At our NaNoWriMo kick-off party recently (you DID remember NaNoWriMo, didn't you?), one of the games involved finding party-goers that fit into various categories, such as "Writing Sci-Fi," or, "Has a female main character." One of the categories was, "Knows what Deus ex machina means."
A couple of us were rather surprised by how few knew what Deus ex machina (pronounced "Day-oos Eks Makinah") meant, or how it applies to writing. To be honest, it's a good thing to know for both writers and game masters.
Deus Ex Machina is a Latin phrase meaning, "God from the machine." The term was applied to a practice in plays and fiction where a character is saved from an inescapable tragedy by an impossible coincidence. You know; kind of like the "Bat Utility Belt" for the writer - no matter how unusual the problem, Batman had just what he needed on the Bat Utility Belt (at least in the old, campy TV series from the 1960s).
The term was derived from the stage device used to make a god character appear on stage, be it a crane that lowered the actor, or a trapdoor, or other clever machine that gave the illusion of a miraculous arrival, especially at a critical moment when the hero of the story would otherwise be hopelessly doomed.
Sort of like the Greek god Mercury appearing in Sheryl's living room with a stack of pre-edited submissions for the next Collector Times, right before midnight on the last day of the month. It couldn't happen because we writers get off our butts and send in our articles early (now THAT would be a miracle).
Despite being one of the oldest plot devices to rectify impossible situations, the Deus ex machina is considered undesirable and even amateurish, particularly when the solution is a complete surprise. If the villain leaves a rare, non-indigenous viper to bite the hero, it's a Deus ex machina if the hero just happens to be carrying the correct anti-venin for that snake, despite having no clue or warning that the villain was going to do this. Why would he be carrying anti-venin for the Elbonian Mud Cobra, if he's 5000 miles away from Elbonia, and has no reason to expect to encounter an Elbonian Mud Cobra?
It's almost cliché for this to be the case in free-form role-playing, where one player tries to get the upper hand with some previously unrevealed item or skill that just happens to perfectly address the situation.
"You are surrounded by a thousand vicious orcs."
"I draw my plus thousand sword of orc slaughter and kill them all with one mighty swing."
"One of the orcs has a shield of absolute invulnerability."
"My sword has a magic property that nullifies shield magic."
"The orc's shield has a property that nullifies sword magic."
This can go on almost forever, with no resolution other than both players getting upset with each other and walking away from the game altogether.
There are several problems with employing the Deus ex machina in our writing and gaming. First, it makes the story or game seem poorly thought out, as if we wrote ourselves into a corner and had no other way of salvaging the scenario besides introducing the impossible coincidence. Second, if used too frequently, it removes all drama. Regardless of how dire the circumstances, the familiar reader or gamer is going to know something incredible will happen to save the day.
The solution to this trap is think enough ahead of your story to offer the reader or gamer a plausible reason for the solution. If the police show up a moment before the villain is ready to pull the trigger, give some background and a good reason for the police to be there. If the hero has just the perfect weapon or skill for a strange circumstance, establish some background for when and why he or she has this item or skills et. It doesn't have to be complex. It can be as simple as the hero learning that the villain was caught on security video breaking into the Reptile House at the local zoo, and the only thing missing was a terrarium of Elbonian Mud Cobras, or an NPC at the tavern warning the character about large hordes of orcs spotted near their destination.
If we have the imagination to write or run a game in the first place, we owe it to ourselves and our audiences to invest a bit more of that imagination into establishing plausible solutions to the problems the characters must overcome. When we've gained a reputation for great stories, we'll find that our audiences are paying attention to seemingly insignificant details early on, because they'll never know which detail is going to become vital before the conclusion.
Well, I can tell by the way his heel feathers are fluttering that Mercury is getting impatient, so I'd better finish this and let him carry it to Sheryl. You know how gods and editors can be when deadlines are looming . . .
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