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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 9287076" data-attributes="member: 3586">One of the things I think Hoard of the Dragon Queen does quite well is have an overall linear plot, but each chapter typically describes a situation where the players have a lot of agency as to how they approach and resolve it.Castle Naerytar is a good example. Do the party aid a rebellion, sneak by the faction, or go in all spells blazing?There's a beginning point and and end point. What happens in between is all up to the players and the parameters of the situation.The players have agency as to how their characters approach the situation. They do not have agency regarding the larger campaign storyline. The assumption is that if you're playing Hoard of the Dragon Queen is that you're wanting that experience. That you want that structure of a campaign.This is a big departure from Keep on the Borderlands where you have a set-up of a Keep and a nearby set of Caves. From that point on, there's no assumed structure to events. (But given that the Giants/Drow series came out in 1978, the idea of a overall linear path for a series of adventures is not new by any means).But then you compare it to several other adventures - Descent into Avernus is a good example - where there's very little agency as to what the players do with each encounter. It's just one encounter after another, following a winged elephant with more-and-more desperation as little makes sense. (I really don't like the adventure. The weird thing is that there's stuff in it that assumes it isn't that linear).So, when you look at Justin's work, I don't think he's absolutely opposed to overall structured (linear) storylines, but he would like them to be a lot more open than they often are. And there are some adventures - and Descent into Avernus is certainly one of them - that would be much better as an open playbook rather than a linear adventure. (It'd be interesting as a hybrid, in fact - linear to get the players down to Hell, but very open after that).The thing with investigations is that almost by definition they should have a "correct" answer. And the Three Clue Rule idea exists so that players have a good chance of getting to that answer. Far too many adventures devolve into a guessing game of the players searching for the One True Clue the DM has put in a non-obvious spot. But what happens after the investigation is solved doesn't have to be linear. It has a beginning and an end, but there are more aspects to adventure design than that.Cheers,Merric</blockquote>

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