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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 5868848" data-attributes="member: 6668292">If he did stand his ground, and you did intervene with a backup plan or contingency, you'd be exchanging one story arc for another. That's fine in  one set of games, but not in another. It's fine when I expect it (as with my brother's games), and not when I don't expect it (players who play my game). Whereas my players take great pride in knowing that they "earned" each and every bit of each and every victory they ever won. If they later found out "I fudged this part to keep the game going" then that victory would feel a little hollow to them. It's just a taste thing. No doubt. My brother puts on the front of "you coulda died there!" when we know that we lived because the evil magician betrayed the bad guys mid-fight (when we started losing). We're used to it from him, and we play the game knowing it'll happen. As I said, though, while it's tons of fun for all of us, my players prefer my game to his. I think the concept of "earning" each victory -and the real world feeling of pride- has a lot to do with it. I wouldn't have a "first big quest" personally. I play it pretty much straight sandbox. Whatever they want to look into, they can (with varying degrees of success). I don't use adventure paths or modules, I don't craft adventure plots, or the like. I'd let them look into whatever they wanted to. If they heard about some political intrigue, they can try to insert themselves. If they hear about the dozen and a half cave beasts harassing or killing slaves in the north, they can look into it. If they want to explore the Serpantlands in search of a big carcass to bring back, they can look into it. If they want to start up a fishing company, I'm actually cool with that, too.It's really up to them. My players would make the call, not me. They'd probably look into people teaching them, as of that level. They're decidedly below the average hit die in the setting (which is about hit die 4), so they'd likely look for strong mentors who they could suck up to for protection/teachings. As always, play what you like <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=":)" /></blockquote>

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