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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7165283" data-attributes="member: 29398">Or you just do what you gotta do to make the game work.Boy you have lawful players. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />And I'm not even talking about an undeveloped country.  What would you do in this case: you've left off last session with the party planning their assault on the BBEG; this would pretty much finish this adventure.  For this session you've set up a big set-piece battle scenario (let's say it's the set-up you showed us earlier) and you're all set for a session-long combat and maybe some treasury division afterwards.  The players - who may have been discussing their plans all week, for all that - arrive and settle in.And due to their great planning, some freakishly lucky die rolls, and a few blown saves your BBEG goes down in half an hour (real time).  They spend another half hour mopping up, looting, and leaving; they get back to town and spend another hour dividing their treasury and dealing with some downtime stuff - this is all consistent with what they've done before and you're more than ready for it.And then, feeling thoroughly stoked at their success, they want to get out in the field and get right back at it in a new adventureBut now you don't have anything prepared - you just never in a hundred years thought they'd get this far this fast, and were sure you'd have at least another week to design the next adventure or even decide what it would be.  You've half a session left.  What happens now?Oh, same here. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  I don't add (or subtract) opponents or any of that stuff...and even then, I still have to hit the occasional curveball.  To use the same example from above, their planning during the week might have led them to decide (rightly or wrongly) they're just not quite ready to face the BBEG yet - they think they need more help and so at the start of the session they bail out, go back to town, and do some recruiting.  Suddenly I'm not running the big set-piece battle I expected, I'm rolling up NPCs!  Meanwhile I have to think about how or if the dungeon will restock itself if they leave it alone for any length of time, etc., etc.And yes, you're still the DM as well as being the bad guys in that you still have to make neutrally-applied rulings, provide narration, and do the other usual DM stuff.Lan-"players are allowed to play their characters as they see fit, even if it wrecks the DM's best-laid plans"-efan</blockquote>

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