The Background
I run a game that focuses on narrative and roleplay. Often, my players will create their own McGuffin that I will then shift into a primary plot device. This usually takes the party away from some primary plot points and drives the story in a different direction. I feel this all works pretty well because it always allows the players to feel as if they’ve made an important discovery and that they’re driving the story, not me. The downside? This leaves some unresolved threads.
Recently, my players have been asking about those threads and what happened because we didn’t resolve them. I explain that not taking care of them has had consequences that they haven’t been around to see. Essentially, the world continues without them. However, we’ve reached a point in the story (homebrewed) where these threads matter. So we’re going back to see the consequences of unfinished business.
The Discussion
I’d like to see your take on unfinished business and how you represent consequences in the world. Do you allow the story to just move on to the BBEG, or do you make the players feel like their choices matter beyond the immediate session? How do you do either, neither, or something else entirely?
Consequences are great, but above all, be a fan of the player characters. They are the heroes and the avatars of your friends. The last thing you want to do is deliver a negative consequence that players interpret as punishment and that relies on your interpretation of past events (which could well differ from that of the players).
If they leave threads unpulled, things should change in their absence–but the changes shouldn’t penalize them for making a rational choice based on limited information. The world should feel alive, but the opportunity cost of their choices shouldn’t be catastrophe. After all, you let them steer. It’s one thing to summon Tiamat if the GM says, “They’ll summon Tiamat next Tuesday if you don’t stop them,” but Tiamat doesn’t show up if they got distracted before learning about the ritual.
It’s one thing to summon Tiamat if the GM says, “They’ll summon Tiamat next Tuesday if you don’t stop them,” but Tiamat doesn’t show up if they got distracted before learning about the ritual.
That’s a good way of putting it. A clock isn’t real if the PCs haven’t been told about it. But as soon the clock exists, the players should be held to it.
That’s a good take. I agree that consequences shouldn’t happen to spite the players. They made their decisions and had the enjoyment they sought, and as DMs, we’re only here to facilitate that.
I think consequences are there to add a sense of scope. It’s not a “you didn’t do this, so here’s your punishment.” It’s “let’s take a look at how your active choices affected the world and figure out how to play in that space together.” Maybe ‘consequence’ wasn’t the best word for this discussion.
Let me put this to you – has there been an instance where you revisited an area or plotline that the players diverted from? If so, how did you do it?
Not every consequence should be negative, but not all should be positive, either. There should be a mix of the two.
My suggestion is to literally ask them which story threads they would like to resolve poorly. Take their answer, pair it down to something managable and focus on that. Make the outcomes bittersweet because they asked you to.
Then, take one of the threads you wanted them to pick that they didn’t (because they will always do that) and resolve it yourself in a bad way.
On the flip side, ask them which threads they think probably ended up fine. Pick one or two of those and let them self-resolve better than fine because of the PCs’ actions. And turn those into a resource that the PCs can tap when things get serious later.
If your world has other adventurers, I think it’s ok to say some fledgling adventurers finished the job or something. It might even be a cool role-playing scenario where a clearly inferior party declares themselves superior because they did what the PCs “couldn’t” (read: didn’t) do.
If you think it would be fun to have their past actions catch up with them, do it. I think the important thing is to keep the story “moving forward” rather than pulling the characters backwards to old events. So you should imagine taking those old unused encounters, spicing them up as a consequence of the characters failing to deal with them before (ie the old hobgoblins from level 4 have made a pact with a devil in exchange for a power boost to take vengeance on the PCs who failed to wipe out the whole group), and then placing those encounters in front of the players and making them relevant to the current plot rather then making the players pause what they’re interested in to deal with something they already mostly dealt with.
absolutely let the players drive the narrative.
of course ‘things are happening on the side’, but those events only manifest when instantiated by the players, and then it’s kinda fly by wire.
if i’ve created a BBEG, they’ll run into them eventually as i create the setting and things that can happen, but they’ll drive the plot and story.
100% yes. I believe my players have a much better time when they “find the plot.” There are narrative lines to pull, but the key is to allow the players to find these lines in what they believe to be important. I can create as many characters and plot devices as I like, but many times, the players’ actions will necessitate a whole new character or route.
This happened in a recent session. I had a location with named NPCs who could help the party escape from a city where they were wanted. Even after all the info on these characters and coming so close (literally one room away), the players decided they wanted to find someone else. Now Patrick Seaworth, an arm-wrestling legend, exists in the world.
