In retrospect, The Maximum Ride series makes a lot of sense if it was the narrative of the characters in a DnD/RPG game.
Like, six friends are playing as the flock, with their one seventh friend as the DM who is rather lenient with what he lets them get away with, because he’s just trying to tell the damn story.
They all dumped their highest stats into dex, constitution and strength and practically ignored charisma, intelligence and wisdom, to the DMs horror.
They all forgot to come up with names and decided them last minute, which explains why they got “Gazzy, Iggy, Fang, Maximum, Angel, and Nudge” with no last names.
The DM is trying SO hard to keep the story on track but the players keep making random decisions that throw the story off for weeks at a time, and the DM has practically given up. Like when they went to Disney World instead of going on to investigate the Enemy’s dungeon.
The DM had all these plans for a horror dungeon at the basement of the school in book two that would level them all up but instead of go to investigate it the players just ignored it and kept trying to “find their parents” (a plot point the DM hadn’t planned for them at all, and is scrambling to try and throw them off of). He literally tries to chase them into it by having an NPC (Sam) the character Max was dating lead them there when they are fleeing, and instead the character roundhouse kicks him and the whole party flees. A month of campaign planning down the drain.
Max’s Player:“I roll to try and read the data we stole from the Institute” DM (resigned): “Ok, sure” Max Player: 15! DM: It’s a bunch of numbers that make no sense. Absolutely none. Fang’s player: I roll for the same thing. Fang’s player: Nat 20! DM: It’s a bunch of numbers that make no sense. Nudge’s player: Maybe it’s coordinates!
*DM slams his head on the table*
The Voice is literally the DMs self insert power to try and get the characters to return to the story. The players almost never listen to it.
Ari has this amazing, incredible backstory/arc the DM planned and he’s pissed that due to low rolls Max’s character killed him in the early days of the campaign. He brought him back just for spite, and he was killed off halfway through the arc. The DM hasn’t given up though.
Angel’s player was absent the first several weeks and so she started off kidnapped.
Max’s player can never remember what color hair she gave her character.
They keep getting magical items/leveling up and getting feats that give them their new abilities (breathing underwater, telempathy, invisibility, etc) but the players frequently forget that they have them and rarely use them.
Iggy’s player kept getting terrible visibility rolls, so he just decided he would be blind.
Ella and Ms Martinez were supposed to be on time npc’s, but the party liked the DM’s voice so much as Ms Martinez that they demanded more of them.
After their campaign ends (Book 3) they want to keep the characters for a short, one shot campaign. The DM was taking an enviromental class at the time and all of his planning was done during that class, so there were some strange influences.
The DM got too busy or wanted to be a character or something after the one shot, so another friend joined as the DM. It was his first time and he didn’t really know what the first DM had planned, so he kind of cobbled it together. After a few weeks he got too busy too, so he dropped and another person had to step to be DM. This kept happening. This was all supposed to be part of the same campaign, but the villains and tone kept shifting, as well as what the DM let them get away with.
One DM got irritated with Fang’s player and created Dylan just to annoy him.
Fang’s player went on study abroad for a while, so the DM had him leave the party; occasionally when he skypes in they make up what his character been doing in the meantime and he meets up with the party for a little while.
The OG DM returned, was horrified to see what happened to the once neat campaign he had attempted, and literally ended the world. The players still continued somehow.
Angel’s player really wants to play a lawful evil a/o true neutral character and so she keeps having Angel make grabs for power and be controlling.
The DM hates Total. The party outvoted him.
