Medieval & Fantasy Minecraft Roleplaying

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Regarding magic-based events V realism-based events

Squidziod

Kid Charlemagne
Mystic
Retired Owner
Squidziod
Squidziod
LegendMystic
All I got to say is that we've come a long way from *shoots beams of piercing light from hands* and the resulting *dodges*
 

Immerael

The Shadow Admín
Retired Staff
Couple of quick things. I'm not saying "Yes, Deus Ex Machina is a good way for telling a story", I'm saying "It can be used". The issue with Immaereal's post is not that he says "Deus Ex'ing a story can it ruin it", it is his statement of


By saying anytime you immediately negate any possibility of there being some sort of value to a Deus Ex Machina, which is wrong to the core.

To quote O wonderful Wikipedia as you yourself have: "it can be intended to allow a story to continue when the writer has "painted himself into a corner" and sees no other way out, to surprise the audience, to bring the tale to a happy ending, or as a comedic device".

There are too many variables within any storytelling device to say "it is always bad" or "it is always good". Most critics? Perhaps. I'd certainly hope that most critics wouldn't be as brash as to ignore the virtues of a film or story because of a particular use of a story telling device.

I stand by my point


To summarise: Deus Ex Machina = mostly bad, but CAN be good.

-K9
I would argue any work that has Deus Ex Machina in it that is still good is good in spite of its use not because of. To borrow your own analogy a great artist can still work wonders with shit tools. I'm sure there are folks out there who can do good work on Microsoft Paint but I don't think anyone will say its a "good" program for serious use. Or a really crap brush and paints for a painter, a great artist think like one of the great Renaissance artists could probably work great art with them. However that doesn't make the medium inherently good because they can manage that. It makes the artist great for overcoming these difficulties.

Then again this is all opinion based now that we've reached this point. I just don't want any Deus Ex Machina, hand waving and all our problems fixed in events if it can be helped at all. We have characters with massively diverse skills in the world, lets use them to fix our problems. Again opinion based but I think most folks can agree with at least the latter part here.
 

pyrocide

The Mogul of Cromarcky
K9 my friend I suppose we will have to agree to disagree. I don't see the uses you pulled as negating the issues that cause deus ex to be a bad storytelling device, save for possibly comedic effect, which wouldn't really apply to server events.

Regardless, I simply meant my initial post to show that even by its definition deus ex is considered a contrived storytelling device. If you wish to believe it has positive uses that's certainly your prerogative I just wanted to say that's not traditionally the way it is perceived. I feel like I have derailed the thread and for that I do apologize.
 

Naelwyn

Non sum qualis eram
The only exception to the rule that I've seen was in actual greek storytelling, which is actually sometimes fairly weird to read faithful translations of - it's like no characters have any agency and that nothing matters except the gods. It doesn't come off as as 'cheap' a thing because you know to expect it, but ends up feeling downright strange from a modern perspective.
 
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