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<blockquote data-quote="fba827" data-source="post: 5090609" data-attributes="member: 807"><p>I did something similar (though not exactly the same) like this a couple times - both incidentally way back when as some of my first D&D experiences so you'll see a few old references like 'name level' in my explanation.</p><p></p><p>Situation 1:</p><p>The PCs had a friend, a wizard of course. He was innocent and helpful enough. But after a while it turned out that every time he cast a spell, the cosmic forces tried to balance itself out elsewhere. Whenever he cast a fly spell for the party, a nearby town next to the mountains had a high gravity field appear (which in turn caused a rockslide). When he cast haste, some person elsewhere was inexplicably slowed (one time it ended up being an important NPC who needed to get from A to B for a peace summit, another time was a random baker). Yes, the 'balance' effects were sometimes corny / humorous. Other times, since our campaign scope was limited at the time, it was very meaningful since all the cities were hometowns for the PCs... so it was people they knew, etc. who got the shaft (so to speak). And the look on the players' faces when they realized that the things they'd been dealing with were aftereffects from the help they got from the friend in the prior mission.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Situation 2:</p><p>An annoying alien entity who was always in the background and just causing people to do things for the sake of sitting back and watching the situation unfold. All these events were seemingly unrelated, and this entity stayed 100% in the background. But once the PCs hit name level, they started to puzzle out that the random events they'd been involved in were actually being puppeteered by this entity. This in turn caused the need to appeal to a dragon to confront the entity for them to get him to stop what he was doing (which served as the capstone for that campaign).</p><p></p><p>In situation 2, I -think- if the presence of the entity was revealed too early, it would have frustrated the players (why keep putting out fires when you know it's being done by someone else that you are powerless to stop, etc). But by saving said entity to be a near-end reveal, it served as a good 'tie everything together' and allowed for some "oh that's why" type moments, and also didn't frustrate the players since now they actually had a chance to do something about it (even if indirectly).</p><p></p><p></p><p>Again that's not -exactly- what you're asking about (because in both cases the PCs eventually had a way to confront or indirectly confront the entity causing the problem). but it's somewhat tangent to what you're asking about.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="fba827, post: 5090609, member: 807"] I did something similar (though not exactly the same) like this a couple times - both incidentally way back when as some of my first D&D experiences so you'll see a few old references like 'name level' in my explanation. Situation 1: The PCs had a friend, a wizard of course. He was innocent and helpful enough. But after a while it turned out that every time he cast a spell, the cosmic forces tried to balance itself out elsewhere. Whenever he cast a fly spell for the party, a nearby town next to the mountains had a high gravity field appear (which in turn caused a rockslide). When he cast haste, some person elsewhere was inexplicably slowed (one time it ended up being an important NPC who needed to get from A to B for a peace summit, another time was a random baker). Yes, the 'balance' effects were sometimes corny / humorous. Other times, since our campaign scope was limited at the time, it was very meaningful since all the cities were hometowns for the PCs... so it was people they knew, etc. who got the shaft (so to speak). And the look on the players' faces when they realized that the things they'd been dealing with were aftereffects from the help they got from the friend in the prior mission. Situation 2: An annoying alien entity who was always in the background and just causing people to do things for the sake of sitting back and watching the situation unfold. All these events were seemingly unrelated, and this entity stayed 100% in the background. But once the PCs hit name level, they started to puzzle out that the random events they'd been involved in were actually being puppeteered by this entity. This in turn caused the need to appeal to a dragon to confront the entity for them to get him to stop what he was doing (which served as the capstone for that campaign). In situation 2, I -think- if the presence of the entity was revealed too early, it would have frustrated the players (why keep putting out fires when you know it's being done by someone else that you are powerless to stop, etc). But by saving said entity to be a near-end reveal, it served as a good 'tie everything together' and allowed for some "oh that's why" type moments, and also didn't frustrate the players since now they actually had a chance to do something about it (even if indirectly). Again that's not -exactly- what you're asking about (because in both cases the PCs eventually had a way to confront or indirectly confront the entity causing the problem). but it's somewhat tangent to what you're asking about. [/QUOTE]
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