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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6494959" data-attributes="member: 4937">This sort of thing happens all the time, and not just on EnWorld.  There is even a meme for that: "Cool story, bro."Lots of people come to share stories, only to find that what other people hear isn't what they expected them to hear.To begin with, I have no stories of times the PC's screwed up so big that the whole world suffered.   I've been playing for 30 years, but in general I've tended to avoid 'save the world' stories until this most recent campaign.  Partly that's because I've deliberately avoided 'save the world' tropes because they tend to be the anti-thesis of open world play.  Partly that's because I feel its an overdone trope, that tends to steam roll all sorts of imaginative play.  If the PC's have to save the world, it really doesn't matter what else their priorities are - all that will have to wait.  And partly it's because I feel that if the world was so easy to screw up that the PC's could do it, it would be far more screwed up already.My current players though asked for a railroad/AP campaign, and so I'm taking advantage of the opportunity.  And while the PC's have screwed up in the current campaign, sometimes without realizing it, for the most part they've 'won' on the big jobs and the consequences of screwing up have largely been dead PC's and sometimes a few dozen dead innocents.  They saved Campanasalus and rescued the missing children.  Amalteen didn't burn in dark fire when Tarkus accidently let it loose because Tarkus never got it.  Talernga didn't collapse in civil war, and the elven community there wasn't destroyed when Keeropus engine misfired on Midsummer's Day, because Keeropus fled the city before attempting that test.  That isn't to say that they didn't have mistakes, but so far they aren't big ones.  Even if I did have such stories, I'm not convinced anyone would be interested in them.The closest I can come is the PC's were in the Greater Catacombs of Amalteen, beyond the necromantic warning rune marked with 6 bars that indicated that beyond this rune were hazards capable of destroying the world.  When they'd first come back from that, the local temples had been very careful to go over them with a fine tooth comb for curses and taints of various sorts, and then impounded any treasure they considered cursed unless the PC's paid a fee to have it cleansed.  However, in the crisis that eventually developed, they came back for the last time before the entrances were sealed without being halted by the guards or representatives of the white council.  As such, they came back with 1000 cursed silver pieces, which they deposited with their factor with the instructions (I quote): "Invest in something shady, but not too shady".  Their factor then bought shares in a privateer that was about to be launched, and as a result the 1000 cursed silver pieces entered the general market.  That was about a month ago.  The result of that is going to nearly destroy a small city over the next few days, and they don't know, won't be able to find out, and I'm not sure that they'll discover their role in the event or even ever hear about it before campaign end.At the least, your little twig people and snow golem are gods.  They may be 'small gods', akin to but mightier than dryads, nymphs or lares, but gods they most certainly are.  They just happen to be gods that you can stuff in a bag and stomp on.  That's not necessarily all bad.   It's not unusual for in fairy tales such mighty figures as Death or Satan to succumb to magic items and the trickery of some hero, and these figures are not mightier than that.  But I'm guessing from the story that the PC's were somewhat early in their careers and faced far mightier beings than these small gods of winter.  I still don't understand how such fragile yet important figures weren't guarded by something, if only an old elf lore master that at least waved his arms and said, "Put away your arms, for you are standing on sacred ground!  If ye be any sort of friend of the free peoples, you'll do nothing to interfere with the sacred ceremony of winter, lest the whole world fall into imbalance and people die by the thousands or millions!  Famine, flood and disaster will befall any that breaks the peace of this ceremony!"  I'm not saying that you made a particularly unfair call, and I'm glad everyone sounds fun - at the least, it sounds creative.  But it still strikes me as being right on the line, and I'm sympathetic to Rune going, "Cool story bro, but I hope noob DM's reading this are very careful with this sort of thing."</blockquote>

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