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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 5404039" data-attributes="member: 26473">Consider for a moment that I'm running a historical game. That means that I know, with varying degrees of detail, the fate of of quite a few of the npcs.Frex, I know that the comte de Soissons, a prince of royal blood, will die at the very moment his rebellion against the king achieves a crushing victory over a French army, that he will either kill himself by accidentally discharging his pistol into his face while raising the visor of his helmet (ever seen that one on a critical fumble table?!) or he will be shot by an assassin hired by Cardinal Richelieu from among his own staff officers as they stand overlooking the battlefield. (History is unclear as to which is true, by the way.)I know this will happen on 6 July 1641, at the battle of La Marfée - unless the adventurers change history by their actions.I know similar information about some of my fictional npcs as well. Frex, the marquis de Saint-Méran, a loyal creature of the duc de Guise, will follow the duke into exile in Italy in 1631 rather than submit to Cardinal Richelieu - again, unless the actions of the adventurers change history (in this case the future-history of the campaign world).I have no idea if the fate of either of these characters will be affected by the adventurers. They could become allies or enemies of the adventurers, or they may never cross each others' paths, or the adventurers' actions could indirectly affect either one in some way. (Maybe an adventurer kills one of them over a horse . . .)Each of these npcs is a part of the living setting that exists independently of the adventurers, until or unless their paths cross one another, directly or indirectly, in the course of actual play.I agree, but when I decide 'what happens next,' I'm guided by what makes sense in the context of the situation, not what makes for a 'better story' or averts a tpk.</blockquote>

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