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<blockquote data-quote="Harzel" data-source="post: 7527676" data-attributes="member: 6857506"><p>So I see several posts here that are various forms of "Decisions have consequences; let the players make decisions." IMO, this is misleadingly incomplete. <em>Uninformed </em>decisions are not only completely uninteresting, they're really terrible because they can make an unfortunate outcome <em>seem</em> to be the players' fault when in fact that is not the case. What are interesting and an appropriate basis for consequences are <em>informed</em> decisions. And the PCs (and your players) seem to be well short of having sufficient information.</p><p></p><p>As others have suggested, one really handy piece of information that they need is how tough the dragon is. The most obvious (to me) indicator would be what opponents the dragon has vanquished (be they other adventurers or other 'monsters'). There are plenty of in-game channels for delivering this intelligence. But the thing that I don't think anyone has mentioned is that if there are items in the rest of the dungeon that are needed the PCs should have at least a clue that that is the case. (And I'm not talking here about player metaknowledge about always 'clearing' a dungeon 'in order'; I mean something the characters know.)</p><p></p><p>Even if the items in the rest of the dungeon are just 'nice to have', I still think it is much better for the PCs to have an in-game reason for taking not-the-most-direct route to their main quarry. This doesn't mean some NPC has to hand them a roadmap to the dungeon; they just need to have a reasonable basis to believe there would be value in exploring the rest of the dungeon and a vague notion of what that value is.</p><p></p><p>The issue of the PCs needing to level in order to have a good chance of defeating the dragon seems to me a bit harder to manage. To some extent I suppose all they need is a somewhat finer-grained estimate of their own capabilities vs. the difficulty of the dragon. That could be delivered by a wise NPC ally or a more exacting description of the dragon's previous conquests. Whether the option of "just let them try it and flee if necessary" is desirable seems to me to depend on what kind of campaign you are running. I think that would be much more acceptable in a very sandboxy situation than one where the PCs have been given a strong (external) motivation to defeat the dragon as their next main task.</p><p></p><p>EDIT: Ninja'd on many points by @<em><strong><u><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=98008" target="_blank">Unwise</a></u></strong></em>, who in addition provided a nice concrete example.<img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite6" alt=":cool:" title="Cool :cool:" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":cool:" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Harzel, post: 7527676, member: 6857506"] So I see several posts here that are various forms of "Decisions have consequences; let the players make decisions." IMO, this is misleadingly incomplete. [I]Uninformed [/I]decisions are not only completely uninteresting, they're really terrible because they can make an unfortunate outcome [I]seem[/I] to be the players' fault when in fact that is not the case. What are interesting and an appropriate basis for consequences are [I]informed[/I] decisions. And the PCs (and your players) seem to be well short of having sufficient information. As others have suggested, one really handy piece of information that they need is how tough the dragon is. The most obvious (to me) indicator would be what opponents the dragon has vanquished (be they other adventurers or other 'monsters'). There are plenty of in-game channels for delivering this intelligence. But the thing that I don't think anyone has mentioned is that if there are items in the rest of the dungeon that are needed the PCs should have at least a clue that that is the case. (And I'm not talking here about player metaknowledge about always 'clearing' a dungeon 'in order'; I mean something the characters know.) Even if the items in the rest of the dungeon are just 'nice to have', I still think it is much better for the PCs to have an in-game reason for taking not-the-most-direct route to their main quarry. This doesn't mean some NPC has to hand them a roadmap to the dungeon; they just need to have a reasonable basis to believe there would be value in exploring the rest of the dungeon and a vague notion of what that value is. The issue of the PCs needing to level in order to have a good chance of defeating the dragon seems to me a bit harder to manage. To some extent I suppose all they need is a somewhat finer-grained estimate of their own capabilities vs. the difficulty of the dragon. That could be delivered by a wise NPC ally or a more exacting description of the dragon's previous conquests. Whether the option of "just let them try it and flee if necessary" is desirable seems to me to depend on what kind of campaign you are running. I think that would be much more acceptable in a very sandboxy situation than one where the PCs have been given a strong (external) motivation to defeat the dragon as their next main task. EDIT: Ninja'd on many points by @[I][B][U][URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=98008"]Unwise[/URL][/U][/B][/I], who in addition provided a nice concrete example.:cool: [/QUOTE]
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