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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5596862" data-attributes="member: 4937">First, by not making too many assumptions about what resources PC's should or shouldn't have at a given level.Why?  This is a very serious question.  If they are hiring the PCs to help them out it suggests the PCs have some resources that the sages don't have and absolutely need.  If the PC's have much fewer resources than the sages, why are the sages bothering with the PC's?  What steps have the sages already taken given the resources that they have, and what about the PC's suggests to the sages that these are the people who have the resources they lack.If you have already answered these questions, you generally no longer are worried about what resources the PC's may or may not have.Why not?  The sages probably did the scrying ritual before the PC's even showed up.  Are you saying the sages are too stupid to realize that they had the tools that they needed to solve the problem even before the PC's were hired?  Why are NPC's stupid?This is one of the reasons I rarely have NPC's with considerable resources in my game.  If the NPCs have considerable resources, it's utterly illogical that the game is about the PC's and this WILL come out in the course of play.So don't.  Build it into your plans ahead of time.  Don't plan out what the PC's will do like you are a conductor on a railroad.  Plan out what the NPC's will do based on their resources and circumstances and figure out how the PC's fit into this situation given the resources that they have.  As PC resources increase, they'll end up naturally taking a bigger and bigger role in society.  You won't have to work at it.Sure.  In fact, if the PC's are defending a town from goblin raiders, I probably predicate winning the scenario on the PC's utilizing as much of the resources of the town as is practical.  Or the PC's might not be tasked with the whole job of defeating the goblin raiders, just defeating the raiders in one small section of the town where failure is marked by narrative suffering of the NPC's they failed to save and success by being hailed as heroes.Often I treat the PC's as the wild card in a scenario.  The villains have carefully planned their plot to overcome the resources of of the local good guys, and so have taken steps to defend themselves against the sort of obvious things the good guys might try.  But they are relatively unprepared for the arrival of the heroes who have resources they didn't account and who take steps they didn't expect.</blockquote>

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