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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 3926393" data-attributes="member: 9254">I have a loose framework with a couple of "critical path" events that will hopefully occur to drag the party into the core plot.  I do my darnedest to avoid a railroad, so the players have plenty of opportunities to redirect events.  At this point my NPCs are defined more by motivation and intent than specific plans.  I've frequently had what I expected to be significant enemies be adopted by the party because they weren't blatantly evil or their evil wasn't considered offensive by the party.  By the same time, potential allies are shunned and sometimes outright reviled.  It's not that my party is evil but they can understand and relate better to a very selfish person than a high minded moralist with an overdeveloped sense of honor.  They feel they can control, or at least direct, the selfish evil ally better than they can a moralist who will be compelled to take actions the party wouldn't approve.  So my party's strongest allies tend to be more on the netural and evil side of things than good.  Since their enemies are "paragons of evil", the PCs are still on the side of angels, relatively speaking.  They have good allies but tend to keep them in the dark as much as possible to avoid unpleasantness.  All in all, my original plot framework is still intact with the majority of my key events happening, but they didn't play out how I intended.</blockquote>