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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6723948" data-attributes="member: 4937">Yes, but ensuring the players find and follow the breadcrumbs is the #1 hardest part of running an adventure path and keeping a in between the ditches.   Adventure paths are often a series of mysteries, each of which leads to the next mystery.  Creative solutions are usually only problems if they destroy your breadcrumbs.  (A classic example would be the PC's burn down the dungeon, destroying all the clues in it.  Note almost a whole page of the 16 page G1: Steading of the Hill Giant Chieftain is devoted to stopping this from happening.)  Usually when bad DMs panic and insist on single solutions it's when the PC's propose a solution that destroys their only breadcrumbs.For example, Imaculata mentions the case of an inexperienced DM panicking when the PC's tried to route around an encounter with bandits and not fight them.  Almost certainly the reason that the inexperienced DM panicked is that he wasn't following the three clue rule.  Probably the scenario involves killing the bandits and finding a letter on them that says something important to figuring out where to go next, or if the AP was really crazy stupidly dumb, because the scenario involves the PCs getting captured by the bandits and taken to their camp, where they discover an important prisoner whom they then escape with and the scenario only imagined a single trail of bread crumbs that lead to that point.  Point is, the DM didn't want them to run away or negotiate, because the bandits had the game's only breadcrumb and he needed the PC's to take it.A well written scenario that involved rescuing an important prisoner from a bandit camp would have like a dozen breadcrumbs out there that all lead to the bandit camp, and each ultimately lead to rescuing the prisoner _by some means_ (including perhaps befriending the bandits, paying the ransom, or any number of other things).  If you were to write your own adventure path, being wise, you'd either have anticipated the various player actions or being experienced be able to improvise answers.  You probably already do in some fashion, whether you run adventure paths or not.  After all, if you arrange mysteries for the players to solve, you've already got the basics down.  All you have to do to write or run an adventure path is string a series together toward some climatic end.</blockquote>

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