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View Full Version : Multiple independent threats, not one master plot



PhoenixPhyre
2020-11-04, 09:48 PM
Note: if the character names Crow, Morgan, Sargas of Tor Elan, Verdawn, and Tsun are familiar--STOP READING NOW.
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One thing I like to do when planning a scenario (arcs and campaigns mostly) is to avoid the "one big boss" and "everything's connected to the same root" concepts. Instead, most situations will have several pieces, each of which is only part of the problem at hand. These could be multiple independent (and possibly conflicting) factions, faction + natural phenomena (independent of the factions), etc. Often, some of these are obvious but minor[1], while others are more subtle but more dangerous. Or the reverse.

Why do I do this? I'm not sure. I think some of it is due to feeling like the "everything is because of one master manipulator/BBEG" is contrived. It seems to me to risk raising the questions "why hasn't he won already if he's powerful enough to do X, Y, and Z?" and "why do the PCs (especially low-level ones) have any hope of beating him/doing anything about it if he's that powerful?", neither of which I have great answers for most of the time. Also, I have a preference for low-level threats. Not low level as in "he's a level 3 fighter", but low-level as in "the situation is messy, but not world-threatening or super urgent." I prefer slow simmers to having the world ending tomorrow. In part because it lets the PCs set the pace and discover things as they go. And explains why there's still enough time to stop the whole mess--it's only growing slowly or it was in a precarious balance beforehand. As the party starts investigating, the pace picks up because the factions notice the meddling and start reacting. This makes it all snowball in a gratifying way.

Does anyone else do this? Any good experiences? Bad experiences? Cautions?


I currently have a party investigating a wanna-be port town with issues. They're trying to turn this natural harbor into a good port to capture some of the local trade and break the monopoly of a (hated because they're religious zealots) port town a medium distance away. But things have been going...poorly.

They've had random animal attacks on supply caravans (the nearest major town is a ways away over some low passes). No deaths or serious injuries, except to pack and draft animals, but lots of lost goods.

They've had issues with what's ordered showing up wrong/broken/decayed. Like termite infestations in wood that was good the day before. Nails that arrived rusted through, despite being good when they left. Shipments of lacy unmentionables instead of tools. Etc.

They've had nets cut and holes drilled in the fishing boats that currently supply the town while in dock or at sea. Again, no deaths, but lost cash and time to repair.

And there's an aura of, well, laziness around town. It's just hard to get things going--it takes effort to do more than the bare minimum.

What's really going on? Four different issues.

1. There is a bandit group up in the mountains, led by a ranger/nature type. He has a grudge against the local lord who's pushing this port construction and is trying to bleed him dry, paid for by one of the lord's business rivals. They're the ones doing the caravan attacks. They don't know about the rest of it, except for suspicions. The party has already kicked in their teeth, mostly (missed the boss). This one was pretty obvious.

2. There's a party of rival adventurers, hired by the zealot town to mess with construction. They've inserted themselves as major figures in the town and are using powers of illusion and tricks to mess with people's minds and turn them against each other/suppress investigations of the other issues. They have nothing to do with the boats or the aura or the attacks. They've sent for backup, who will arrive "soon"--they themselves will prefer not to fight. This one is much more subtle, I hope.

3. There's a band of tritons who are trying to keep people away from an undersea site nearby. So whenever a fisherman drags up something from that site, they cut the nets/cut into the hull (while in port, they're not evil) to retrieve and replace the items while remaining unseen. The party doesn't know anything about them; they might be able to persuade them to let the party handle the site (it's active and demonic and the tritons have already lost most of their people fighting it due to <raisins>).

4. And there's a powerful fey protecting a valley of gnomes to the south. No one knows about it, but she basically was asked by their ancestors for protection. So she's done so, at the cost of basically stopping all progress (because if they grow in numbers, they'll have to/want to leave the valley, and then she can't protect them any more). And due to an attempted suicide in her cave, she's trying (in good faith) to extend that same protection to the nearby town. She doesn't understand mortality very well, so she doesn't understand that the people don't remember the deal their grandparents (or earlier) made. She's good hearted though. She won't fight, but if attacked will pull back into the valley and lock it down totally. The party only knows about the aura and has some sort of direction to the general area where it seems to come from.

