In article <4600f4f1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, tussock <scrub@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Any extended plot arcs have to be ****ged into having the requisite
>years available, or just accept that the PCs might have to let someone
>else handle the problem.
> They are perfectly allowed to push on, but there's little to gain
>in game or out, and you don't want to stick your neck out too far anyway.
[snip]
> The setting is the lives of the people around you; not the fights
>or some external time pressure. Say the coming flood will destroy the
>low-lying structures, so people are selling up and closing shop in
>preparation. This causes devaluation, unemployment, vacant buildings,
>and sees lots of minor crime and disorder springing up. An old friend
>gets in debtors trouble with the magistrate, that sort of stuff.
> In the downtime the players can work on providing for the new poor,
>organising useful work boarding up abandoned buildings, clearing fire
>dangers, and managing any refugees. It's not just a few fights over the
>MacGuffin, it's a major event in the life of your city.
I guess I just don't understand what you are advocating here, especially
given your earlier comments in a thread on _Age of Worms_. I'm sure
I'm misunderstanding you and that your games work well, but I can't
make heads or tails of these descriptions.
In the _Age of Worms_ thread you chewed me out for allowing my player to
have PCs who would try to protect their relatives in town, and cared
whether the bad guys might retaliate against them. Here, you seem to
be expecting the players not to care enough about the town to work hard
at trying to stop the flood ("there's little to gain in game or out").
You want the players to accept their failure to find the enemy, rather
than continuing to try. But you also want them to care about the
townsfolk and be motivated to do something once the flood happens.
You also seem to be saying that you don't want the module events
("a few fights over the McGuffin") to matter, but you want their
results (a flooded city) to matter. I don't see how this can happen.
If the flood matters, doesn't preventing the flood matter? Maybe the
PCs cannot possibly prevent the flood, but won't they spend many
sessions trying, if they really care about the city? The resources
available to a mid-level D&D party to find someone are truly staggering:
diplomacy, intimidation, bribery, gather information, bardic lore,
hiring spies, mindreading, Commune, Divination, Locate Person, Locate
Object, Lesser Planar Ally....
I guess I don't see why you would use the module events at all, if you
don't want the PCs to react to them. Why let the players think they
might be able to stop the flood? Why not just have a flood?
I know that as a player I can't tolerate very many repetitions of
having my characters hooked strongly by a plotline and then having
them fail utterly to be able to make progress by their own actions.
The soft spots where hooks are supposed to set just get torn out, and
my PCs stop caring. I don't suppose that's really what you're doing,
but I don't understand what you *are* doing.
Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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