The end of Buffy and deus ex machina

I watched the final episode of the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer last night. Yes, I'm behind the times… I never saw Buffy on TV, but watched it entirely on DVD. Makes it rather interesting when I can watch an entire season in just a month or less.

But the ending has me thinking about gaming. Buffy has always been popular among gamers, and of course, has spawned a official roleplaying game. And this season's ending was slightly disappointing in a way that directly relates to managing the plot in a roleplaying game.

Season seven ended long enough ago that I think I'm safe in spoiling the plot… but if you're like me and are way behind the real world in watching TV, you've been warned.

So all through season seven, the Scooby Gang has been harassed by The First. The original evil power, who really doesn't have any direct power except to nag people while taking the form of someone who has died. In one place, he's able to grant immense strength to Caleb, one of his followers, and he's got a lot of scarred humans called Bringers that run around and stab Slayer potentials. And somehow, he's amassing an army of uber-vampires under the Hellmouth. It's never clear exactly how he's doing it, but this is the big threat… the Slayer, the potentials, and the rest of the Scooby Gang have no chance to win in a toe-to-toe fight with all these uber-vamps. There are lots of little personal plot threads running around, but the core thread of the entire season is The First and how he is unbeatable, and how the Slayer and friends can't find a way to beat him. They bang their heads against the brick wall of The First's invulnerability for episode after episode, while the Bringers and Caleb pick off the potentials and threaten to kill the Slayers themselves (Faith is back by the time Caleb shows up).

Buffy manages to score the Excalibur of the Slayers, a magic "scythe" which really looks like an axe. And she comes up with this nifty plan of using Willow's powers to draw on the power of the "scythe" to change the rules of Slayerhood… by removing the restriction that only one woman of each generation is chosen. All of the potentials gain the power of the Slayer, and they, along with Spike, descend into the Hellmouth to wage war.

But this wonderful PC-created plan, which is going smoothly so far, doesn't work. The squadron of Slayers is no match for the vast army of uber-vamps. Eventually they find themselves being over-run.

And here's where the gamemaster thumbs his nose at the players' efforts and hands them the victory, not because of their efforts, but in spite of them.

Before the big battle, but in the final episode of the season, Angel shows up out of nowhere, saves Buffy from being killed by Caleb, and gives her a magic amulet… he doesn't know much about it, except that it has to be worn by someone with a soul, but someone more than human, and a champion to boot. That would be Spike, who went and got his soul at the end of last season and has been Buffy's champion since.

So there they are, losing the final battle, and the amulet Spike is wearing finally kicks in, and it destroys the entire vampire army in a moment with rays of sunlight. All the survivors escape the Hellmouth as Spike is consumed by the power of the amulet and all of Sunnydale sinks into the earth.

And I'm thinking, "What the heck was that all about?" Everything that had gone before was pretty much nullified. The struggle to find something to hurt The First was pointless… the magic item they needed was dropped into their hands through no effort of their own at the last minute. Their bold and risky plan was pretty much pointless. It's possible that Spike needed to be in the battle long enough for the power to kick in, but they didn't know that.

It's not terribly surprising to see this in a roleplaying game. It is surprising to see it in a television show. I know Buffy can be kind of like Star Trek in the "find the esoteric solution to this week's dilemma" department, but at least the Scooby Gang has to work to obtain and implement the solution. This solution was dropped in their laps out of nowhere, and pretty much made the dangerous solution they came up with irrelevant.

And I think there are some good lessons for gamemasters here. The big one is simple, and somewhat self-obvious, but like "common sense," it still gets missed. The lesson is this: Don't hand the players the solution to the problem on a platter. Make them work for a solution, and most importantly, make their solution matter. Even if it fails, it should fail for an interesting reason that contributes to the story. And especially don't make it fail because you like your solution better, and want to hand it to them on a plate.

A smaller lesson is this: if the big bad is going to present a frustrating obstacle, provide plenty of minor plot intrigue to keep things interesting. The writers of Buffy did this one right with this season. While the big bad drove the overall story, it was the sub-plots and character interactions that made it interesting to watch.

Maybe there are other lessons we can dig out of this example, but that's enough for now. (There's a lesson in letting the player achieve a personal goal on his own terms. Spike's redemption through sacrifice might not have been too palatable if he were a character in a roleplaying game.)