#player agency
Player Agency
Dungeons and Dragons, like most TTRPGs is a shared experience about telling a story. The Dungeon Master (DM) sets the scene with a beginning and often has an ending in mind. How the protagonists get from point A to point Z is up to them. Railroading the players with a linear story without choices, character growth, or input from the players is rather one-sided.
It’s also bad.
While the DM is…
After a recent WoLship post, I’m going to mention this again:
The game does Not “push” romances at anyone. At all. You can get through the entire game without shipping a blessed one of your OCs with an NPC. Yeah, even that one, or that other, that may spring to mind as a “But–”.
All of the characters are written with variable amounts of friendliness and emotional availability. The devs have purposely made it so many different shipping combinations are possible, and have a “live and let live” policy in regards to allships.
But they also simply made them viable options, not a mandate.
It’s why you don’t see “canon” ships between many NPCs, and none for the WoL. There may be hints of a ship tease–if you look for it. If you engage with media with shipper goggles constantly on, then you’re going to see it anywhere and everywhere.
And honestly, I think it’s kinda damaging to constantlylook for romance–especially at the expense of other, just as meaningful deep connections between characters, like close friendships or found family. Or even just how one reads the rest of the plot at all, if only reading in terms of ships (especially when “requiring” that those ships are onlyvalidated by physical intimacy). It’s why there can be so much recoil/pushback on some characters and their actions when honestly, as written, they’re simply being eager and friendly and maybe, yeah, a tad too familiar in some cases, depending on person and situations.
Some characters may have more obvious crushes than others for sure, but that also doesn’t mean those crushes haveto be romantic/sexual in nature, either; people have many kinds of crushes! Admiration for someone’s abilities and achievements (up to hero worship), their aesthetic, just who they are as someone you want to be friends with, are all possible. Heck, given the WoL’s fame and casual interactions, you can easily argue parasocial crushes.
Sometimes it’s not even a crush, it’s just someone’s weird and doesn’t always get social boundaries. And just cuz someone has a crush, romantic or otherwise, doesn’t mean it must be reciprocated. You control your OCs and their interactions.
Anyway. Not everything is a ship. Just cuz a character is charming and flirty, or admires another, or is overeager, or has a complicated past life, doesn’t mean they’re being “pushed on” WoL or a “canon” ship. The devs are also adamant about making each WoL’s story their own, and up to the players, with those connections and their meanings entirely determined by each individual.
As always, if feeling inundated by a ship, or if it’s a NOTP, or squicks you, filter and mute tags and phrases accordingly on social media to minimize exposure.
So ship and let ship–or simply don’t ship at all.
