>From: Brian Koppi
>If only someone had told me this when I was first starting out. I
>fell into so many traps by outlining an adventure based on assumed
>character actions and player choices.
Amen. A little over ten years ago, I had a hard lesson on this one. It was
Shadowrun and I was running the original Harlequin book. This one interlude
scene required that the players get set up, and are trapped and under heavy
fire. Suddenly, a van rolls up driven by a total stranger, yelling, "Get
in!" The plot at this point hinged on the fact that the PCs would
"obviously" decide to get in this van with a stranger to get out of this
firefight.
It never occurred to me to question that as I read it through, but there way
NO WAY my players were getting in that damn van. Sorry, but they'll take
their chances with the cops.
I was stumped. The book SAID they'd get in the van. Hell, it REQUIRED that
they get in the van. I panicked and forced them in. It sucked. The whole
rest of that interlude was wasted. In retrospect, the grand meta-plot would
not have suffered at all if they had simply avoided that whole mess, and I
should have let them do it, but I simply hadn't thought it out ahead of time
and wasn't ready for it.
So yeah--plan a lot, but never count on the players to perform ANY specific
action. Give them lots of opportunities, but if they go off the wall and
screw your entire plan... let them. Roll with it and keep going. So what if
you have to throw away 10 pages of planned material? Your players will pat
themselves on the back for months for their cleverness, and forever that
will be one of their most fondly remembered moments.
Mike Jones
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