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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grendel_Khan" data-source="post: 8699888" data-attributes="member: 7028554">I think you're right here, in general. But I should have clarified—in the play example I gave, the situation was very much a kind of narrative aside or tangent, specifically (according to the move's guidelines) unrelated to the current mystery, which hadn't even gotten underway.My take on these answering-machine missions has been to make them narrative minefields, basically, whose potential risk or long-term relevance to the larger conspiracy/metaplot is based on rolls, and when they're happening.So the first of them I framed as extremely dangerous, to set up the idea of the cult's lethality if the Mavens go wandering in abandoned corners of town after dark. And that was a night situation, so the gloves were off.The second involved a local bed and breakfast, and as it unspooled I kept it much cozier (in part based on a roll result). It introduced a seemingly friendly NPC who's now in the running for being the cult's leader.And in this third mission, because the PC didn't press the issue (so far) after a miss produced a hostile NPC, I didn't escalate. But the player will have to circle back to the lighthouse at some point to get that precious XP. Maybe that's when the storm comes rolling in, or figures on the beach seem to be following. And it could determine whether that NPC stays hostile, or becomes an ally or informant, etc.This isn't me looking for a pat on the back, just clarifying how I've been using these missions, which is as emergent world-building and on-the-spot NPC generation. That might seem too neutral for typical PbtA play, but the idea is that any of these side quests could turn momentous or deadly. Again, they're narrative bombs, waiting to be defused. But the damage they could do is improvised and based on rolls.</blockquote>

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