Mining Tropes for RPG Nuggets: What a Coincidence!

It’s been some time since I last posted an article in the Tropes series. What can I say? It’s been a busy 2 weeks! This post will tie in directly with tomorrow’s Adventure Prep post for this week’s game.

There you are, sitting wherever it is you sit when preparing your next adventure. You want to “awesome up” your game so that your players really dig this week’s festival of Monster Slaying, Starship Bootlegging and (but most likely ‘or’) Vampiric Courtly Intrigue.

All your encounters are ready, the loot is prepared and you created scenes for each and every type of players you have. However, something is still missing to take this adventure above and beyond the ‘meh, it was good’ stage. I’m talking about adding the little fluffy somethings that will pull the players right into the story.

Well, why not use one of the most basic trope there is: the Coincidence! Not just the average “Ah, fancy seeing you here old chap!” coincidence. I’m talking about stretching coincidence to it’s breaking point and back…

Contrived Coincidence

Contrived Coincidence describes a highly improbable occurrence in a story which is required by the plot, but which has absolutely no outward justification. The concept of “destiny” is glossed over altogether, and the events in question are simply disguised as mere happenstance. This would be jarring, but most of the time no attention is drawn to the event at all. It’s just a narrative convention designed to skip over lots of irrelevant stuff by putting the important events all together, leaving the audience to forget the improbability of the event.

For example, when two characters are separated in a huge battle involving millions of combatants, they will bump into each other again just in time for one to save the other’s life. This is not highlighted as an example of destiny or fortuity in any way, and in fact the improbability of the two people meeting again at such a convenient moment is ignored altogether.

Do check this trope’s description of the Independence Day movie, it’s just too funny: “The movie was so chock full of utterly ridiculous coincidences, it seems the alien invasion was the most credible aspect of the story.”

Fortunately, had the movie been a RPG adventure, no player would have complained. I mean fighter jets, aliens, hacking alien computers with a Mac virus and cities being destroyed with one Freaking Death Ray?!? Where do I sign up for this game? I want Roland Emmrich as a Dungeon Master!

You see, depending on your players, your adventure can suffer from things like thinness of plot (Go kill Dragon, bring back Doohickey of Doom, return Raistlin’s book to the Libraries of Gehenna) or from complete lack of player interest about your background. You therefore have very limited resources (time, attention spans and available NPCs with names your players will remember) to actually build something that will leave a lasting impression…

So you should cheat a bit by pulling the most outrageous coincidences on your players. If you keep the Rule of Cool in mind the players will go with it full-speed. Here’s a few successful examples I pulled in my various campaigns:

• An Elven fighter and Half-Orc cleric, both faithful followers of the Elven Patron god, were raised in the same household whose Majordomo just happened to be an Avatar of that god.
• A Dracolich who just happened to be an ally to an ancestor of a player charater who just happens to look exactly like his great great great grandfather.
• The members of the party each befriend a NPC in different areas of a city, furthermore, 2 PCs have a shared enemy they have been hunting down all their adult lives. Said NPCs and enemy just happen to be the keepers of the PC’s Prison-World who need the PC’s help to allow the keeper’s escape.
• Shortly after having escaped from the above prison-world, one of the PC’s joins a Noble house in a new city and it just happens that one of the keepers shows up to vouch for her.

Doing this can forge stronger links between PCs and your game world that accelerate the progression of the story much faster than what it usually takes with numerous NPCs and convoluted plots.

Some Examples:

Have the Tavern Keeper’s daughter in the 1st adventure of the campaign turn out to be the Dutchess-in-Exile that must be found to topple Baron Von Schlep’s claim to the Sapphire Throne.

You need a level 12 Troll Barbarian to challenge your 15th level party? No Problem! Make it the same then-CR 5 Troll that fled their fire arrows 2 years ago.

Have the same Demons or Devils show up whenever the Baddie of the Week needs fiendish guardians.

Have all Green dragons your PCs meet be related, from the early Dragon Zombie to the Mighty Half-Fiendish Great Wyrm.

Here’s a little secret, all players are a bit selfish and egocentric. They won’t be particularly surprised or displeased if the Universe turns out to actually revolve around them. And if Mr. Logical challenges you…. pull your secret weapon: Invoke the Prophecy!

Or, as I like to call it, go for the Super Extra Crispy Jack L. Chalker version of the trope:

Have all named NPC’s of your campaign gather up at the same place, at the same time, each of them mentioning how much of a coincidence this is. Then have the Tavernkeeper’s daughter-turned-Duchess reveal that she is in fact a Chaotic Evil Avatar of the Goddess of Chance. She gloats that she is about to complete the last Ceremony to bring about the Dark Prophecy, summoning a horde of strangely familiar Demons…

Of course, during the climatic battle, when things are at their grimmest, one of the PC’s, who is actually the bastard son of the true Goddess of Chance and some Legendary Paladin (who just happens to be the future self of the party’s paladin), reveals his secret Birthmark.  Said Birthmark just happens to be the Eldrtich key-symbol that breaks the curse that held the Avatar of Chance under the influence of the campaign’s Elder Evils.

All is resolved and the Avatar ends up replacing the dying God of Chance and falling in love with the party’s Paladin, starting once again the cycle that the Dark Prophecy was actually trying to break… (Arghhh my head hurts…)

What about the Contrived Coincidences you pulled in your game? Tell me about them!