Fixing #1 and #2 would mostly fix the issue of the port troubles. The underwater threat will grow, but slowly, unless taken care of. And the fey isn't really a threat, but I'm betting the party will want to fix things and see if they can free the gnomes.

SonglessBard
2020-11-04, 11:12 PM
I tend to do this with any game that I intend to run with signifigant length. The failures are when the campaign ends too early or before an arc finishes.

I think the most important thing is to have a level of change occur with time in each of these factions as the PC's solve other problems. The tritons may grow bolder, or the bandits attempt a far more daring raid on the town storehouses. This kind of story telling can be very satisfactory as long as you end at the end of an arc.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-11-04, 11:19 PM
I tend to do this with any game that I intend to run with signifigant length. The failures are when the campaign ends too early or before an arc finishes.

I think the most important thing is to have a level of change occur with time in each of these factions as the PC's solve other problems. The tritons may grow bolder, or the bandits attempt a far more daring raid on the town storehouses. This kind of story telling can be very satisfactory as long as you end at the end of an arc.

I agree about the progression. If they ignore certain pieces, they'll (generally) get worse over time. More backup thugs, worse corruption, the bandit boss coming back for vengeance, etc.

And I run a persistent world, so if they leave without handling all the pieces at least somewhat, that effect will be there for other groups. And if they do solve the pieces well (like deal with the fey and "rescue" the ones she's holding), those will become parts of the world as well.

LibraryOgre
2020-11-05, 01:09 AM
I've done it before, when I had a good sized group interested in doing a long campaign.

What I did was set up a timetable for each individual group, along with what would happen if the PCs did not get involved. If you got distracted by the drow trying to become werewolves, you might miss the hobgoblins trying to get a seat at the Dales' Council. If you spent time dealing with the invasion from Hillsafar, you're probably going to miss some opportunities with Sembia.

It can be REALLY complex taking things into account, but it is a very rewarding experience, with an organic-seeming world.

Quertus
2020-11-05, 08:26 AM
As this is kind of my standard operating procedure, I don't have much of an outside perspective on the behavior.

Lots of people have lots of plots. One family is rustling cattle from another; the vicar is after the widow; the apothecary is addicting people to his medicines; the newspaper editor is trying to summon Cthulhu.

The party may find out about any, all, or even none of these plots. The party may choose to engage any, all, or even none of these plots. *How* they choose to engage these plots, and which plots of their own they create, will affect the topography of the gaming environment.

I just provide players with a gaming environment with lots of tools with which to tell their own stories.

wheelmaker
2020-11-10, 10:45 AM
I like having a tangled web with no BIG BOSS. It makes the game more interesting.

Yora
2020-11-11, 05:50 AM
Absolutely. The best campaigns are those where there is no script that has to be followed and the story that plays out is influenced by the actions taken by the players.
Doesn't mean the threats have to be completely disconnected. You can several factions trying to achieve their plans in the same area, or requiring control of the same thing to proceed with unrelated plans.

Glorthindel
2020-11-11, 06:53 AM
My next campaign is going to follow that sort of model.

I have based it on a single city, have created around two dozen power groups, and arranged five "main" plots, and spread the power groups interest in the plots around (some focus on one plot, and are oblivious to the others, some are involved in two of three, and some others have no interest in any of the main plots, but will provide contacts to other groups). The idea is the early adventures will have plenty of opportunity for the party to meet as many groups as possible, and the resolutions will obviously favour some groups and hinder others, and as the party repeatedly lean to some groups, those groups will then offer the party missions to further their goals, and interrupt others, and as the party repeatedly hinder some groups, they will start taking direct action against the party and withdraw potential job offers. Ideally, most adventures will give the opportunity to gain favour with secondary groups (aside from the ones they are directly working for) so they can get alternative offers to allow them to change course if they decide they lose interest in the goals of a group they are following.

