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<blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 9253349" data-attributes="member: 85555">I feel like there is a broad range of approaches, like a spectrum, not just a handful of choices. For me, I don't really worry about forward in a game. I worry more about engagement. And I tend to focus on PCs and NPCs as the fuel for that engagement. That doesn't mean nothing happens but I try to have things that arise from my end of the screen do so with a certain amount of logic (i.e. the NPC wants something the PCs have so he looks for them, and I make him jump through mechanical hoops to make it fair), and through something I call shake-up tables (which keep the environment active for the PCs). However I do lean on sandbox style so my approach might not be something everyone will enjoy I terms of long term foes, you can have those without railroads or without fudging. The key is let villains rise and fall naturally. Recurring bad guys will emerge. But the moment you give them plot armor, the moment you start engineering their appearances, I do think you get into territory where questions around agency and fairness can arise (i.e. having the NPC show up at the right moment to stop them, despite the PCs taking reasonable precautions that would have prevented that). I am always willing to have any antagonist die and ignoble and anti-climactic death if that is what the dice say happens.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Bedrockgames, post: 9253349, member: 85555"] I feel like there is a broad range of approaches, like a spectrum, not just a handful of choices. For me, I don't really worry about forward in a game. I worry more about engagement. And I tend to focus on PCs and NPCs as the fuel for that engagement. That doesn't mean nothing happens but I try to have things that arise from my end of the screen do so with a certain amount of logic (i.e. the NPC wants something the PCs have so he looks for them, and I make him jump through mechanical hoops to make it fair), and through something I call shake-up tables (which keep the environment active for the PCs). However I do lean on sandbox style so my approach might not be something everyone will enjoy I terms of long term foes, you can have those without railroads or without fudging. The key is let villains rise and fall naturally. Recurring bad guys will emerge. But the moment you give them plot armor, the moment you start engineering their appearances, I do think you get into territory where questions around agency and fairness can arise (i.e. having the NPC show up at the right moment to stop them, despite the PCs taking reasonable precautions that would have prevented that). I am always willing to have any antagonist die and ignoble and anti-climactic death if that is what the dice say happens. [/QUOTE]

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