Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 2343367" data-attributes="member: 8835">Building on this further, it's OK that the PCs WILL encounter caravan under attack regardless of which path they initially take.  That's your plot hook, and it make sense to ensure the most paths to stumble on it.  From there, the # of real choices must expand.  For instance:PCs see caravan, but aren't seen they could:attack and rescue, which follows the main planretreat and take the other path, which leads to somewhere else an no raidAssuming they attack, they MAY defeat the goblins, or they may get captured or retreatAssuming they beat the goblins, they have to learn of the captured girl (surviving raider or victim)The party MAY decide to rescue the girl, or they may take all the loot and kill everyoneFor every thing you WANT the PCs to do, at least consider the "if they don't" branch.  The opposing choices don't have to end in bad consequences for the party itself.  Some of the results will be:something bad happens to somebody else, since you weren't thereyou get more info on a situation, that might entice you to re-enter the encounter (albeit a changed encounter)you never know about what might have beencowardly acts might lead to tarnished reputation (assuming witnesses)So the basic low-cost ways to avoid railroading are:write your sequence flow for what you WANT to happen (make sure you use 1 line per "action" recognize where choices COULD be)for each action, guess what other things the PCS MIGHT do insteadcome up with a response/encounter for each of those that seems plausibleYou could write this up as a flow-chart (post-its on a whiteboard are the easiest)It's OK to use a "Magician's Choice" where if the PCs have no info (both choices are equal), that the first choice they choose always leads to the spot you want.  But in theory, once they see what's behind door #1, they can always go back and choose #2 instead, which should be different than what #1 revealed.   Basically, make your "get in the game" hook applicable to most any reasonable location.Assuming the PCs don't bite the hook right away, seed some NPCs/events that reference the main hook/story, to see if you can get the PCs interested through another path.Throw in some random encounters/events with folks that have nothing to do with your story.  Use them when the PCs ignore your plot.That's about the cheapest way to to plan your adventure AND try to cover contingencies.Janx</blockquote>

Verification