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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Azul" data-source="post: 1793660" data-attributes="member: 11779">Since I wrote "the above quote", I'll toss in my 2cp.Plot mistakes happen.  Of course it is best to have a well-thought out plot, but few of us are actually the intellectual match for our "evil genius" BBEGs.  So how do you deal with it?Option 1) Just let it drop.  If the mistake doesn't sidetrack the campaign and your players aren't having a fit, maybe it's not a big deal.  The goal is to have fun, not produce an Oscar winning movie script.  Inconsistency will happen.  Gloss over it and move on.Option 2)  "Look at the kitty!"...  Distract the players from your mistake.  This is a cheap tactic, but it sometimes works well.  If the PCs are punching holes in your story, get their attention on something else until you have a chance to think of something or the players just plain forget about it.  For major gaffes, this is merely a way to buy time while most players will overlook minor plot screwups the minute something starts inflicting damage on them."Very interesting conclusions about the theft folks... can you all give me one Spot and one Listen roll each?  Just tell me your total roll..."Option 3) "Yeah, that's the ticket!"...  Rewrite your story to accomodate the error.  If the crime was committed in a dumber way than it should have been then maybe it wasn't your original NPC robber who commited the crime in the first place.  Maybe he got there after the fact and is looking for the sadsack who somehow pulled the heist first.  Or maybe this original NPC isn't quite as impressive as you made him out to be... perhaps he's just someone's mook instead of being a major NPC.  Or maybe he's actually just not too bright.  Rewrite your backstory to accomodate the discrepency in some way.  Let the inconsistant detail stand as is but find a way to explain it in time.  If the first two options aren't viable, this is probably your best bet.  Tweak your backstory and the players will never know.Option 4) "And now for something completely different!"...  If your story is utterly pooched, consider dumping it and moving the campaign in a different direction.  This requires the most work.  It means dumping your existing campaign material in part or in whole and going on a tangent.  Save this for extreme cases when nothing else will save the campaign.Option 5) "I meant to do that!"...  Some DMs consider this "cheating", but one option (particularly valid with really smart NPCs) is to retroactively decide that the NPC did it all intentionally to lead the PCs down a particular path.  The mistake becomes an intentional deception, either to make the PCs do something in particular or to lead them to underestimate their foe.  Perhaps the nefarious villain is really setting the PCs up for a fall.  The aspect of this method that bothers people is the idea of retroactively deciding that the NPC was smart enough to predict the eventual behaviour of the PCs (did you follow that?).  In other words, even if the DM can't predict the PCs' behaviour, he assumes that his supersmart villain (e.g. an Int 30 lich) could predict the actions of "these simpletons" and therefore the DM constantly rewrites the lich's actions and goals after the fact to represent this super-intelligence.  This differs from rewriting the story, where you might change something in the background to make things make sense -- here the focus is on rewriting in such a way that the NPC miraculously outsmarts the party after they, in truth, outsmarted you.  This technique should be used sparingly at best since it denies players a suitable reward for their clever thinking.  Occasionally used to further the plot, this can work, but if it is overdone it will feel forced, frustrating and petty.  :\</blockquote>

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