Don’t Force the Action
Consider contingencies that can preserve your plot. Treat your adventure as a
story with an unwritten ending, and be willing to let your players write it. If
you have over-planned, you must fight the desire to lead your players around
by the nose.
This doesn’t mean that high-level characters are the deciding force on your
campaign world for every event, but they probably have the power to shape events
around them. A high-level nemesis can aid in pushing the PCs in the direction
you want them to go, but it’s doubtful the villain is so ingenious that he never
gets foiled. After all, if the heroes of the land cannot successfully oppose
the villain, who can?
A common justification for forcing the action is designing plots that turn on
single events, such as the actions of a single villain: “But if the Count
doesn’t get away, he won’t be around to set fire to the bridge in the final
encounter.”
High-level player characters have a way of upsetting well-laid plans, so build
plots that can stand up to PC tinkering. If something doesn’t go the way you
planned, have a backup plan. In most cases, the player characters should find it
easier to complete the adventure if they cause a break in the plot, but not
always.
For example, suppose a particular NPC is supposed to escape the PCs’ clutches
and then travel to a distant city where the villain is highly respected. When
the player characters arrive at the city, they are framed for a crime and earn
the local ruler’s wrath.
The plans begin to unravel when the player characters capture the villain with
a rope of entanglement, an item the DM forgot the party had. Rather than concocting some feeble
reason why the villain escapes, a thoughtful DM puts a backup plan into effect.
When the player characters interrogate their prisoner, the villain lies—of
course—about what is really going. The player characters easily discover the lie,
but they also uncover the villain’s travel plans. The heroes might travel to
the city, hoping to discover what the blackguard was up to. The villain’s agents
might frame the player characters anyway, but the heroes, having sifted a few
essential facts from the villain’s lies, are slightly better off than they
otherwise would have been.
The DM might put a similar backup plan into play if the player characters slay
the villain. Perhaps the villain’s agents convince their ruler that the heroes
are bandits, spies, or assassins. When the PCs arrive, they become embroiled
in a diplomatic crisis.
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