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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psychotic Jim" data-source="post: 5213308" data-attributes="member: 547">Okay, so if I'm correctly getting this adventure outline/structure right, it would flow something like this: Part 1:     The characters learn of some vague plot by those wacky cultists.  The party spends some time investigating their plot and learning just how far the cultists have got.  Fear and anxiety begins to build as they receive cryptic findings hinting at they may be too late.  How will the party decide to investigate this mystery? How will they use the information as they learn it?Part 2:    Pandora's Box has already been opened.  The stars are right, and it's an unimaginable (if watery) hell on earth, at least locally in Chicago.  The fear now is different from the creeping anxiety of what is behind the curtain.  No, it's Apocalypse WOW- the group is fighting for their lives (and maybe those of the innocents) in the thick of things.  People need to be brought to safety.  And of course, there are all sorts of lingering, unfathomable... creatures from beyond running around here at ground zero.  These will need to be contained or put down as much as possible. How will (if they decide to) the PCs react to this, all the while fighting the despair that comes from knowing this great sense of loss has already come?Part 3:    Once the most immediate disaster has struck, now comes a point of dealing with the loss and picking up the pieces.  Now that they have some more time to think about things, how will the party respond in the long term? Will they seek revenge on the Deep Ones and the cultists?  Will they try to find a way to bring back Chicago? Will they help the populace resettle in the long term?  Will they try forbidden time travel spells to go back and change the past? Will they just shrug their shoulders and move to a new home city? Will they try to prevent it from happening again?  Although all the demons of Pandora’s Box have been let loose: there is still one thing left- hope.  The hope of whatever the PCs eek to accomplish.***So here, it seems like you’ve got a lot of events bigger than the characters going on, but you want to leave it open to the players to choose how they react and what they do.  As it looks, you’ve got kind of a situation of rising urgency and dread, starting with the smaller investigation and ending with the threat of the disaster spreading.  But as the level of disaster rises, so does the ability of the players to make a difference.  In each part of the adventure, you’ve got questions of how the party responds.  As this adventure starts, the players’ roles in this are fairly limited=- mostly reactive in following the steps of the Deeps Ones and their cult.  In Part 2, it’s still mostly reactive, but now what they do really matters.  It’s up to them to save lives and contain the madness as much as they can.  In Part 3, here’s where they really get to be proactive.  Now that the worst has happened, it will be up to them to decide how to handle the situation going forward.   In summation from what I’m gathered from this thread, the key here is that you want to give the players the ability to meaningfully respond to the situation despite the layers of cosmic futility and horror.   What you don’t want is total despair- that leads to a disconnect or frustration that often results from railroading.  So giving them some options of making the best of a bad situation is important here.  The paradox is that horror ultimately requires hope. That’s the hope that how their actions, their decisions will have a meaningful impact on the world.  At least, within the context of the situation.</blockquote>

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