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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bendris Noulg" data-source="post: 1457807" data-attributes="member: 6398">Generally, I define certain parameters of the game.  First, it is a "living world".  This means that laws, politics, religious movements, cultural influences, treaties, alliances, espionage, blackmail, and covert operations are always in motion.  These things are usually in the background, but they influence the game environment. So, for things like, "Why does the Baron want us to do it?", I often reply with, "That's a question you should have asked the Baron, not me."  If they do ask the Baron, he gives them an explaination (Fact or fiction?  Perhaps a little of both?). One of the reasons I go with lower-powered games; The PCs are the exceptions rather than the norm.  While 3rd Level NPCs are common enough, 12th Level NPCs aren't.  So if the question is, "Why hasn't another 3rd Level Party cleaned this out?", the answer is "Time, place, and opportunity."  If the question is, "Why hasn't a high level Wizard cleaned this out?", the answer is a question, "Which of the dozen or so in existance should waste his time on such an endeavor?" When I work on an area, I'll produce some 20-30 legends/myths/rumors about various oddities.  These can range from an old, haunted farmhouse to a collosal multi-headed dragon living in a canyon.  Later, I can expand on any of these pretty much as I wish: The haunted house can be gremlins (low level) or ghosts (mid to high level), the giant multiheaded dragon can be a hydra, the Thesselmonster, or a steam-driven machine or other automaton.  That's the beauty of myth: Founded on truth but almost unrecognizable from it. This is fine, too, although this requires the opposite of the "parameters" I set, meaning that the parameters should include "light hearted adventuring in a mostly-static world used as a backdrop for adventures".  This would tell me that digging too deep into the background of the setting or adventure will begin to produce discontinuity and/or contradictions, so in the spirit of fun it's best to just "go with it". Yep...  Hand design all adventures and hand-pick all treasure myself. Ack!  Xena flashbacks! Sorry...  I'm better now. If anything, the GM might have noted your loosing interest.  In such a case, I would have had one of the henchmen (aka, leaders of the smaller bandit bands, but not the big-up bandit himself) say something akin to, "you're tougher than the Baron thought" during combat.  That would have deepened the plot immediately without really giving anything away (the question of whether the Baron betrayed them or if one of his confidants is a spy remains unanswered, and the PCs may get the wrong impression if handled right). Yes and no.  Most of this information is "out in the open".  The PCs may not know if (and if they are travelers, as most adventurers are, than local news and politics may not be known to them), but a day or two of Gather Information attempts will easily enough produce the information. Faced with a similar problem, a GM I knew made a 30x20 single room at the end of a 100' long corridor that included a 30' stairway decent.  The in-game reason was that the room was the beginning of a never-completed lower level; The [Death Knight] that built it either ran out of resources or became more concerned with other things.  At any rate, here was this room, with absolutely nothing in it, that seemed not to serve any purpose. The reason for it: The players at the time had a knack for investigating everything; Every inch of floor, wall, ceiling, between matresses, under trunks, behind bookcases and inside books, etc.  So he built the room, with it's lack of definable purpose, just to see how long they would investigate it before giving up. Six hours...  Six hours they debated, tried different abilities, proficiencies, and spells.  An entire session and an hour from the next. As I recall, the GM bought an extra 4-pack of Guiness for the occassion, knowing he was on light-duty for the evening even before the room was discovered. I don't.  By keeping the mundane "mundane", the PCs learn that this is all part of the process.  Think of it along the lines of a good Law & Order episode: Not everyone the police talk to will have any relevant information and not everything they look at will have any significance to the crime.  While this doesn't stop the players from following false leads and hunches, it does get them accustomed to the idea that something might not pan out well and not to dwell on it too long if it starts to not "feel right". While I'll gladly add some relevance to anything within the context of the world (i.e., everything exists for a valid reason), making it relevant to the specific adventure just because the PCs think it might be starts to feel akin to hand-holding (or, more specifically, inpromptu railroading, since you put the clues/information where the PCs go rather than forcing them to go where the clues/information actually are).</blockquote>

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