perpetual motion trash machine

That doesn't mean it doesn't make me side-eye some story instincts, since the play has always felt so obviously like something we are building up to in this narrative; but like, I get where it's coming from (and I also should note that again, just as we in the audience are immediately set off by The Specter of C3 God Debates, I wouldn't be surprised if the cast is still shaking off what those were from their side as well).

C2 and C4 represent the two general categories of how to weave characters into a story.

In C2, the plot was centered around the character’s backstories. The things that happened to them and stuff they cared about to begin with are the plot, and important story beats follow them wherever they go. It’s not that the story is random or unconnected, it’s that the overarching narrative was constructed from what the players gave to Matt. Which creates a story that every player, and therefore every viewer, is super invested in.

In C4, the character backstories are informed by the story that’s going to be told. Brennan knew roughly what the larger plot would be, so he gave all the players ways to connect to that plot in character creation. The plot exists somewhat independent from what the characters do, but because they’re all connected to it and have reasons to care about it, they all naturally interweave into the broader story. And because the players had the freedom to choose in what way they connected to the plot, the plot can be approached from many different angles, which makes it all the more rich.

C3 is the worst both worlds. There was one extremely specific overarching story, but the players were given the total free rein with backstory creation that they had in C2, so most of them made characters that had absolutely no connection to the broader plot. Therefore there was no inherent reason for a lot of the characters/players to care about the plot, and their backstories, the cores of the characters, often felt irrelevant.

I think Matt tried to connect some characters to the plot through their backstory after the game had started, but that’s already too late. Connections that are narratively derived from the character’s backstory, but not derived from what the player actually wrote (like Fearne being Ruidus born) feel kind of meaningless and tacked on. Even a connection like Ashton’s primordial heritage feels kind of haphazard, because it isn’t really building on something that Talesin had already created, it’s inserting something that wasn’t there before. It doesn’t make him care in the same way because it’s not something the character already cared about (side note, if something like Ashton’s primordial heritage WAS part of Matt’s initial plan for the character, it should’ve been brought up/foreshadowed WAY more heavily WAY earlier, or even straight up revealed earlier).

Veth’s connection to the plot through Yeza might seem like an insertion, but I would argue it isn’t. Players will give DMs plot hooks in their backstory, things that they care deeply about that remain unresolved. Yeza was one of those things for Veth, so using an already stated fact about him (he was an alchemist) to put him somewhere where the plot was happening was an expansion upon what Sam already wrote.

Velma is Greek by nationality but may have an Egyptian parent, has visiting the library of Alexandria a major goal.

Unfortunately this predates vikings by like 800 years but I still think Fred is the son of Norse merchants, somehow. It's the transition period from pre-Roman iron age into Roman iron age, so...

The horses are of course named Mystery and Van

Your mind.

Fred should be high patrician class but doesn’t like to talk about it- they finally take a case in Rome the city, and he takes the gang to his family home. If it’s empire times it’s an actual palace and it turns out he’s in the line of succession, if it’s republic then it’s a huge villa and one of his pregnant cousins mentions calling the baby Julius

See, this is why I need someone else to write it! I don't know enough about the era!

Protagonist now remembers key facts about important people. He no longer develops convenient amnesia between cutscenes.

Protagonist now has a cooldown on certain adverbs. Adverbs have been buffed by 30% to compensate.

Developer note: Adverbs are important to writing but they are sometimes overused. This change keeps adverbs relevant while encouraging the use of adjectives and verbs.

The horse now has a name.

Solved a glitch where supernumerary limbs would sometimes emerge during complex physical interactions.

Should no longer display “[insertnamehere]” during conversations and narration. All of such occurrances have been replaced with the appropriate tags.

Conversation continuity has been improved. Characters will no longer inappropriately respond with lines from previous iterations of the narrative.

All references to “Event A” have been purged to reflect changes in narrative structure.

Paragraphs which contained two or more instances of the same adjective have had their adjectives updated to accurately reflect a player’s vocabulary inventory.

Minor time traveling issues have been resolved, all characters should now exist in the same tense.

Punctuation has been improved. Commas have been reduced by half.

Characters sighing has been reduced by 30%.

Characters looking at things or people during conversations has been reduced by 40%. To make up for this, characters thinking about the conversation has been boosted and descriptive narrative has been added.