The Horde has the advantage, storytelling-wise, of possessing extreme moral ambiguity: a checkered past, an uncertain future, an unstable internal political situation. It would take extreme incompetence to not be able to spin story gold out of the Horde in its current configuration.
The Alliance, by way of contrast, has some of the advantages and disadvantages of being the standard Designated Fantasy Good Guys -- they've got righteousness and virtuousness, an untroubled relationship with the setting's Big Good figures (the Dragon Aspects, the Ancients) and most of the neutral factions, internal stability. Their story, as a consequence, comes across as feeling very, very vanilla, generic-fantasy-good-guy when contrasted with the Horde.
Added to this is the application of the "villains and morally ambiguous characters act while Real Heroes™ react" narrative convention -- both sides get this when dealing with Real Villains™ such as the Scourge or the Twilight's Hammer, but the Alliance also catches a dose of this while dealing with the Horde, which can get extremely frustrating.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-12-01 05:13 pm (UTC)The Horde has the advantage, storytelling-wise, of possessing extreme moral ambiguity: a checkered past, an uncertain future, an unstable internal political situation. It would take extreme incompetence to not be able to spin story gold out of the Horde in its current configuration.
The Alliance, by way of contrast, has some of the advantages and disadvantages of being the standard Designated Fantasy Good Guys -- they've got righteousness and virtuousness, an untroubled relationship with the setting's Big Good figures (the Dragon Aspects, the Ancients) and most of the neutral factions, internal stability. Their story, as a consequence, comes across as feeling very, very vanilla, generic-fantasy-good-guy when contrasted with the Horde.
Added to this is the application of the "villains and morally ambiguous characters act while Real Heroes™ react" narrative convention -- both sides get this when dealing with Real Villains™ such as the Scourge or the Twilight's Hammer, but the Alliance also catches a dose of this while dealing with the Horde, which can get extremely frustrating.