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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7331223" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I use this type of approach in my game. Not for every story or at all times, but I definitely have a couple of themes that spring to mind as I think about it. One is kind of philosophical, and the other is aimed at one character.The philosophical one is about free-will versus fate. Is the future written already, or are we shaping it with our choices? The campaing involves some time travel, and there are two NPCs involved in the time shenanigans and each has a different outlook. One tells the PCs that they are capable of changing things...that if they go to the past and kill the king as a child, then he will never rule. The other tells them that all is written...if they go back in time to kill the king, then they must have failed because the king is currently still alive. The PCs are working on trying to figure out which is true. And honestly, so am I based on what the players seem to think and want. The other theme which involves the party fighter. When we began 5E, the player made the character with little thought to his backstory or much else. He was just made in order to test the system. He made the character neutral and said that he had been a mercenary. Over the campaign, the neutrality thing has bugged me a bit. The PCs are generally heroic, although very often not by choice...but he goes along with all the heroics, but then occasionally does something that just seems off and uses the neutral alignment as his justification. So I’ve started putting him in positions where he has to personally choose between right and wrong...a good act or an evil one, and I’m keeping track. Things looked pretty bleak when the PCs went to Ravenloft and he started leaning toward evil. The Amber Temple was very interesting. But he kind of made it through, and wound up using the Sunsword to help defeat Strahd. So he came out of it all with a Neutral Good alignment, and my little thematic approach seemed over.But lately the character’s been real bloodthirsty...so perhaps I will revisit it. I feel that with these kinds of themes or archetypal stories, if you go with it, you’ll be amazed at how mcuh of the game will lend itself to that approach. I think it enriches the experience.</blockquote>

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