No idea if it will work, as I usually run a much more tightly defined plot, but got to keep things fresh.

Spiderswims
2020-11-11, 02:14 PM
Well, lots to unpack with this.

I'd first point out that the town example has three negative threats towards the players. This is a bit unbalanced, as if your making independent plot threads, then you should be making positive, neutral and negative ones. And that takes me to problem one:

1.It's a lot of a GM to make up. Even if you cap out at three threat groups or events, that is still a lot to make. And that takes time. And worse:

2.Multiple independent threats might not all get used. Of course it is great to many if a GM makes a whole independent threat and the players just side step it so it never gets used. Though it's not often such a happy moment for the GM. They wasted time and effort for nothing.

3.Using multiple independent threats can be trickily and create conflict by forcing them on players. The PCs are doing a task, and don't even know about independent threat #2....until they get attack by them. Now the PCs have to pause their task and deal with independent threat #2. Many players are not so happy with such side treks.

4.It's worse when the players don't realize there are multiple independent threats. The players focus on threat one, but somewhere encounter threat three and jump threats. They think they are on one path to get rid of threat one, but they eventually get rid of threat two. Then threat one just stands in the back and is like 'missed me'. Many players won't be happy here.

5.Having multiple independent threats can be bit overwhelming. Too often once the players figure out there are say three independent threats all trying to destroy the kingdom, they can feel it's too much. They have to defeat three threats just to do one quest or plot. They might well decide to look for a single threat plot.

6.With multiple independent threats, you have the action problem. Fiction all ready has the fuzzy problem of 'why don't people just do things', and D&D is just as bad. But then you have the PCs focused on threat one, then you have an event happen done by one of the other threats, the players can feel left out. The players go all out to stop threat to the kingdom one, then return home to find the king was killed by threat two while they were gone. Again, you often won;t have happy players.

I'm not trying to be a downer here, but I'm pointing out the negative impacts I have seen. A great example was a game where the players discovered a gnome had a book of infinite spells. At first the players were very hyped to go get the book. Until they learned the Red Wizards and Zentraiam were also after the book. They they simply ran away as they did not want to deal with that.

Xervous
2020-11-11, 02:21 PM
Seed multiple threats and let the players Staypuft Marshmallowman one or two to the forefront. Some of the most memorable villains are the ones the players are in part responsible for.

My players once found a corpse executed by a rapier thrust that punctured the forehead. They despaired over the prospect of brain eating birds. Then some months later, when the Dwarf went off jokingly about what he saw to the north, commenting on how it was moving against the wind...

Current campaign has refocused on a sideshow eldritch horror as the players reacted strongly to the few afflicted individuals, they’ve even gone so far as to treat its name with Voldemort style it-who-must-not-be-named.

Letting players pick their foes from among the campaign’s roster is a strong bet for boosting / securing engagement and investment.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-11-11, 02:53 PM
Well, lots to unpack with this.

I'd first point out that the town example has three negative threats towards the players. This is a bit unbalanced, as if your making independent plot threads, then you should be making positive, neutral and negative ones. And that takes me to problem one:

1.It's a lot of a GM to make up. Even if you cap out at three threat groups or events, that is still a lot to make. And that takes time. And worse:

2.Multiple independent threats might not all get used. Of course it is great to many if a GM makes a whole independent threat and the players just side step it so it never gets used. Though it's not often such a happy moment for the GM. They wasted time and effort for nothing.

3.Using multiple independent threats can be trickily and create conflict by forcing them on players. The PCs are doing a task, and don't even know about independent threat #2....until they get attack by them. Now the PCs have to pause their task and deal with independent threat #2. Many players are not so happy with such side treks.

