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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ryryguy" data-source="post: 4788789" data-attributes="member: 64945">Some of the responses to your query have suggested that your problem is that you are straitjacketing your players too much.  Essentially implying that you are railroading them (although that term has not been used).This may or may not be the case; I think it assumes a little too much about your game and how flexible you actually are in responding to player actions at the table.  If your players are having fun, if they enjoy having you set the direction and happily grab onto the story hooks you offer, then you're not doing anything wrong.But on the micro level here, maybe you have gotten yourself a little bit too locked in to the "8 things" needed to retake the city.  A better approach might be to come up with the 8 things, but don't require the players to accomplish every last one of them.  Let them choose the 3 or 4 that they are most attracted to tackling.  Perhaps allies could take care of the rest, or maybe the morale of the defenders will crack after 3 or 4 setbacks.  You could also speed them up with skill challenges as suggested, but it's not even necessary to bring the party into them directly.  Just try to keep the party's successes front and center: "Thanks to you taking out the watch towers, the rest of us we able to infiltrate the palace..."  Or, "Thanks to your infiltration of the palace, the rest of us were able to take out the watch towers..."  Or, "Once you infiltrated the palace, the guards in the watch towers knew the cause was lost, threw down their arms, and fled."  The point being, you don't have to plan out one specific "causality" in advance, just make it fit what the players actually do.A downside of this approach is that if you thoroughly plan out all 8 challenges but only use 3 or 4 of them, some of your planning may have been wasted.  But there are countermeasures for that too.  Don't plan each one too thoroughly (wing it a little). Try to get the players to pick their targets beforehand so you know what to prepare.  Re-use the unused challenges sometime later on.It may be a little too late to take my advice if you're already in the middle of the "8 things", though you might still be able to fudge it now - "reinforcements arrived much sooner than expected!"  Also, if your players are enjoying going through the whole list of 8 things, maybe it's better just to roll with it.  wedgeski's advice is good in this regard.</blockquote>

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