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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 62414" data-attributes="member: 259">When I was learning GURPs, the GM gave me tongue-in-cheek advice:  always buy the disadvantage "foolhardy", and always buy the disadvantage "curious."  Since these were pretty much traits of PCs anyways, and since most adventures require the PCs to investigate dangerous things with no regard for personal safety, it was like getting points for free.While it's possible to run games without suicidally curious PCs, it's definitely a break from the norm.Some folks seem to think that I'm describing an adventure modelt hat requires railroading PCs in a particular direction -- but I don't see that as what I'm describing at all.  Rather, I'm talkinga bout starting an adventure with the plans of the bad guys, rather than the locations of the bad guys.  In my mind, this actually leads to more flexibility.  If the PCs attack the bad guys and retreat, the DM has some good stuff to work with:  the DM knows what plans got interrupted, and some ideas of how the bad guys are likely to respond.  In a site-based adventure, if the DM wants the bad guys to do anything beyond sit in their dungeon and twiddle their thumbs, he has to do the work himself.Of course, bad-guy-plots could easily be overlaid on top of a site-based adventure, and to a large degree they'd need to be.  But by having complex motives for the bad guys in the adventure, it can lead to weird and cool and unexpected outcomes.For example:  the bad guys want to create two dozen ghouls, capture or command them, and send them to a nearby village to terrorize the commoners there.  When the game begins, teh bad guys have a magic item that can generate ghouls, and they plan on using it at a dinner party that evening.Except that when you run the adventure, maybe your PCs find out about the item and get it before the dinner party, and they decide to put it on a ship offshore until they figure out how to destroy it.  Fine:  an unexpected outcome, an unexpected location.  You, as the DM, look at the bad guys' plots and motives, aand realize that htey need that artifact to proceed; instead of sitting in their hideout, they launch an assault on the ship.This is a simplified example, but you see what I'm saying, I hope.  With complex plans and motives on the bad guys' parts, it's easier to have them act plausibly and proactively.  And while I can come up with those motives myself, it's sometimes nice to work with someone else's ideas -- it can break me out of a rut, can keep all my bad guys from seeming the same.Daniel</blockquote>

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