Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8167572" data-attributes="member: 6790260">One of these moments occurred early on in my game. The party found the extremely poorly-concealed paper trail of Shadow-Druid shipping routes (they're rabidly anti-city, so it&nbsp; never occurred to them to check things like &quot;tax receipts&quot;), and learned there were two relevant locations. One location shipped something out from its area (a semi-isolated pockmarked bluffs region called &quot;The Honeycomb&quot;), through the main city (following all the other major caravans, to blend in with the crowd) before heading out to a spot in some marshy headwaters of the Sadalbari river. Then stuff came back from that area to the city, which the party had already found and dealt with. They elected to go to the marshy area first, and had some bad rolls on their journey out there. This meant they arrived after someone else had attacked that location, and by the time they got through it and returned to town, the Shadow-Druids had already completely cleared out of the other location.There were still things to learn in both places, but this communicated relatively clearly that there are Costs and Consequences to favoring one path over another. I won't screw my players over, but if they choose to put out Fire A first, then Fire B and C will be harder to fight when they arrive, or will have produced Fire D while they were distracted, etc. If they really neglect a plotline, it kudzus, becoming more entrenched, reaching closer and closer to its nefarious goals. Never enough to be insurmountable, but showing that it isn't just what they do choose that shapes the story.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8167572, member: 6790260"] One of these moments occurred early on in my game. The party found the extremely poorly-concealed paper trail of Shadow-Druid shipping routes (they're [I]rabidly[/I] anti-city, so it never occurred to them to check things like "tax receipts"), and learned there were two relevant locations. One location shipped something out from its area (a semi-isolated pockmarked bluffs region called "The Honeycomb"), through the main city (following all the other major caravans, to blend in with the crowd) before heading out to a spot in some marshy headwaters of the Sadalbari river. Then stuff came back from that area to the city, which the party had already found and dealt with. They elected to go to the marshy area first, and had some bad rolls on their journey out there. This meant they arrived after [I]someone else[/I] had attacked that location, and by the time they got through it and returned to town, the Shadow-Druids had already completely cleared out of the other location. There were still things to learn in both places, but this communicated relatively clearly that there are Costs and Consequences to favoring one path over another. I won't screw my players over, but if they choose to put out Fire A first, then Fire B and C will be harder to fight when they arrive, or will have produced Fire D while they were distracted, etc. If they [I]really[/I] neglect a plotline, it kudzus, becoming more entrenched, reaching closer and closer to its nefarious goals. Never enough to be insurmountable, but showing that it isn't just what they [I]do[/I] choose that shapes the story. [/QUOTE]

Verification