Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7374834" data-attributes="member: 29398">The feather may still be useful, just less directly.  Maybe it's in fact a key allowing access somewhere else to something needed to defeat a balrog.  Hey, or maybe it summons a balrog if given the right command! <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=":)" />Or maybe it's an element of a completely different adventure or story, which the PCs can investigate and-or follow up on should they (and their players) so desire.This one's fine with me - sure they knocked out Halika but they've no reason to think she'll stay unconscious all night, or that someone won't happen by and tend to her.Applicable to both DM- and player-driven games.Outright undo?  Maybe not.  Twist, mitigate, alter, or corrupt?  Situationally dependent, but by no means a hard no.  Just like getting wishes from a genie - you think you wished for this but you ended up with that; here it's you think you accomplished this but you in fact did that.As a player, if I knew the answer I wouldn't be asking.  I might very well know what I'd like the answer to be, but that's not the same thing.You'll like this: in my current campaign the answer was yes!A couple of players came up with the idea of having their two initial PCs - a Bard and a Cavalier who already knew each other - start the campaign by just rolling through the farm country bragging at every village about how rich they were gonna get adventuring in the mountains, in hopes that some other suckers - er, brave adventurers - could be persuaded to join them.  The rest of the starting PCs joined in one or two at a time from different villages. (the Bard, as it turned out, was the only one of that initial group of 9 to survive that first adventure)Yes, after I roll some dice to see if anything interesting does happen overnight.A fight in the middle of a city and nobody else jumped in, either to break it up or to add to the mayhem?Dull city. <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=":)" />Where I'd probably be rolling each day for some sort of random encounter; asking whether they divert to and-or stop at oases and-or villages seen en route or intentionally avoid them; and making sure I described each day's weather after rolling - relevant if the roll comes up high winds i.e. sandstorm.  I'd also describe the landforms, particularly if there was any significant change e.g. the sand desert becomes a rock desert.Depth.  It takes time.I'd say it's extremely relevant as soon as one group tries to send a message to the other, to determine how long that message might take to arrive.  Even if I didn't bother telling the players, I'd still be keeping track of it in knowledge that it's highly likely to become relevant sooner or later.The in-my-eyes awful risk you run here is that you could end up with unrealistic travel times and distances.  Geography is important.  Time is important.  The two put together - which you're doing here - can become vitally important; and thus need to be carefully tracked.Lanefan</blockquote>

Verification