DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 30C: The Two Letters
The next morning Tellith gave Tor two letters that had arrived for him during the night. One of them was from Sir Gemmell of the Order of the Dawn.
The other was from Sir Kabel.
“I think I just wasted two hundred gold pieces,” Tor muttered to himself.
We’ve got a couple of things I’d like to highlight here.
First, the setup.
As we discuss in The Art of Pacing, meaningful choices are the beating heart of a roleplaying game, and as a GM you really want to put the spotlight on those choices by strongly framing scenes around them. In this case, Tor had put himself in the middle of the Order of the Dawn, and now the Order of the Dawn was splitting between two leaders: Sir Kabel, who was remaining loyal to Seyrun, and Sir Gemmell, who was loyal to the self-appointed Novarch Rehobath.
The core question, obviously, is: Who is Tor going to support?
I certainly had my suspicions (and you probably do, too) based on the party’s reaction to how Rehobath had handled Dominic. But the party was also technically working for Rehobath at the moment, so there was absolutely nothing simple about the situation. It was pretty muddy and very complicated, actually, which is precisely what made it such an interesting question.
Having the letters from both Kabel and Gemmell arrive at the same time was, of course, a way of slicing through all that complexity: Kabel. Gemmell. Who do you respond to? How do you respond? What’s your choice?
What Tor actually chose to do blew my mind.
But that will have to wait until our next update.
HONOR CHOICE, BUT USE YOUR PREP
The other factor here was Tor’s choice, earlier in this session, to seek out Shim and hire the information broker to deliver a message to Sir Kabel. I hadn’t anticipated this at all, but it was an inspired bit of gameplay.
(It somehow hadn’t occurred to me at all when I decided to reveal that the PCs had hired Shim during their period of memory loss that they would then continue hiring him for various tasks.)
The problem this created for me, however, can be neatly summed up by what Tor says: “I think I just wasted two hundred gold pieces.”
The logical response to Sir Kabel receiving Tor’s letter, after all, was for Sir Kabel to send him a reply telling him how they could meet… which was, of course, the letter I had already prepped and which was scheduled to be delivered shortly thereafter.
Stuff like this can actually happen quite a bit: You know that something is going to happen. Then the PCs do something completely unexpected, but which logically would result in the same thing happening (with perhaps minor differences). This is just a particularly clear-cut example of it.
And, as a GM, it feels a little weird when this happens. The PCs did something unexpected, so… something unexpected should result, right? But instead the exact same thing happens?
… is that railroading?
Well, sometimes, yes. It is. If you’re forcing things to play out according to your prep, that’s negating player choice and that’s railroading.
But sometimes it’s just a weird coincidence: You are, in fact, honoring their choice. There’s just a weird act of judo where their own momentum throws them right back where they started.
When you find yourself in the position of performing this weird judo, one thing you can do is really focus in on how their choice did make a difference and then think about how that could be significant.
For example, in this case Sir Kabel’s letter was literally identical. (I didn’t rewrite the prop.) But there was a key difference: In the “original” continuity (which never actually existed), Sir Kabel made the decision to reach out to Tor without truly knowing where his loyalties might lie. But in the actual continuity, because of what Tor’s player had done, Sir Kabel sent his letter because Tor had reached out to him; had, in fact, taken great risk to make contact.
That’s actually a huge difference! It meant that Sir Kabel would be far more confident of Tor and far more trusting of their alliance. (Assuming that’s how things played out.)
So even in a moment like this — where the prepared prop of the letter made my player say, “I think I just wasted two hundred gold coins” — I was still able to, a little while later, show them that their actions had been meaningful.
Campaign Journal: Session 30D – Running the Campaign: The Undead Sequel
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index
“What Tor actually chose to do blew my mind.
But that will have to wait until our next update.”
/shakes fist at cliffhanger
Can’t wait!
This campaign going since 2008? Is it a weekly session or more like a monthly thing?
I had this happen recently in my own game. As a result of rising tensions, the second-in-command of a major drug cartel wanted the PCs’ help to get out of town. They negotiated this out and she gave up everything on their activities. In the original plan once word got out that she was gone, the entire organization collapsed from the top down as everyone below her crumbled and got out while they still could. Except the PCs decided to stage an elaborate, single-day raid of the entire operation. They started calling in favors from everyone they knew, covertly marshaling forces, and doing it all under the cover of a PC’s wedding.
Great. If I continue with the intended NPC actions, this is going to be Al Capone’s vault all over again when they bust in on a series of vacated locations. Even if I telegraph that they’re fleeing it will deny them the chance to have the big heroic moment where they get to have the win.
So I pull it back a little. The upper leadership starts slipping away and surveillance lets them know that a few places have been abandoned, but there’s still enough left for them to have their victory. The results are going to be roughly the same anyhow considering the advantage they have in intelligence, surprise, and trained manpower.
The big difference is that previously it would have happened silently. Their involvement could have been concealed (there ARE other cartels out there still…). But now it’s obvious to everyone just where they stand. They intentionally made a grand show of it that nobody could fail to notice. That’s going to affect how different factions look at them. As the article said, they made a choice and that choice will make a difference. Even if the immediate outcome would have been the same.