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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6126776" data-attributes="member: 6681948">So whose job is it now?  Is it the players' job to investigate, or the GM's job to drop something in the PC's laps?  I don't know the answer, because it depends on the specifics, and it's most likely some of each.  Are the PC's overlooking resources they could use to further their objectives?  I know we've had sessions in our games where we basically stopped the clock and the PC's sat down and brainstormed what resources we had, and what we could bring to bear against our current situation.  [Bit of a different issue, but we were getting our heads handed to us by incorporeal opponents until we reviewed spells available, changed spell loads and revised standard tactics that had always served well in the past.  After that, we walked over them.]  I'd put the onus here squarely on the PC's to assess how they got to A, what resources they have (including contacts and knowledge from past aventures, not just skills/feats/spells) and which ones they might be able to leverage to advance their goals.The other possibility, though, is information the characters would have that the players have not been given, such as some resource within the city which would be helpful, which all the citizens know exists and which the players don't.  You might be able to nudge that along in a player brainstorm, though - what are we missing, and what would help us obtain it? It would be great if we had more knowledge of the underground catacombs?  Hey, Mr. GM, does my Local Knowledge suggest anywhere we could go to do more research, or anyone we could question locally?Haven't you been asserting that the GM should remove any and all extraneous elements from the game, so there will be nothing these that is not somehow useful to your goals?  I don't know that "useful" is the right word, and I hate to go back to "relevant".  Maybe "related"?  I think there's a continuum here.  The GM needs to provide info the PC's would have or the players can't act on it.  But if the GM keeps raising that one item that would be most relevant next, we're back to what I would classify as breadcrumbs - the players follow a trail laid out by the GM, whether it is to goals they set themselves or goals that were set by the GM.  At the other end of the extreme is the GM who hands out a World Encyclopedia, and then assumes the players will be intimitely familiar with every scrap of minutia included therein, so if they don't realize that Vol 4, Ch 13 discusses a temple in a city across the sea which had a High Priest 175 years ago who undertook an extensive project exploring the catacombs beneath your city, and exrapolate from that the possibility that he may have left some notes preserved in that temple well, that's their own fault for not paying attention, isn't it? I thought the group template links all the players to their goals.  It sounds like there are no problems with cohesiveness of goals, but with what the viable next steps would be to achieve those goals.  I don't see how a map of the interconnections between the PC's would assist in setting out the roadmap to achieve those goals."Rescuing my long lost parents" and "overthrowing the tyrant King" are not mutually exclusive.  It does not mean they are highly interrrelated either.  We can make progress one while there is a lull in the other, and resolve one before the other.  When the plots can interrelate, that can be interesting, but tying everything together too tightly generally seems contrived and, to me, suggests an element of tunnel vision.I thought being tied to Bob was enough, without being tied into each and every one of his goals.  If I can help my friend rescue his long lost parents, that is a goal because he is my friend, not because of his parents.  I dont need him to introduce himself with "Hi, Im Bob and I'm looking for my long lost parents".  It can come up when a clue to his parents' fate or whereabouts surfaces.At that point, I'd question whether we are not facing a good opportunity to change it up a bit an focus on a goal that has nothing to do with this cult.  Its remnants may well surface later, or we may find ourselves involved in sme other machination of the person behind the cult (whether or not we know there is such a link).  If we dont have a connection between that smoking ruin and Orcus himself, then we can start searching for the next step, which can become the focus.  But we can also accept that, while the characters continue to investigate, no new leads have surfaced, and in the meantime, other things are happening.  Other things that may eventually lead us back to the search for Orcus, or may simply occur between the smoking ruins of the cult and our next lead to Orcus.I'd be much more concerned, as you seem to be, with the fact that nothing - whether directly and obviously relevant or not - seems to be happening.</blockquote>

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