The BigFatFae • jumpingjacktrash: the-real-seebs: One of the...

jumpingjacktrash: the-real-seebs: One of the things that’s important in a long-running RPG is making a memorable plot that attains definitive closure. You don’t want players feeling like they have unfinished business and want to go Do More Things. So, for instance, say you start dropping hints early on of some sort of epic Magical Badass, like a lich queen or something. Early on, the players don’t find out much; just that there’s someone called Zola who is behind a whole lot of strange shit, and a lot of it is not good. And they are never quite sure what she is. Wizard? Dragon? Lich? But eventually they find out: She has many forms, but her true form is one of the Medusas. Not the modern watered-down species that fall for the mirror crap and you have to meet their gaze, but a true abomination from beyond the veil, whose stare can turn whole armies to stone. The reason this works as a plot is that the players will never speak to you again once they realize you spent six months building up to the reveal that the big cheese is the legendary gorgon Zola. you’re grounded. Sometimes it’s good to not wait too long, too. You want to ensure to keep your players engaged. For instance, a plot I’ve been working on has the players collecting a magical item relatively early. I was thinking it would be the sort of item a powerful craftsperson could use as a focus, if they held it and some metal, it could change create complex mechanical shapes, effectively allowing you to rapidly make large war machines. Of course, when the players found it, they’d find that it was shaped like a gear, so I’d need to make sure it was appropriately enshrined. But the real kicker would be like, 3-4 episodes later, we’d come across an object made specifically to counteract its effects. A special beam that deconstructed transmuted metal. A weapon built to surpass metal gear. (via theopossumwitch)