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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6586550" data-attributes="member: 6775031">Please bear with me, but this entire concept of 'stakes' is quite unfamiliar to me. I know that Burning Wheel uses it, and people are using it to discuss 4E (and 5E!), but I've never actually sat down and read a rulebook that discussed its use. As a DM, I don't sit down and plan the stakes one way or another; it's not something I've ever consciously had to acknowledge. It sounds like a bunch of meta-game stuff that I don't like, though. It sounds like it's the DM talking to the players, about what's going on in the game, and the potential outcome to actions that the PCs might take. I can see how it makes sense when you're discussing something like a skill check, in order to better describe a situation that the PCs should be able to understand ("because of the wind blowing across this rock-face, a failure by more than 5 points will mean that you fall and could die"). What I don't see is, in your hypothetical example with Vecna stealing the souls, how would the PCs know if that plan was in place? Is the DM beholden by social convention to include some foreshadowing, such that all important choices are made with (reasonably) complete knowledge of the outcomes? Is it like how the DM is encouraged to make things exciting for the PCs - less of a rule, and more just a guideline for how to make the game more fun?My issue here is that I don't plan out the story very far in advance. I can't foreshadow that there might be a lieutenant left to carry out the evil plot, because I don't know what the players are going to do leading up to that point. Obviously, if they take out the lieutenant before moving on to the boss, that lieutenant won't be around to pick up the pieces. Or maybe they'll meet that lieutenant in town, and convince her to betray the Big Bad? Or convince her to pursue some other agenda, and abandon the Big Bad before the final fight (possibly without even knowing who the lieutenant is, but just treating her like any other random NPC).What if there's an evil lair, and the left wing leads to a library full of incriminating documents, but the right wing heads to the actual goal for the PCs? If they go right first, and never investigate the left path, then they'll never find the information. If there's an important document - say that it's a list of people who are on the Big Bad's payroll, and the PCs can use that information to learn that the mysterious stranger at the inn is secretly working for the Big Bad - should I contrive to make that available to them?Because that seems like Illusionism, to me. If I did that, then I'm saying that the player's choices don't matter, and I'm going to make sure they reach my chosen outcome either way. Or does that not count as a real choice that I'm subverting, because it wasn't a choice made with knowledge of the stakes?</blockquote>

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