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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9002551" data-attributes="member: 6790260">To give you an example of something like this for my own game. Spoilers only on the (extremely low) chance that my players happen to waltz through the forum:[SPOILER="Jewel of the Desert"]So, four fronts came up early on, inspired both by the players' choices and stuff I just thought sounded fun. They are the Raven-Shadow assassin cult, the Cult of the Burning Eye (Lovecraftian cultists worshipping an elder beholder), the Shadow Druids (eco-terrorist druids who practice fungal necromancy), and a Black Dragon using gangs and money to try to take over the city as its "hoard."However, early on, certain symbolism kept popping up. Nearly everyone in the party was connected to ravens in some way--despite this happening totally by accident. The Ranger chose a raven familiar because he likes ravens. The Barbarian's home clan has Raven as their totem. The Wizard has a raven familiar. The Druid transforms into a desert raven as his usual flight form. Etc. That was WAY too many ravens for me to allow that to just slide! So I capitalized on it--made it symbolic for the Raven-Shadows, naturally, but significant to others too. And that led me to wonder, why are these various forces present here? Why are they active now?And that last question, coupled with the Bard player giving me essentially carte blanche to include Dangerous Things in his family tree--because he's a tiefling on both sides of his family, but the devilish side was long ago and no one knows who it is. So I thought about these forces, and it occurred to me that all of them would make sense as having been manipulated, or been given a deal, by a powerful devil. Which thus led to the idea that each of these things is a part of the Xanatos Gambit of that powerful devil.If any one of the four fronts wins, said devil has won control of a hugely important region on this world. If none of them win, but the Bard--distant descendant, re-empowered by connecting to the devil's bloodline through a ritual--becomes famous and has children, then that's a win by creating a powerful devil-demon-mortal hybrid that can then be exploited later down the line. Even if the Bard just becomes famous, he has two siblings--their family lines, carrying both devil and demon blood, can still be exploited in a generation or two, even if the Bard's now-extra-powerful blood can't. Even if the Bard doesn't become famous, the group overall already has, and this devil has hooks to connect to them, or their successors in their various endeavors.This isn't meant to be something the players can truly "win" or "lose"--winning, in this case, would be more a matter of ensuring that this devil's plans are disrupted as much as possible. Hence, I don't need to prepare any specific result. Just that they are connected. And this has been discoverable from the beginning, it just hasn't been obvious. As we go, the full nature of this world, its complex history, etc. have all become much, much, much more than I ever considered or planned. But a devil, pulling the strings for literally thousands of years, has been part of it from shortly after the players showed their unusual and entirely unplanned symbolic connections.[/SPOILER]So...is that a story "about the PCs"? The whole thing is them tussling with major forces, and the direction those forces end up going is deeply dependent on their choices, indeed, it has only become more dependent on what they choose, how they have behaved, who they have trusted. Those forces coming to a head at this time, in this place, was unavoidable, which is how I understand Fronts to work (they are about what would happen, if it weren't for these meddling <s>kids</s> heroes!) But what actually will happen is totally up in the air. The Raven-Shadows (just to pick one front) may be utterly broken, or turned from their dark ways, or ascendant, or rent in two, or proven perhaps not "right all along" but at least "justifiable in their extremism," or...who knows? We'll play to find out.</blockquote>

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