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

[Lord Pendragon]

The trick is to give them motivation to get into the larger themes and subtexts of the game. it can be tricky, but when a action of their past blatatly comes back to bite them most players get motivated in a hurry, trying to see the connections.

Well, I wouldn't say most players. I think you have to have role-playing, story-oriented players to begin with. Sadly, it's been my experience that there are a large portion of players who are simply more interested in whacking baddies, than trying to glean the subtleties of why they presented themselves for whacking.

 

[shilsen]

So let m,e get this straight....they flayed the warforged for bits of it's body? I'm SURE the Lord of the Blades would LOVE to hear about that..... Hacking apart a sentient creature for personal gain....kind of like chopping up an elf and eating it raw while letting other people know exactly what you're up to...

Not really. They had taken the 'cannon' which the enemy warforged had attached to its shoulder, so it wasn't as if they cut him apart and took his innards along. But boy did it piss off the LoB when he found it on them, considering that he knew its source personally

*What I did was to take a standard "Newsletter Template" for Word and modify it into the front page of this newspaper. It shows the date, two major headlines and a few little "Also in this Issue" blurbs. I'll attach a copy here if anybody is interested.

Nice. I made up a copy of the front page of the Korranberg Chronicle when there was an article the PCs featured prominently in, and all the PCs carried a copy as a souvenir (the players have a copy each). The interesting thing is that while it has made them known nationally and internationally, it has also gained them a very substantial amount of notoriety. In fact, besides the LoB and a couple of other deadly enemies, the person they hate the most is the reporter who wrote the story on them! They're heading back to Sharn now and somehow I think they might meet him and make the papers again. Just a feeling

 

[ThirdWizard]

My players can't remember names of NPCs, where they are when we start, what they were doing, etc. I was absolutely thrilled when my PCs realized that the one training the barbarian had an eyepatch and the enemy they had fought two sessions ago had some kind of demonic eye and knew the trainer. I was amazed they put that together...

 

[tigycho]

*What I did was to take a standard "Newsletter Template" for Word and modify it into the front page of this newspaper. It shows the date, two major headlines and a few little "Also in this Issue" blurbs. I'll attach a copy here if anybody is interested.

That looks awesome, but it also look slike more time than I have to devote. One of the best tools ever was the Poor Wizard's Almanac for OD&D. The Year in Preview was rockin'... an entire year chock full of regional, local and national events, all sorted by date for you. My old DM would include a bunch of other adventure hooks in there, and then just read off the latest news whenever we headed to the Tavern.

It really amde the world feel alive.

 

[Rel]

That looks awesome, but it also look slike more time than I have to devote.

Let me let you in on a little secret: Once I got the template set up, I really don't have to spend much effort on this thing. I write up one article that pertains directly to the campaign and then I go over to the Wizards website and cut and paste the Sharn Inquisitive articles they have over there.

Also, since it sometimes takes a couple of sessions or so for the players to complete an adventure, I only have to "crank out an issue" about every two weeks or so.

 

[kigmatzomat]

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.

This could almost describe my campaign to a T. The PCs have some questionable allies and have made enemies in places they should have known better. The net result is that the players are as responsible for the plot as I am. They are far more engrossed in this campaign than any other group I've ever run.

That being said, I have to say that PCs can hang themselves better than I could.

No truer thing has ever been uttered. Players are the most adept people for screwing themselves, no matter how much a rat bastard the DM may be. I've had people kill themselves in ways that directly petitioning gods can't fix, watched people get diarrhea of the mouth and earn a TPK, even completely forget their own plans and fatally kill allies.

My game is very organic feeling with lots of partially understood events and plenty of loose ends that still occassionally cause sparks.

I'm going to be so disappointed when this game finally ends.