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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 6099107" data-attributes="member: 16586">I am sympathetic to the need to build up to meaningful drama. Still, I feel there is right way and a wrong way to do it. The stakes in any given situation need not be life and death, but they need to be of interest to your players. If you want the players to engage with the desert expedition give them a reason to be interested in it. If nothing is at stake no meaningful characterization can really occur. If there is no player buy in then all that wonderful setting exposition will do you no good. It will go in one ear and out the other, even if it could prove useful down the line.I'm currently playing in a Legend of the 5 Rings game set against the backdrop of the War of the Spirits. Our player group consists of a group of young Scorpion clan samurai recently who are currently struggling to wrestle control of the City of Beiden away from outside interests who have taken over while the Scorpion clan was in exile in the Burning Sands. While the eventual focus will be on dealing with much larger threats to Rokugan as a whole, our GM has used the situation we are now facing as a means to seed setting information that will be useful farther down the road. Still, it doesn't feel like the focus is on those larger setting events. We are being exposed to it mostly in our efforts to quell upstart peasants, find a way to remove the influence of a rival samurai clan, and oust the city's current leadership. It feels like our personal stories are shaping the game which will make the later events more meaningful. All without feeling like we're being forced to engage in elements not of interest to us.You can build up drama and engage players at the same time. Let conflicts naturally follow from each other. Stay focused on player buy-in and weave events together. Stakes need not always run high, but in my experience they always need to be important to players to keep them highly engaged.Of course the people I game with are not all that interested in exploration oriented game play, and what works for one group will not necessarily work for others.</blockquote>

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