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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8543455" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I make a pretty strong effort to keep things consistent. If I make a mistake, I attempt to justify it, or use it. That is, if they've found an inconsistency, that's a strange thing the party has picked up on that needs an explanation, which can lead to whole adventures all on its own. I don't usually make mistakes of that kind, though, so damage control is usually unnecessary.The rest of the time, I work to leave things open enough that I won't be sure where they're going, but settled enough that each new step naturally arises from the previous, even if the direction it ends up going is entirely extemporaneous. My players have expressly told me they value that this is the case--that if there's a mystery, there's usually a way to have seen the truth in advance, even if the players don't end up actually doing so.In a pinch, you can resort to vagueness (stuff in the direction of the Barnum effect and cold reading), but I prefer to avoid that if I can. It can lead to a very fragile story. Instead, I prefer to be actually fairly specific, but scattershot and preliminary. The former means you don't have to worry overmuch if particular details fall by the wayside; either they end up not being all that important in the long run, or (as I prefer it) they come back to bite harder later because they were ignored. (I do not use this for gotchas though; it takes repeatedly ignoring something for it to become a Problem.) The latter means the players take the driver's seat in determining where the story actually leads, rather than simply following breadcrumbs from one point to the next.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8543455, member: 6790260"] I make a pretty strong effort to keep things consistent. If I make a mistake, I attempt to justify it, or use it. That is, if they've found an inconsistency, that's a strange thing the party has picked up on that needs an explanation, which can lead to whole adventures all on its own. I don't usually make mistakes of that kind, though, so damage control is usually unnecessary. The rest of the time, I work to leave things open enough that I won't be sure where they're going, but settled enough that each new step naturally arises from the previous, even if the direction it ends up going is entirely extemporaneous. My players have expressly told me they value that this is the case--that if there's a mystery, there's usually a way to have seen the truth in advance, even if the players don't end up actually doing so. In a pinch, you can resort to vagueness (stuff in the direction of the Barnum effect and cold reading), but I prefer to avoid that if I can. It can lead to a very fragile story. Instead, I prefer to be actually fairly specific, but scattershot and preliminary. The former means you don't have to worry overmuch if particular details fall by the wayside; either they end up not being all that important in the long run, or (as I prefer it) they come back to bite harder later because they were ignored. (I do not use this for gotchas though; it takes repeatedly ignoring something for it to become a Problem.) The latter means the players take the driver's seat in determining where the story actually leads, rather than simply following breadcrumbs from one point to the next. [/QUOTE]

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