Prophecy or blind fate?

I'm always dubious of prophecies. In real life, they're usually incorrect and/or useless. The way they're used in fantasy, the prophecy is often a lazy narrative device that feels like it's more about telling than showing. It's even more obtrusive, though, when prophecies occur in realistic fiction. Recently I was watching The North Water, based on a novel by Ian McGuire, about characters on an 1850s whaling ship that makes the Pequod look like the Love Boat. One of the characters, Otto, is given to vatic pronouncements and one day tells the other sailors that he's had a dream in which they all die except for Sumner, the ship's surgeon, who will survive after being "swallowed by a bear".

If somebody said that to you in the real world you'd know they were the sort of wearying crank who insists on recounting their dreams, and you could safely disregard any possibility of it coming true. But in a novel or TV drama you know for a fact it will come true because a prophecy is equivalent to the author inserting a plotting note several chapters early.

This could be why I'm unimpressed by many so-called narrative games, if by that they mean they're trying to replicate the way things work in a storytelling universe. I like realistic universes (whether or not they contain magic is not relevant) because the stories that emerge from them are far more unusual. In short, they are better at narrative.

The North Water is a first-rate TV drama (in the first four episodes) especially for showing how compelling characters don't need to be likeable, but inserting that prophetic dream can't help but break the suspension of disbelief, because you know that everything will have to unfold the way Otto foretold, and that's easy for the writer to achieve because it's a cheat. The prophecy is like the author whispering semi-spoilers in your ear -- telling not showing, you see. He or she can't expect a pat on the back for signalling in advance how the plot will turn out and then arranging things so that it does just that. (Especially when you can see two episodes ahead that it's going to be a Luke-in-the-tauntaun moment.)

Incidentally The North Water is also worth watching as a cautionary tale of the over-authored story problems that Sarwat Chadda warned about in a recent post. The first four episodes are very powerful: atmospheric character-driven drama, like The Sea Wolf meets Moby-Dick. The last episode, after the prophecy has been fulfilled, disintegrates into mechanical thriller-style plotting, led astray by the literary conceit of the book ("can a civilized man find his bear spirit and so kill the force-of-nature uncivilized man?"). Stop after episode 4 and watch the end of Blade Runner instead, that's my advice.

Some player groups like their game worlds to be arranged as if guided by a storyteller. Others prefer the sense of a dispassionate universe where Fate doesn't have its finger on the scales. You'll know which kind of roleplayer you are, and if you're finding that you chafe at some campaigns it could be because you're in the wrong kind of universe.