The "Oh crap, I just realized" moment...

[shilsen]

I just got back from the latest session of my Eberron campaign. About midway through the session, the PCs had just made a narrow escape from the Mournland after they met, were badly beaten and some were captured by

Spoiler

warforged following the Lord of Blades (whom they eventually met).

After having escaped the Mournland, they had informed their most recent patron about their experiences and were at an inn, resting and just having written letters to inform some other contacts about what they had discovered. And then one of the PCs said, "Wait a minute - didn't he say that [insert complex detail from campaign]?" And another PC looked at her with dawning horror and said, "Crap! And I just remembered a couple of weeks ago when [insert complex detail from campaign]?"

The first PC quickly began to add something to the letters, while all of them excitedly discussed what they'd thought of. And moments after she was done, someone else said, "Does that mean that when we told [insert complex detail from campaign]?", which was quickly followed by more rewriting. As the conversation progressed, they just gave up on the letters. And for the next half an hour, I just sat there grinning from ear to ear without having to say a single word as DM while the PCs worked out a number of different connections between their often random actions from the beginning of the campaign, finding underlying links between everything that they had done and had chosen to encounter, opening up all sorts of new meanings, potential enemies, possible allies and lots of complication.

Isn't it just glorious when the PCs, with absolutely no prodding from you, open up the little puzzle that they thought they had and find it leads into an abyss of interlaced meanings?

Sorry for the length, but I just had to share. Man, I love this game

 

[Turjan]

Wow, that sounds like truly great fun . Congrats !

Just tell me: Did you plan all that beforehand, or is it more like that the details will be adjusted according to the newfound theories ?

 

[Baron Opal]

Isn't it just glorious when the PCs, with absolutely no prodding from you, open up the little puzzle that they thought they had and find it leads into an abyss of interlaced meanings?

Yes, and I'm about half-way there with my group. Everything is nice and linear (seeming) right now, and they've just gotten the first hint that something is amiss.

Heh, it's why I love running the game.

Baron Opal

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Wow, that sounds like truly great fun . Congrats !

Just tell me: Did you plan all that beforehand, or is it more like that the details will be adjusted according to the newfound theories ?

I use to have a reputation for creating byzantine mysteries for my PCs... all I did was listen to them try to figure it out and mine their theories for cool ideas...

 

[DragonLancer]

Congrats. I've never had the skill to work such great plot intertwinings.

How'd you do it? I'd love to get some advice there.

 

[Zuoken]

I try to give my players just enough rope to hang themselves with.

That is, by inserting all kinds of ambiguous situations, uncertain deaths, sub and sub-sub plots and even the occasional (well-placed) Freudian slip or two. I get at least half of my adventure ideas from my PCs talking amongst themselves. It works brilliantly .

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Wow, that sounds like truly great fun . Congrats !

Just tell me: Did you plan all that beforehand, or is it more like that the details will be adjusted according to the newfound theories ?

SHHH!

You're letting out all my best secrets!

 

[shilsen]

Congrats. I've never had the skill to work such great plot intertwinings.

How'd you do it? I'd love to get some advice there.

Thanks. As some of the other posters have already mentioned, a good way to do it is to listen to players think aloud and mine it for ideas, but this time that didn't really have anything to do with it. Which is why I enjoyed it even more, since I've been giving my PCs very free rein to follow just about any plot thread they want and create some of their own, so even I'm not sure where the story is going.

What I did in this case was to simply have a half dozen non-player characters and groups who could potentially turn into BBEGs, depending on whether the PCs run up against them. I worked out what their various agendas were and how they intersect with each other. And just set the PCs free to follow their own aims. Sure enough, they've managed to piss off three groups, make a couple more indebted or at least interested in them, and given me fodder for dozens of sessions worth. And one of the big advantages, IMO, is that the players feel rightly that they are the ones making their own story and decisions rather than just creating a story which I had prepared.

That being said, I have to say that PCs can hang themselves better than I could. For example, early in the campaign, they fought and killed an unusual warforged with metal claws and a magical "cannon" that fired a gout of fire (mechanically a warforged with the half-dragon template). The warforged PC got the idea to have similar claws made for himself and managed to persuade a particular group to create and 'install' such claws on him. I had intended that group to have a vested interest in warforged. So when the PC shows up with info about (and parts from) an unusual warforged and agrees to let them render him comatose to work on him, they promptly took the opportunity to plant an amulet of inescapable location on him so that he could be scried on with impunity. That opened up a whole lot of plot options and was something I came up with on the fly midway through the session when the PC sprung the idea on me to go get those claws built. It also let the PC feel like he had options for creativity in the game and came up in play when he was in situations when he couldn't use a weapon. The PCs discovered someone scrying on them regularly and got really worried about it. And when they discovered the amulet (today's session), it opened up new avenues for them to explore and for me to follow depending on how they go about it. And all because a PC came up with something I didn't plan and I gave him enough rope

 

[DragonLancer]

Thats a cool idea, and you sir, are a sneaky DM. But in a good way.

 

[Quasqueton]

Isn't it just glorious when the PCs, with absolutely no prodding from you, open up the little puzzle that they thought they had and find it leads into an abyss of interlaced meanings?

I'd be happy if they just opened up the little puzzle they had. The Players/PCs in my campaign seem to always take everything at face value, without considering the possiblity that anything more could be.

"The Big Bad Evil Guy just helped us. Well I guess maybe he's not as bad and evil as we thought."

Quasqueton