Do you plotweave?

[howandwhy99]

I personally prefer adventure campaigns with lots of plotweaving, story arcs, mysterious villians, unheard of magic items, etc. When I’m playing in this style of campaign, I feel more free to change direction because the DM is already creating plot openings. It also allows for myself and other players to come up with ideas we think are cool and become the creators of our own adventures.

“We’d prefer to take over the town and run it as a commune”
“Let’s skip this dungeon and try and become spies for the king”
“What if instead of killing all the monsters we capture them for our own travelling circus of creature-morphed spy communists?”

By making our plans known ahead of time, if we think up something drastically different than what was planned, the DM can still make changes for next the session.

My current theory on how to do this is to lightly set up story arcs based on geography and societal makeup with one developed intro adventure to start. I would then adjust the level of detail and add new story arcs based upon what the players did each session. With an ongoing log and a good collection of interesting drop-in NPCs, magic items, monsters, spells, storyhooks and combat set pieces I would run a story on the fly until things came back to prepared events.

What I’m interested in is hearing about how other people weave together story arcs in their own games. Do you plot weave? And how do you make it work?

Edit: Help me out in finding good methods to blend together story arcs!

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

I don't. I like the idea of it, but my group doesn't play often enough for me to do this. If you're going to have a complicated plot (or plots) then you really have to meet once a week or more. Anything less and the players can get the NPCs confused.

 

[Mark]

It's tricky to do but I think very satisfying to the players and the DM to plotweave as much as you can. Complex, but not complicated, is my own credo. Simple in its depth and detail.

 

[Voadam]

I do.

Some advice, have character specific plot elements, for example in my old 2e game a ranger came in with a starting magic item of a potion of snake charming as the party was going against a set priestess, she used the potion to turn the priestesses snakes against her and then bonded with the snakes as companions, I had this establish a Set connection to the ranger who got some secret benefits as time went on that disturbed the other PCs and would have eventually lead to further Set cult adventures and intrigues. Another example was the character who was unknowingly carrying a necromancer's heart that was a permanent magic jar vessel, so the character would occassionally be taken over in his sleep and do things.

These plot things go on and on usually in the background, but depending upon PC actions they can become main focus issues.

I also get a bunch of modules and figure out where they and their plots fit into my game world ahead of time, usually in a geographic basis (if they go to the wild coast they can get involved in the slaver series of activities, in Greyhawk they can hear about the bounties on the weapons in White Plume) and then I can add foreshadowing early about NPCs or events from them. Even if they are not used, the discovered details add to the feel of a living world.

 

[Garmorn]

I use to run fairly open and simple campaigns because most of my players where straight H&S types. Now they are wanting more depth to the game and game world so I am trying to add more. One step at a time.

 

[orbitalfreak]

I would like to play in a campaign doing this, but don't do it in my own games. For one, I'm not creative enough to get any major interwoven plot-strings going. Secondly, my group is more hack-and-slash, so they don't mind linear plots. I do try to keep some story going in the background, with connections here and there, to add flavour above what a purely linear campaign would have.

 

[KnowTheToe]

I enjoy this as well but as mentioned wisely above, do not attempt too complicated or too many if you do not meet weekly.

I do two things when I have DMed. First I always create player specific plot threads. It allows each character to shine and take a lead in at least part of an adventure. Players usually love it even when they end up cursed because of it.

The other thing I do is try and introduce lots of NPCs. At any time I can pick an NPC the characters have some tie to and add hook or another layer of detail to the cuurent story line.

It takes work to do and I have not done it in years because I am not familiar enough with D&D to DM on the fly. Too many rules lawyers out there.

 

[Desdichado]

I like to take an "x-files" approach. About every other session or adventure or so is related to the "big story arcs" and the rest are more self-contained. But even those have foreshadowing and hints in them.

 

[apocalypstick]

I run games that are heavy on the politics, and not only are there multiple plots that the characters are involved in at any one time, there are even more going on that they aren't involved in (until the outcome(s) of said plots come around to bite them in their posteriors).

Oftentimes they'll forget, after a month or two, about something they set into motion and dropped to pursue something else, but then you get to drop an assassin or two into the mix and watch 'em try and figure out who they pissed off this time...

 

[Desdichado]

That's one of my favorite tricks too -- the plot hooks that they don't pursue don't just sit fallow waiting for them to remember, they develop on their own behind the scenes. I like to stress my players out because they can't handle all the problems they're aware of, so they eventually lose some battles by picking others.