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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Piratecat" data-source="post: 4778073" data-attributes="member: 2">Huh. That had never occurred to me. It seems like poor design to have to metagame your tactics solely due to a rules quirk, but it certainly works.I want to take a moment to talk about campaign direction and plot flow. When I build my campaign, I usually have roughly three or more levels of simultaneous plot. One is the large, slow-moving megalithic plots that move forward even without PC interaction; these happen in the background and help drive the world forward so it doesn't feel stagnant. (A good example that my players know about is that their country supposedly rebelling from the Caprian empire, and this might have destroyed the Emperor's Peace and made the Oathstone stop working. That means more monsters begin attacking people, and a greater need for adventurers and heroes.) These play out over many levels.The second is medium-range plots. These play out over a level or two. They provide continuity and a cohesive set of games, but aren't audacious enough to drive the whole campaign. Bad guys in these plots may be catspaws for other bad guys, but they should always be entertaining and dangerous enough to inspire me as I build games around them. The series of lizardman raids on Floodford, and who's driving that (and why!), is a good current example. Alene is a glorious bad guy for reasons I can't discuss, even if the PCs haven't met her face-to-face.Finally, I have active adventures. These are clearly driven by the first two, but are far more focused in nature. They may not always be linked to a larger plot; depends on whether I want something that moves the story forward, or just want a fun and fast adventure as a palate cleanser. These last a session or two.The secret for me is to layer these types of plots onto one another to create the appearance of complexity. I may have two or three large-scale plots going on, and the 3-4 mid-level adventures they inspire interact with one another to always give me options for the PCs. In truth, I just load myself down with plot hooks and let the group pursue whatever seems like the most fun at the time. That way they're always advancing at least one of the larger plots whichever path they choose.One thing I don't do is plan everything out ahead of time. I'm not a top-down designer, and I generally don't fill in all the details until a plot comes into focus. More fun for me that way.</blockquote>

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