorious ascension for Terminus is what’s called for. 🙂
My sole regret of ending things with the current obv ious arc is that Sian has a hell of a story to pursue.
That said, I agree with what you’re saying, and it feels like much of what we’ve ended up doing has been most interesting when it’s *not* been the main story, but instead been a sidelight.
Part of that has, perhaps, been the lack of connection within the chancel. Fungus, Punishment, Guilt — none of them have much in common with each other or holding them together save the occasional threat to the chancel (or, in the original mini-arc, the mutual bond of not knowing WTF is going on). Each’s approach to matters is so idiosyncratic that it’s difficult to find common ground or interest. And the small size of each of the twin chancels has, I suspect, exacerbated that.
Lots of interesting possibilities, never quite gelling. Finding a grand ending, both quickly *and* fittingly, sounds like the right course (and something I have every faith in your ability to do).
And if that means going out with the Valkyries — Sian might even be down with that … regretfully, but with a sense of connection she’s been desperately lacking (by her own design, mind you).
Conversely — and I’ll try not to give plot ideas here — with everything ramping up to some grand, cosmic, pull-out-the-stops Ragnarok, finding some way to pull things back around to the small, personal, who-are-we-why-are-we-here bit that worked well at the very beginning would be an interesting challenge, and poetically fitting.
I’m tempted to have Donner go out in the bridge fight and pass the torch on to his girlfriend.
On the other hand, it would be nice to be there if the chancel gets rearranged: Macy to Lokiheim, etc. Will the Utgarders be out of doors? Ratatosk could be fun, and a fine addition to a resort chancel.