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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yora" data-source="post: 6282712" data-attributes="member: 6670763">From another thread:I think this is something quite important. Classic D&D modules are dungeon crawls with no story, and the more recent adventures that Paizo made for Dungeon and now for Pathfinder are well scripted and linear, and the PCs really just have to follow the well marked path.In Sword & Sorcery, things go horribly wrong all the time and never work out as planned. A few days ago I was thinking about how the absurdly mundane events of Tarantino movies could be good pointers on how to shake thingd up. And not by coincidence his most famous movie is called Pulp Fiction. Once all the way round the circle.To missquote the Joker, when there's a monster in the cave, a sorcerer summons demons, or a caravan get's ambushed by bandits, nobody panics, because it's all part of the plan. Make everyone losing their mind!Here's a few ideas how things can turn belly up in an adventure, creating the kind of thrill that makes the genre what it is. I hope you can add more:* Normally PCs can kill who they want and then tell the guard they are heroes and the dead guy was a villain, and the guards just shrug and are okay with that. Though life is cheap in S&S, killing a noblemen or rich merchant like that, even by accident or in self defense, will require a lot of explaining. To guards who are both able to overpower the PCs in combat, and also probably don't care about their excuses. So better try to hide the deed and try to get far enough away when the corpse is found, or prepare for a dungeon escape before your execution.* Break into a place while nobody is there. Then realize that's not actually the case when you're at the most distant spot from your escape route.* You escape from the villains mainsion. But the guards are still coming after you.* The PCs want to meet with the villains to trade the hostage they have taken. (Or deliver the person they were hired to kidnp.) Then suddenly the hostage dies.* You're supposed to meet an ally halfway through the mission at a very dangerous moment. He never shows up.* Your employer didn't give you the right inormation to evade detection or defeat the monster, but tricked you into being a distraction or sacrifice, while the real henchmen do the actual job.* Allies arrive to save you. Now they want to kill you, while you are vulnerable.* You are supposed to use or destroy an artifact to defeat the villain. You get to the site of power, perform the rite... and nothing happens.* You make your way to the end of the dungeon and reach the chamber of the artifact. But the pedestal is empty.* You discover a conspiracy, aquire proof, and make it to your boss/high priest/captain of the guard. He already knows.</blockquote>

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