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Yet another Solos fix: "Solo actions"
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7058184" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>I think a lot of it was just that I would kind of outline ahead what the likely story points would be where some kind of significant action would happen. Sometimes other things would come up, or the plot would turn in some less obvious direction of course, but after a lot of years of GMing I can do a quick rework of a few elements in those cases.</p><p></p><p>As for HOW to determine what is plot-critical? The players ideally should be the determinants of that. For instance they took a significant interest in the 'bad cop' character, and so they became invested in working out the various aspects of that character. They were less interested in the 'work boss' character, and the 'damsel' character, but took a proprietary interest in the 'small clever boy' character. So of course various scenes presented themselves in which those particular characters factored in some bigger way, although the 'damsel' in particular was still fairly important even though the PCs simply didn't engage with her and treated her as "that girl that needs to just listen to dad and not get in trouble" vs actually actively championing her cause or really caring much about what befell her beyond what got the story arc finished out. </p><p></p><p>Consequently I injected encounters where the 'clever boy' showed the party how to ride the log flume (and they had to keep him safe while furthering their mission) instead of some other one where something would have gone on with the girl.</p><p></p><p>If, say hypothetically, one of the PCs had decided the girl was a romantic interest, then certain obvious concomitant events could have been unfolded. As it was the actual story from the BBEG's standpoint didn't change, but the PCs just didn't follow that thread, it became mostly background.</p><p></p><p>Overall this WAS a pretty structured story arc. Some of them are more freeform. Depending on the players you've got you can foist a lot of that end of things off on them to just decide where they're going to go with stuff (I think this is pretty much [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s approach).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7058184, member: 82106"] I think a lot of it was just that I would kind of outline ahead what the likely story points would be where some kind of significant action would happen. Sometimes other things would come up, or the plot would turn in some less obvious direction of course, but after a lot of years of GMing I can do a quick rework of a few elements in those cases. As for HOW to determine what is plot-critical? The players ideally should be the determinants of that. For instance they took a significant interest in the 'bad cop' character, and so they became invested in working out the various aspects of that character. They were less interested in the 'work boss' character, and the 'damsel' character, but took a proprietary interest in the 'small clever boy' character. So of course various scenes presented themselves in which those particular characters factored in some bigger way, although the 'damsel' in particular was still fairly important even though the PCs simply didn't engage with her and treated her as "that girl that needs to just listen to dad and not get in trouble" vs actually actively championing her cause or really caring much about what befell her beyond what got the story arc finished out. Consequently I injected encounters where the 'clever boy' showed the party how to ride the log flume (and they had to keep him safe while furthering their mission) instead of some other one where something would have gone on with the girl. If, say hypothetically, one of the PCs had decided the girl was a romantic interest, then certain obvious concomitant events could have been unfolded. As it was the actual story from the BBEG's standpoint didn't change, but the PCs just didn't follow that thread, it became mostly background. Overall this WAS a pretty structured story arc. Some of them are more freeform. Depending on the players you've got you can foist a lot of that end of things off on them to just decide where they're going to go with stuff (I think this is pretty much [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s approach). [/QUOTE]
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Yet another Solos fix: "Solo actions"
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