NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 5179408" data-attributes="member: 29398">Of course.  But once all those actions have been resolved (no matter how) you've built another piece of a story. It is written as a potential scene with potential actors.  It becomes an actual scene if the PCs blunder in there; the owlbears become actual actors either in this case or if they wander out of area 5 and meet the PCs elsewhere.If the plot and timeline affect the game at all, they've become part of the arc.  Baron Badass hatches a plot to take the throne.  The party could get involved and try to stop him; they have lots of time but fail to pick up on the clues, and instead go off to bash some Ogres in the mountains. Meanwhile, old BB takes the throne - the first the party know of this is when they get back to civilization, because the borders are closed against them unless they pay a hefty acquisition tax that didn't exist when they left but has since been imposed by Baron - well, King now - Badass.  And now they've got to decide whether to deal with him, ignore him, accept him, or whatever - regardless, he's become part of the story.True to some extent, but the further purpose of a story arc is to give the PCs a background behind what they do; to give their decisions and movements consequences and results, and to give them choices.  If they are presented with hooks for three different courses of action and choose one, that does not mean the other two disappear.Great!There's those DMs who really do try to have each session be a chapter, with something of a beginning, middle, climax, and end.  I am not one such.But that doesn't mean there's no chapters.  Let's say you're running a 6-adventure story arc...wouldn't each adventure in effect represent a chapter?I think you're assuming a bit too much structure in the "story arc" idea.  Sure, a story arc has a targeted end, but in a D+D game there's no saying the PCs will ever get there - they might give up on the quest halfway through, for example; or might get hooked into another story that better captures their interest; or could in fact be working on several intertwined stories at once!And by the time they reach the "targeted end" of one story arc you should have them nicely hooked into at least the next two.  (assuming, of course, the campaign you're running is intended to be more than a single story arc in length)Lanefan</blockquote>

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