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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 4044088" data-attributes="member: 29398">If the point of the game is to explore a theme to the extent that the unexpected loss of a key character or item derails the whole thing, there's a problem.  In a role-playing game partly based on chance, starting with the end in mind - in this case, starting with full DM knowledge that the key protagonators will survive to the pre-planned end - is or should be pointless.  Sure, you can hope the PCs survive, and further hope the players don't throw you a curveball by deciding on a whim to abandon the adventure jump on a boat and sail across the sea...but you can't force these things.  Not, that is, without destroying believability.As a player, I expect the DM to have things well-enough designed to handle any action our party may take, no matter how wacko.  Sword of Mighty Swordiness?  Hell, let's throw it in the lava pit...I bet it'll blow up *real* good!  As a DM, I expect to have to change things on the fly and would be mildly disappointed if I never had to; I'm not about to marry myself to a storyline or theme to the point that it dictates how the game is played.For my next campaign, intended to be another very long one, I sat down the other day and quasi-storyboarded the campaign in terms of adventures I'd like to run, plotlines I could use, and so on - representing maybe 5-10 years of potential play - in full knowledge that what I was doing would probably not survive first contact with the players...and nor should it, really.I will, however, be interested to look back on it after the campaign's done and see if my ideas now have any resemblance whatsoever to what actually ends up happening. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Lanefan</blockquote>

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