D&D General Advancing the Plot when the PCs don't take the bait. . .

[BrassDragon]

One trick I've used to have someone else save the day / mitigate the threat / deal with the fallout of the player's choice. That makes the world feel 'bigger' because it shows not every problem relies on the player characters showing up.

It also lets me (re-)introduce some characters from the PC's backgrounds. In two recent campaigns, I've used a mentor figure and a former lover for this purpose which gives the players a more personal connection to the 'road not taken'.

In the game with the mentor, he actually took up the dungeoncrawl designed for the players and the PC who knew him best was like 'OMG, we have to go after him... he's book smart but not as capable as we are.'

 

[Imaculata]

It was a fun idea, but I was too green to foreshadow everything correctly or adjust it all on the fly. If I were to do it now, I would make this the one and only adventure presented to the players. A bit of railroading? Yes. If they didn't seem interested, then I would just leave the coins in a lockbox somewhere. I would also probably write a description of each person that came into contact with the coins and a "scene" for the players to investigate or alter with their actions.

Now I honestly feel inspired to write just such an adventure, about a region plagued by werewolves.

 

[Scott Christian]

Now I honestly feel inspired to write just such an adventure, about a region plagued by werewolves.

It would be a fun one. I often picture a desert biome where people living in adobes and cliffside constructions being plagued by the hundreds of werejackals roaming about in the desert, which is really just a loose knitted group of nomadic tribesmen infected by the curse. They break from each other during the end of the lunar cycle to do their thing, then regather at the start of the new moon. Have a little grey morality conundrum thrown in, so the players have a dilemma to hunt them down or search for a cure (or the cause).

 

[Volund]

I've used a rival adventuring party as a successful device to raise the stakes and drive the action for the party. Yes, it's a cliché but it's one that works. Sometimes it's as simple as while the PC's went on the "Recover an Item" mission instead of "Clear out the Bad Guy Camp", the NPC party succeeded at clearing out the bad guys. This lets the players know that the world is not in sleep mode awaiting their arrival at a given locale in order to activate.

Even better, a rival NPC party can draw the party more quickly through adventure nodes, and energizes players when they discover they are chasing a rival who is ahead of them. For example, the players have found the plot point at A, which leads to B, C and D. Meanwhile the rival party has been to C and advances straight to D. If the party also goes to D they all arrive at the same time, but if they go to B or C their rivals will be ahead of them, which they eventually find out when they get to C or D. Depending on how far behind they are, the PC's may experience 0, 1, or 2 consequences for their choices. This can create Raiders of the Lost Ark style tension with each party trying to stay a step ahead of the other. It's also a good surprise for players accustomed to turning over every stone "just to make sure" even when they know what to do next, or cycling through every side-quest for metagame reasons - "just for the xp" or "to level up before moving on" etc.

 

[MGibster]

The details don't matter. I am not asking for advice or suggestions, I have some ideas that make sense and I am very aware of avoiding making the consequences seem like a "punishment" for making their own choices (either choice came with benefits and downsides and they talked them through as a group when choosing). But wanted to know if anyone else loved moments like these in their games as much as I do, and ask for examples of in-game events where PCs had to deal with the consequences of not acting or taking a different path for a while. What was the choice? What were the consequences? How did the players react?

I was running a Hell on Earth campaign which is an alternative future post apocalyptic setting based on the Deadlands game. The players were working for a Salt Lake City that was soon to be at war with the mutants from Las Vegas and the cyborg army from Denver, who had formed an alliance against SLC, and had been tasked with finding the Nuclear Football from Air Force One which was lost 17 years ago during World War III. Which they found.

A funny thing happened on the way back to SLC. One of the PCs decided the leaders of SLC were evil and could not be trusted with a nuclear device. And while they weren't exactly good, they were engaged in a war with mutants who wanted to kill all humans and cyborgs that wanted to enslave all humans. But the lesser of three evils was still too evil and he tried to destroy the Nuclear Football. A fight ensues, grenades are thrown by other PCs, the "pacifist" PC is killed, and low and behold the Football is Swiss cheese. They're sent on another mission to find parts to repair the Football but I had decided it wasn't going to be enough.

