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: 5403844" data-attributes="member: 8835">taking a different stab at the stranger and the horse, since I seem to have failed at the last.celebrims got a stranger on a horse.  The PCs meet him on the road.  A PC decides to take the horse.  Celebrim knows that this stranger is going to be important later for 2 different things, and that if the PC takes the horse, its going to go badly for the PCs.Assuming I got the gist of his tale correct, I think the "right" handling varies on if your running a sandbox or a story.In a sandbox, I'm not sure it's right to know so much about this guy's future. I suspect in Shaman's game, he'd only know what this guy will do (help the PCs and get murdered) when it comes closer to being handy to have this guy help and get murdered.Thus, in a sandbox (and this is not an informed opinion) it seems to me that you would stick to the facts that this guy's name is Joe the Plumber and he lives in Plumbsville and knows the butcher.  But whether he'd act to help the PCs later, or get murdered is information you wouldn't know until some time later.This is much as the same way with the pickpocketed King.  As a DM, you may have no clue what's in his pocket, or that a PC would even try to pick-pocket him, in what you started as a social encounter.  So when the attempt is made, you've got to decide what happens next, and what will be the consequence of the attempt (let alone the DC of the attempt itself).I think it is part of the DM's job to make that determination of the nature and scope of the outcome of that pick-pocket attempt.  Just as it is to do so with the horse theivery.  Unless you've got some paper that says "on any attempt to rob an NPC, this is what happens" then you're winging it.If you're winging it, you've an obligation to make what happens next be both plausible and fair.  But there's still a lot of room for variance in outcomes.For a GM running a published adventure and not a sandbox,   Choosing less disastrous outcomes may be acceptable if it means helping the players keep running the adventure that they still want to play.I'm OK with the GM moving things around to support what the players goals are.I'm not OK with the GM thwarting the PCs actions to ensure they end up in situation X So in Celebrim's campaign, the PC's story was " we were going to solve this problerm PC1 had, decided we needed horses so we jacked a guy's horse.  He ratted us out, and we ended up dodging the law in the woods, like Robin Hood or something.  it was awesome"In my campaign, the PCs story was "We were going to solve this problem PC1 had, decided we needed horses so we jacked a guy's horse.  Got into some trouble over it, but managed to dodge the fuzz long enough for PC1 to find what he needed and failed to solve his problem in an epic fight, because the fuzz showed up in the middle of it.  it was awesome"As long as both games end with "it was awesome", I'm OK with that.  And in my game, it's not like I'm going to ignore the horse-jacking.  It'll be a factor in the next session, too.  In the current session, I make it a complication to their goal.  I just don't let it totally kill the notes I have for stuff the PCs find on their way to solve PC1's problem.In the King's scenario, I've only got a shuffling problem if the thief fails.  Otherwise, he gets something from the pocket, and the party goes to Norwold.  Heck, I've got more problems if they choose to decline the offer to go to Norwold, which could be a reasonable chance, depending on the party.That's where the chances of railroading (as in really bad DM behavior) could kick in, trying to get them to go to Norwold.As a GM, I would only present the Norwold trip if I could make sure it was really enticing to the players and I'm pretty sure the answer would be yes.</blockquote>

Verification