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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CruelSummerLord" data-source="post: 3948727" data-attributes="member: 48692">In one 2E FR adventure called The Four From Cormyr, written by John Terra, the PCs are hired to track down some adventurers who are delinquent in their payments.  On the way, they stop for the night in an inn, and one of the guests is a merchant who seems extremely nervous about something.  This may arouse their suspicions, but according to the DM's notes his mission has no bearing on the PCs' adventure at all.  He's an economic spy for some of the merchants in Sembia, engaged by his superiors to spy on their Cormyrean competition.  This got me thinking-how many times could PCs have incidental encounters that might SEEM significant from a metagame point of view, but are in actuality run just for an interesting diversion, say to give those players who enjoying role-playing and casual in-game conversation with NPCs?  Here are some examples: -The PCs are travelling on the road, and they encounter a band of loggers going in the opposite direction to take their cut wood to the carpenters in the city.  The lumberjacks enquire as to where they're going, and might give them some information about rumors of bandits operating in the woods south of the road, although they can't say anything specific.  They might ask about conditions in the city, such as how long it might take to get through the gate, if they could recommend a good inn to stay at, things like that, or the PCs might ask them about the condition of the roads, where they might find lodging for the night, etc.  -The PCs arrive for the night at an inn on a country road, a common stopping point for many travelers.  They head in and find that there's another band of adventurers already staying there, one of whom wants to get a knife-throwing contest going, but so far doesn't have any takers.  One of the PCs takes him up on it, and as the PCs pay for lodging and food, they begin swapping tales with the other adventurers.  None of this information will actually prove useful for the PCs on their next dungeon crawl, but it's interesting to listen to nonetheless.  -The PCs notice a few shifty-looking characters sitting in a city tavern, sitting quietly and drinking their ale, but otherwise aren't bothering anyone.  The PCs, given that they know the BBEG has spies in town, are suspicious.  However, they can't confront the men without proof, so when they leave, they are on red alert, more than ready for any potential attack.  As it turns out, according to the DM, those thugs ARE spies, but they couldn't care less about the PCs.  They're actually members of a street gang attempting to track down a rival gang leader, waiting to see if he'll come into this particular tavern, which word on the street has told them is one of his favorite hangouts.  If they see the gang leader, they'll report back to their leader, who'll arrange to have his rival shanked, but otherwise could care less about the PCs.  -PCs in a seedy dive notice some dancing girls making their way over to various inebriated customers.  The DM doesn't have anything planned out of this-they're just dancers who occasionally prostitute themselves.  The player, however, has other ideas, and propositions one of the best-looking dancers, and you can guess what happens next.  Have you as a DM or as a player ever participated in a memorable encounter that really added nothing to the plot, but still made for an interesting diversion, either as a break between combats, the PCs getting into some side mischief, or just to show that there are other things going on in the world besides what the PCs are doing?</blockquote>

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