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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8050154" data-attributes="member: 29398">Which, if the players are the ones who can't stick to an SOP, the DM kinda just has to live with.  And if the players then complain that things are going too slow, show them where the solution lies by holding up a mirror. <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=":)" />For my part, in the end it doesn't matter to me-as-DM whether they finish the adventure in two sessions or thirty...with one exception, that being if I'm running multiple potentially-interacting parties side-along and I have to worry about lining them up in game time, a slow group can cause headaches. (as can a particularly efficient group)In order:1 - Most dungeons are, in one way or another, part of a larger story.  An analogy is that a single game is part of a sports team's season, if each game was of an uncertain length and perhaps involving different elements.  While the team is playing a game it is, in theory, focused on the game at hand; and only afterwards pays attention to how the game affected their place in the standings and-or their season.Same for an adventure.  In the here-and-now the focus is on the adventure at hand, for as long as that may take.  Afterwards, you can worry about how it lines up with other story elements.2 - A forest, or a mountain pass, or a city - each can be every bit as much the actual story as a dungeon, as each can be (or be part of) an adventure.  Put another way, for these purposes I'm defining a "dungeon" as anything done in significant detail, usually because it involves significant risk.  A dungeon crawl is almost always done in detail.  An adventure in a forest or mountain pass* or city, ditto; as opposed to just passing through or hanging around in one.* - in the game I play in we had an adventure once that consisted pretty much of just trying to travel through a mountain pass and clear out some dangers.  Something like 8 sessions, three PC deaths, and a whole lot of blood-and-guts later we finally made it, only to realize we'd rather missed what we were there for and had to go back.  A few more sessions later we'd figured it out, helped immensely by having already dealt with 95% of the risk.  Which makes me think - I've no idea now, five years later, what if anything that adventure had to do with any ongoing story; and I'm fine with that.  What I remember more clearly (and a bit fondly, even though my PCs spent the trip getting whaled on!) are some key elements and events that happened in the adventure.IME the trick is to have more than one in the hopper, and drop hooks for several.  Then, if for some reason one story falters, the groundwork's already been done for a few others.Agreed.Winging it is fine for a while of one has to, but unless one is far better at on-the-fly notetaking than I am it's a recipe for disaster in the long run. <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=":)" />It can feel that way, and I'm guilty of this too.Comes from having too many ideas and not enough nights in the week to play them all out, I guess. <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=":)" />Published adventure paths, you mean?  If so, yes, though they both assume and promote a somewhat different style of play than I'm seeking.Published individual adventures may or may not have anything to do with a story arc, or may help it, or may hinder it.  One example is an adventure-path-like series I embedded into my current campaign.  Was going to be five adventures but a sixth got tacked on; the first, second, fourth and sixth were homebrew modules, the third and fifth were published TSR-era classics that just happened to really fit well with what I had in mind.</blockquote>

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