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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Slapzilla" data-source="post: 3693756" data-attributes="member: 52781">Love the flowchart.  Every Threat, Asset and Reward spawns a new TRAP set.  It seems to fill out the world a bit as if the PCs go in one direction, the rest of the world doesn't wait around for them.  PC decisions on what to do and who to help actually have ramifications.  Timing comes into play, relationships that develop are important and role playing skills from the players and Bluff, Diplomacy etc, come to the fore.The usual balancing act of every DM becomes important as there are many things the players couldn't know.  A while back at the Manticore lair, I think the PCs wouldn't know about the bats and even if they did (in my experience) it is the rare player who would think of causing the rockslides to disorient them, whether they knew about the goblins or not.  Especially when hunting a Manticore is it's lair.  Like the infected Druid.  It's not a problem if the PCs don't know about it, therefore there is no recognizable threat, utilizable asset or known reward.Mood is what sets the 'stock footage' sort of scenes apart.  The dying man with the slashed waterskin is a great scene for setting the desperate, savage mood.  A cursed dagger and a pack of ghouls on your trail are one idea for an adventure part of continuing the scene but without the mood, it falls flat.  Being a few steps ahead of the players on the TRAP and having the NPCs and beasties prepped let the DM focus on the mood of the scene.  Not wondering during a combat what the 'offstage' players are doing allows mood focus too.  I'm going to apply this system to my plot for tomorrow's game and see how well it turns out.</blockquote>

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