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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 6420350" data-attributes="member: 29398">Late to the party again, as usual, but a few thoughts:1. In the example where someone comes up specifically to the PCs in a tavern with an adventure to be done: easy workaround if it's not a stealth mission is to have the guy instead stand at the bar and announce his request to the whole place. (for added fun, have other guys doing the same in other bars all over town)  Then, it becomes an in-character choice whether to get involved or not; and as DM you've given yourself the pleasant side effect of loads of design space to add in competing parties and so forth if you want...or not, if you don't want.2. Sometimes - if I've thought of it - I'll have predetermined minor details e.g. does the wizard have a beard, or are there boxes in the alley.  If so, then that's the way it is no matter what.  But if I haven't - and this happens all the time! - then I'll either roll myself (for the beard) or give the players a roll (for the boxes) and see where it goes.  For the boxes example, if there's no boxes in sight and the PCs decide to go looking for some there will be two rolls involved - one by the party for success in box-finding, and one by me to see if anybody notices and-or cares about this activity.3. My problems arise when there's an element written into an adventure and the party take so long to get to that element it makes no sense for it to still be there.  I have to modify the adventure on the fly, while also figuring out what has become of said element (usually a creature).  An example from a module I'm running right now: the day before the PCs got to the dungeon three down-on-their-luck fighters wandered in to it, found some wine, got too drunk to move, and stayed put (this is scripted).  The PCs found their tracks (this was not scripted) and followed them in, but then for some reason then left those tracks and went another way.  It's now been several days; the PCs have gone almost everywhere except where these guys are or could have got to, there's no way those fighters could have reasonably survived unless they stayed right where they were (with limited food and no water, not happening), which means I-as-DM either have to do some serious fudging to let them survive or abandon what would potentially be an entertaining and amusing encounter.  It's possible the PCs will never get to the part of the dungeon these guys are in (their exploration has been somewhat haphazard), but in-game consistency tells me the best they can do is either find three corpses or find nothing except the aftermath of a major drink-up as the hungover-but-very-lucky fighters have managed to stumble outdoors and away.From what I've read here, different DMs would handle this a bunch of different ways.Lan-"no DM plan ever survives first contact with the players"-efan</blockquote>

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