4.It's worse when the players don't realize there are multiple independent threats. The players focus on threat one, but somewhere encounter threat three and jump threats. They think they are on one path to get rid of threat one, but they eventually get rid of threat two. Then threat one just stands in the back and is like 'missed me'. Many players won't be happy here.

5.Having multiple independent threats can be bit overwhelming. Too often once the players figure out there are say three independent threats all trying to destroy the kingdom, they can feel it's too much. They have to defeat three threats just to do one quest or plot. They might well decide to look for a single threat plot.

6.With multiple independent threats, you have the action problem. Fiction all ready has the fuzzy problem of 'why don't people just do things', and D&D is just as bad. But then you have the PCs focused on threat one, then you have an event happen done by one of the other threats, the players can feel left out. The players go all out to stop threat to the kingdom one, then return home to find the king was killed by threat two while they were gone. Again, you often won;t have happy players.

I'm not trying to be a downer here, but I'm pointing out the negative impacts I have seen. A great example was a game where the players discovered a gnome had a book of infinite spells. At first the players were very hyped to go get the book. Until they learned the Red Wizards and Zentraiam were also after the book. They they simply ran away as they did not want to deal with that.

1. Sure. For my style, it's less work than having one highly-multi-threaded threat (where that one threat is the root cause of everything going wrong), mainly because of having to keep everything consistent and foreshadow stuff. I'm also working at the arc level, so these are short-term threats not whole-campaign threats.

2. I'm happy if not everything gets addressed. It's a living world and none of these are world-threatening, so all it does is change how the world progresses in the future. Their choices matter, both which problems they address and how they address them.

3. I'm very careful to foreshadow all the threats in advance. They know that all these things are going wrong. But it takes investigation to reveal that there isn't a single source. Not only that, but most of the threats are slow-progressing (on a campaign time scale)--so if they do them out of order, nothing really changes unless it takes them months in game. And even then only small changes.

4. That's the importance of clear communications. So far, I've never had that problem. Something to watch out for though.

5. I don't do plots. I do situations. In this particular case (and generally) there's only one must solve threat for the quest seed, and that's clear up front. The rest are nuisances or related oddities around the situation. Things for them to poke into and solve if they want the "golden ending" for that quest seed.

6. Small areas and small arcs help. As well as low-level threats. I don't do "they're all trying to kill the king" threats. Some are. Some are pushing in different directions that counterbalance (e.g. trying to manipulate the king instead, which means they'll act against threats to kill him). Basically, if I've done my job right, the situation pre-adventurers is a precarious balance. Until they start poking around, nothing's going to change. But as soon as they do poke around, the situation will start evolving as they push someone out of balance and change the balance of forces.

Does that make more sense?

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-11-11, 09:01 PM
My last...gosh, at least 4 campaigns have all ended up having three major BBEG-level threats:

1) A more straightforward "this is what kicks off the campaign and if you don't stop it then Bad Things will happen" threat, either openly and directly or because there's some funny business going on and they turn out to be the root cause.

2) A more covert or mysterious threat that has been operating in the background but that still promises Bad Things if not addressed, which has entirely different goals from and/or has been working at cross-purposes with Threat #1 and usually surfaces a third of the way to halfway into campaign.

3) A totally unrelated faction to Threat #1 or Threat #2 that doesn't necessarily intend Bad Things overall, but have gotten involved because the PCs directly ticked them off and will possibly grow into a major threat if the PCs don't deal with it promptly. (I didn't plan for the party to make their own nemeses in the last few campaigns, but hey, just like clockwork....)

I find that two distinct major threats plus a few minor foes scattered around that can "ascend" to major threat status based on player involvement is the best middle ground between a singular BBEG (which forces the entire campaign to revolve around it and obviously tends to put a hard stop to the campaign when it's dealt with) and a bunch of different factions of similar power (which can get unwieldy on the GM side and can make the players feel like they have too much to reasonably deal with), and that letting the players basically create their own nemesis out of whatever's already there can get them really invested in that antagonist in the way they wouldn't get invested in Enemy Faction 4 of 15.