When I was a kid, I used to think I didn't really give a fuck about plot. I read an awful lot of awfully mediocre fiction, and what I liked I mostly liked for characters and dialogue and setting (Roger Zelazny's Amber series was my favorite, just to illustrate the extent of the thing) more than the actual events of the story. That lasted up until circa, I dunno, age 16, when I read A Game of Thrones for the first (of many) time(s). It was like I'd never even encountered a real plot before, and suddenly I was being sandblasted by a piece of literature where the -events- actually interested me, not just the charming turns of phrase and enticing escapist worldbuilding that the author'd come up with.
Since I never really got into the New World campaign, my relationship to RPPR was pretty similar for a while. I liked it because it was fun and made me laugh more than because I really gave a fuck about what happened within the narrative. Andrew's Fortune really marked the turning point there for me (and I'd later feel the same way about New Arcadia and Know Evil). It was still impossibly hilarious ("With you throwing twenties around like that, you could eat at a...a Joe's Crab Shack, even!"), but at the same time featured events that seemed to check out on some sort of logical level set against a backdrop that felt like a real place and populated with characters who really felt like they had something at stake. For the first time in the slew of RPPRs I'd listened to I was just as interested in what was gonna happen next as I was in what as gonna make me grin next.
I'm embarrassingly earnest sometimes, huh? XD I could be senselessly callous instead, if it'd make people less uncomfortable.
