GMs, ever accidentally escalated the stakes in a campaign too *much?*
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It's worth pointing out that while we're currently ICly working on a large-scale collaborative project, Savaa's assumption was that this was going to be a one-time thing, and the party would go back to normal (if high-level) adventuring efforts directed at one cult associated with one plane. The idea that instead, having to coordinate multiple parties's actions relative to multiple powerful conspiracies is going to be the new normal, when she's not used to other competent leadership existing...
...well, it smashes the idea that stress levels might be going *down* anytime soon.
It's going to take a lot to get past this ICly, I think, but there is some promise. The party's main casters are collecting means of fast travel. We have the opportunity to make some guild connections. We already know a few other adventuring parties. And... well, one intended early goal we've been forced by circumstance to backburner for most of the campaign could be *exploited* now...
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...well, it smashes the idea that stress levels might be going *down* anytime soon.
It's going to take a lot to get past this ICly, I think, but there is some promise. The party's main casters are collecting means of fast travel. We have the opportunity to make some guild connections. We already know a few other adventuring parties. And... well, one intended early goal we've been forced by circumstance to backburner for most of the campaign could be *exploited* now...
Though the party still pretty desperately needs a break... even if there's so *much* that needs doing that the break might have to be in Daanvi, The Eternal Order, so that little enough time passes in the Material Plane to not let things get worse.
By now, spending days doing paperwork would be *worth it* to have the opportunity to reserve a park with eerily equal-height grass and grid-distributed flowers to flop in, then later a workshop to catch up on our crafting to-do list in.
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GMs, ever accidentally escalated the stakes in a campaign too *much?*
I don't mean TPKs or the like. I mean revealing so much danger, complexity, or other complication that the PCs' reactions and strategies are *much* more severe (and potentially awkward to implement) than expected.
...Because I get the sense my D&D 3.5 DM did *not* expect the reveal of a Thirty Gambit Pileup when the PCs were already struggling with the circumstances at hand to have those kinds of effects.
@pteryx This is cynical and unfair on my part but, owing to a few early anecdotal experiences, I associate this (extreme escalation) with a GM feeling underprepped, because it's an easy short-term, pay-later way to keep sessions feeling impactful and revelatory.
Realistically, there can be several other causes! But it's where my mind goes first.
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@pteryx This is cynical and unfair on my part but, owing to a few early anecdotal experiences, I associate this (extreme escalation) with a GM feeling underprepped, because it's an easy short-term, pay-later way to keep sessions feeling impactful and revelatory.
Realistically, there can be several other causes! But it's where my mind goes first.
@SJohnRoss
Honestly, I'm pretty sure she had the three major groups involved (and possibly one more) in mind from the beginning. They just didn't seem to all be important at the same time until now. One was centrally having its layers peeled back all campaign, but another was getting established in ways that read more as "if you want to continue after the current campaign this will be the villain", and the third had seemed like more of a force of nature than an active antagonist (or ally?). -
@SJohnRoss
Honestly, I'm pretty sure she had the three major groups involved (and possibly one more) in mind from the beginning. They just didn't seem to all be important at the same time until now. One was centrally having its layers peeled back all campaign, but another was getting established in ways that read more as "if you want to continue after the current campaign this will be the villain", and the third had seemed like more of a force of nature than an active antagonist (or ally?).@SJohnRoss
Also, it's not as though we were short on things to do that she has ideas for, either. Notably, there's a potential quest trajectory that's been dangling from way, *way* back at the beginning of the campaign, I know she's got a pile of ideas for if we go to a particular plane that the campaign revolves around, and if push comes to shove after the current arc, "Oh no, people trying to replicate your work need your help!" would be a *very* easy card to play. -
@SJohnRoss
Also, it's not as though we were short on things to do that she has ideas for, either. Notably, there's a potential quest trajectory that's been dangling from way, *way* back at the beginning of the campaign, I know she's got a pile of ideas for if we go to a particular plane that the campaign revolves around, and if push comes to shove after the current arc, "Oh no, people trying to replicate your work need your help!" would be a *very* easy card to play.@SJohnRoss
On top of that, even the current arc obviously has a few OOC months of play left in it, even if no new elements were to come in. We're an IC week behind schedule on the seal on account of complications beyond those Savaa anticipated (and brought the other adventurers and mercs for). We've got leftover enemy groups to clean up, dungeon loot to find to pay for that extra week, and if she doesn't have Ritual Defense 2: Electric Boogaloo planned already, I'd be shocked. -
@SJohnRoss
On top of that, even the current arc obviously has a few OOC months of play left in it, even if no new elements were to come in. We're an IC week behind schedule on the seal on account of complications beyond those Savaa anticipated (and brought the other adventurers and mercs for). We've got leftover enemy groups to clean up, dungeon loot to find to pay for that extra week, and if she doesn't have Ritual Defense 2: Electric Boogaloo planned already, I'd be shocked.@SJohnRoss
What she *thought* she was doing, and I'm inclined to trust her on this point, was setting up future lower-priority mysteries for us to pursue, not, y'know, raising the stakes from "save the world from a cult and the horrors associated with it" to "save the world from multiple powerful forces that seem to be working at cross-purposes, determining who to trust and help (or redirect) and who to just fight, and incidentally you need a lot more info ASAP to accomplish that". -
@SJohnRoss
What she *thought* she was doing, and I'm inclined to trust her on this point, was setting up future lower-priority mysteries for us to pursue, not, y'know, raising the stakes from "save the world from a cult and the horrors associated with it" to "save the world from multiple powerful forces that seem to be working at cross-purposes, determining who to trust and help (or redirect) and who to just fight, and incidentally you need a lot more info ASAP to accomplish that".@SJohnRoss
On one hand, it's all really cool stuff. I'd still easily count her as the best GM I've ever had. On the other... the complexity isn't in the red overload zone, but it's certainly well into the yellow danger zone by now (well, aside from maybe the one player struggling just to keep the short-term schedule Savaa has set straight... and that player's PC has a sidequest of her own to pursue too, incidentally, as far as the having-enough-plans issue). -
@SJohnRoss
On one hand, it's all really cool stuff. I'd still easily count her as the best GM I've ever had. On the other... the complexity isn't in the red overload zone, but it's certainly well into the yellow danger zone by now (well, aside from maybe the one player struggling just to keep the short-term schedule Savaa has set straight... and that player's PC has a sidequest of her own to pursue too, incidentally, as far as the having-enough-plans issue).@SJohnRoss
Overall, I'd call it a too-much-of-a-good-thing problem — which, after the trauma conga line of my gaming career prior to 2020, is a very welcome kind of problem to have. But I've still had to cry, "Enough! This is so many plot hooks that we need to delegate — not to mention that our PCs don't need more stuff to do, they need a *break*, and growing the pile just makes it seem like the break has to happen in a hyperbolic time chamber." -
@SJohnRoss
Overall, I'd call it a too-much-of-a-good-thing problem — which, after the trauma conga line of my gaming career prior to 2020, is a very welcome kind of problem to have. But I've still had to cry, "Enough! This is so many plot hooks that we need to delegate — not to mention that our PCs don't need more stuff to do, they need a *break*, and growing the pile just makes it seem like the break has to happen in a hyperbolic time chamber."@SJohnRoss
...Thinking about it a bit more, it may be that she's simply assuming that she has to shove every plot hook and lead directly in our faces, when if we're really short on things to do we can go looking for them. The way things stand, the end result has been a case of feeling like there's simply no time to breathe because *yet another* thing that seems unwise to let languish has come up, when for OOC *years* we've wanted to just stop and craft certain items...
