Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6282867" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, in my defense, they have at this point figured out and thwarted the plans of multiple sub-bosses, and we are on our third (related) story arc.  Broken down in another way we are on what amounts to at least our seventh major adventure, six of which have already been brought to a triumphant and victorious resolution in some fashion (although one might be counted as a draw, in that the villain was not fully vanquished), along with I don't know how many other smaller story arcs and side encounters (some player driven, some not, some triumphant and some not - I think they are still miffed that they couldn't thwart the Nautians political mechanations).  For example, last session they learned of and resolved a murder mystery related to the current major story arc in the same session (thanks to some quick thinking and judicious and appropriate spell use by the Shaman).  Some groups would count that as getting a lot done.   That we aren't 20th level or indeed nth level I consider irrelevant.  What's important is we've had tons of story, and the fact that we are lowish level means that I've plenty of room for both tons more while still allowing for mechanical character development (and we are starting to see some personality development as well).At this point they know the big bad has had his minions collecting various magical items, they just don't know why although they have various clues (among many, the stolen hymnal, the organ maker, the lust for orichalcum, the vivamancy experiment they discovered in the tomb of Menes III, the desire for dark fire, the involvement of the keltern heretics, and the interest in restoring the age of the art mages) and they have drawings now of the device in what they assume is its completed state.   If I'd felt that the game was not going to run this long, then each of the individual sub-arcs could have been used as a stopping point.  If I felt the game was going to be even shorter than that, each of the seven 'modules' or 'chapters' could have been a stand alone adventure.Frankly though, on the basis of how you'd judge good literature, it wouldn't be a very good story if the protagonists figure out what is going on long before we reach a climax.  Since we all want to keep playing, I consider it a sign of the strength of my creation, rather than a flaw in it, that it hasn't been simple to lift the veil of mystery from the story despite figuring out many smaller puzzles along the way.  Nothing is worse that getting into a story and figuring out how it is going to end only 30 pages into it.</blockquote>

Verification