At the end of the campaign there's a climatic fight between the Mutant/Cyborg armies and SLC. The leaders of SLC launch a nuke aimed directly at the bulk of the cyborg army but it lands harmlessly on a nearby mountain top. Well, not so harmlessly in the long term. But in the short term the combined forces of Vegas and Denver crush SLC killing and/or capturing the 10,000 souls who lived there. All because mid way through the campaign one PC decided nobody could be trusted with a nuclear weapon.

 

[MGibster]

As player I love when the DM take time to describe results of our choice. It makes a world living and attractive. But I would not use the term consequence, because I rarely see player feel guilt, remorse or shame based on DM descriptions.

Consequence just means the results of actions taken and can be positive, negative, or neutral. I tell my players that I never get upset at the choices they make it games (mostly true) but that their actions will have consequences that might be positive or negative in the game.

 

[MGibster]

There should also be a special category for player characters who refuse to share information with other people in their party.

Cyberpunk 2020: It's been nearly ten years since I ran this campaign, but I had the Corporate PC receive a very important email with plot information that was relevant to every single person in the group. It was the whole reason why a solo, fixer, netrunner, etc., etc. were teamed up and trying to accomplish something. But. He. Refused. To. Share. And the game ground to a halt.

Legend of the Five Rings: I wrote this elaborate letter from a courtier who was fawning over and complimenting his daimyo's new advisor. The letter was written in such as way as to appear complimentary on the surface but it was quite clear that this new advisor was a practitioner of blood magic which is highly forbidden. The PC completely understood the letter was both a warning and a plea for help but he just tucked it away without sharing this information with the rest of the party who later blundered into a maho user.

As the GM for both games, I've got to accept blame for my part. I really should have said something like, "Do you mean to keep that from the rest of the group?" And explain that we can't really move forward unless you do something with that information.

 

[Imaculata]

Players not sharing vital information with the group is one of my biggest frustrations as a DM. Especially when you are running an adventure in a system that relies heavily on clues, such as Call of Cthulhu, having a player hide that all important clue can seriously derail the adventure, or worse: get the whole party killed.

There are only so many clues you can drop as a DM, and if one of the players is just carrying around the clue of where to go next, without looking at it or showing it to the rest of the party... argh, it makes me want to pull my hair out.

And I can drop in reminders of course: "Remember, you still have that black book in your inventory that you haven't looked at", but when even those reminders are ignored... then what do you do?

I don't like railroading my players, but I also don't feel it is fair for the whole party to fail the adventure because one player was holding back an important clue.

 

[corwyn77]

At the end of the campaign there's a climatic fight between the Mutant/Cyborg armies and SLC. The leaders of SLC launch a nuke aimed directly at the bulk of the cyborg army but it lands harmlessly on a nearby mountain top. Well, not so harmlessly in the long term. But in the short term the combined forces of Vegas and Denver crush SLC killing and/or capturing the 10,000 souls who lived there. All because mid way through the campaign one PC decided nobody could be trusted with a nuclear weapon.

Heh, I was running a regular Deadlands game and my players (mostly a explosives-crazy Mad Scientist) decided that the best way to destroy Santa Anna's undead army was to detonate a large repository of Ghost Rock. The result was a brand new Deadland (an area that is basically home and fostering area for the big bads of the setting and full of bad juju).

 

[Imaculata]

Heh, I was running a regular Deadlands game and my players (mostly a explosives-crazy Mad Scientist) decided that the best way to destroy Santa Anna's undead army was to detonate a large repository of Ghost Rock. The result was a brand new Deadland (an area that is basically home and fostering area for the big bads of the setting and full of bad juju).

That is an amazing outcome. I think it is fantastic when the choices of the players have such a big effect on the setting, and form the springboard for future adventures. Well done to both you as a DM, and your players.