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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ourph" data-source="post: 3187324" data-attributes="member: 20239">Which is why I generally shy away from anything resembling "story" or "overall plots" as well.Sessions don't end in the middle of an NPC/PC discussion but they often end at some random place in the dungeon because we've run out of time.  I don't think of sessions as installments in a weekly TV adventure show, they're just game sessions where we pick up with wherever the game stopped last time.  Occasionally, I'll call a game at what I call a "good stopping point" like before the PCs open the next door in a dungeon or right after a fight where I know some of the PCs are likely to level up, but I've never even considered manipulating the game to end the session after an important and climatic encounter.  I don't see the need.  It doesn't seem dissatisfying at all to end the session after killing Random Guard #3 to me.  As a DM, where the session ends makes no difference.  As a player, I'm just happy if the session ends with my PC alive.I don't buy the realism argument.  I wouldn't consider the nominal leader of a bandit gang a "BBEG".  He's just the guy in the group who calls the shots.  To me, a BBEG implies some sort of higher-challenge mastermind (like a high level NPC or a "boss monster") and AFAIC the idea that every group has such a leader and is built on a regimented hierarchy is what's unrealistic.  If you're talking about LE monsters and NPCs maybe it makes more sense, but for other groups without that alignment, a less regimented and organized structure seems perfectly natural.  I usually try to steer away from using complex organizations with a single mastermind as a behind-the-scenes puppetmaster in my campaigns at any rate.  To me (and from what I have heard in idle chitchat from my players, they agree) game elements like that are too cliched and restrictive to be appealing.In general, the challenges I throw at my players are more along the lines of "Here's a dangerous place.  Here's a reason to go there.  Decide what you want to do. Go!"  or "These people are doing X, these other people over here are doing Y.  You can either take sides, form a 3rd faction or try to avoid getting involved.  Go!".  And as I said before, usually these challenges are either extensions of or based on ramifications from previous events in the campaign, so there's no real "scenario" with a beginning and an end; the events are extensions of the ongoing action.  My experience has been that this kind of organization is far from dissatisfying.  YMMV.</blockquote>

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