It happens way to often that I get lost in my story and loose my players in it while we all flounder trying to find the top from the bottom.

Thanks for this great foundation I can now use to refer back to when I loose my trail.

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The one thing about real life (and I’ve found it to be true) is that “life is stranger than fiction.” Fiction has to make some sort of sense — real life doesn’t!

Maybe it’s the author in me that doesn’t like trying to “fool” players with rumors that aren’t true, but whodunnits are filled with authorial slight of hand, innuendo, and outright deception as far as (even if the people reading it know exactly what’s going on) the people investigaing know.

@ James: Glad you found the answers thought-provoking and hopefully useful.

In addition to having multiple storylines, I also need to say that just because the players are investigating one (or maybe a couple if they get the right rumors) rumors at once, as time goes on, whatever ones they are not investigating, the consequences of not dealing with that plot line becomes more and more severe. For instance, if I have 3 plot lines going on at once, for convenience labeled “A, B, C,” “J, K, L” and “X, Y, Z” respectively. They find out about A, which leads to B, which culminates in C and at the same time X -> Y -> Z but they don’t have time to look into J -> K -> L – the final disastrous product might be present where they have no choice but to address it. But is that fair to the players who spent their time elsewhere?

Okay, this presupposes that the PCs are the only people in the world that are able to deal with any given situation – that unless they intervene, a plot will run through to completion. In reality, there would be others opposing any given group trying to achieve something, and while the solutions produced by these third parties might not work as well, or might have widespread consequences and collatoral damage that the PCs might have been able to avoid, most of the time the status quo will be more-or-less maintained. The PCs are a deciding vote, a trump card, but they can only be in a limited number of places at the same time.

It’s the collatoral impact that changes the world, usually. EG Hitler comes to power, launches a plan for the conquest of Europe. Stop these plans early enough and there’s minimal impact. Wait too long – say, until you have the clear moral authority to do so – and you have World War II. At the end of which, Germany is defeated, and the status quo restored. Aside from all the fallout and collatoral damage done along the way. Is a code of honour worth all the lives lost? Would you be damned for all eternity to stop it from happening? Hindsight is always better than 20/20, because you always know more about what was really going on after the fact.

Absolutely, the closer to completion an operation is, the bigger the problem is when someone finally gets around to it, and the more widespread the consequences and fallout will be. Part of what I tried to present is a means of determining who (other than the PCs) will solve a problem that they didn’t tackle in time, and what the consequences will be of the third-party solution.

Is that fair to the players who have spent their time elsewhere? If the PCs are trying to tackle the problem, absolutely not. Once the PCs take an active hand, the players should be the authors of the solution. Even then, there will be others who will make countermoves without consulting the PCs, and who will complicate the situation as a result; but the ultimate solution should belong to the players. If the PCs are dealing with something else? Then, unless you can justify slowing the progress of the plan because of third-party interferance until the PCs get around to the problem, then it’s absolutely fair, because it’s a background event. The fallout and consequences of the solution will pose a new problem for the PCs!

For example, the Players in my One Faith Campaign have just discovered that a problem that seemed to be of extremely low urgency and relative importance is the common factor that has made all the other problems that they face so difficult and urgent, and if they had tackled this seemingly minor issue first, they would have taken a lot of the sting out of the other end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it issues. Whatever they have tackled, they have solved; but because all the problems they hadn’t dealt with yet kept getting worse, the overall situation was deteriorating.

Maybe that’s the core of some of the problem(s) I’ve been having. I’ve told way TOO much of what actually IS going on vs. what people think is going on. But what’s wrong with the way I did things? Everyone can have their own character stories, their own reason (and sometimes *no* particular reason) to be in town – in essence side stories to the main plotlines, and each of the side plots add depth to the overall storyline, and may or may not be (ultimately) relevant to the overall plot.

Omniscience, even in part – which is what too much right information is – makes those who have the information more likely to make the right choices of action, increasing the effectiveness of the PCs targetted attempts at a solution, and avoiding them wasting time on blind alleys.

It also subtracts a little from the realism of the campaign, because you don’t have different sides throwing propaganda out (and unrelated third parties blaming other unrelated third parties).

But that’s the only only problem with giving too much right information. Under the circumstances you describe when talking about your initial play session(s), I would have done exactly what you’ve done. And immediatly started developing new plots to keep the PCs busy when they are finished dealing with what I would have thought they would have spent the whole campaign dealing with!

What about factions so new that they seem really to have no sides, save their own? No one actively opposes them per se, but no one that takes an interest in their activities either.

If it’s a new faction, then it has a goal and an agenda; there will be something that they want to change and hence their (unknowning) opposition is whoever is benefitting from the status quo, or there will be something they want to preserve as is, in which case their opposition will be anyone who threatens to change that aspect of the status quo. For a while, they may have no organised faction opposing them, or they may have a number of pre-existing factions opposing them without knowing they exist. The more subtle the tactics adopted by the new faction, the longer they will go without an active opposition targetting them, and the more events will seem to “spontaniously” go the way they want them too – but the more they change things, or prevent change (whichever they happen to want), the more passionate those individuals who want the opposite to happen will become, and eventually, they will spontaniously form an opposing faction. They may not know who they are opposing, or why events are occurring, and they almost certainly won’t see the big picture – but by reacting to the events they don’t like, and trying to alter the outcomes for which the first faction were responsible, they place themselves in opposition. And if they don’t know who they are opposing, conspiracy theories and intelligence gathering will be the priorities.

Again, to use WWII as an example, it can be argued that Hitler’s biggest mistake was allying with Japan; if he had not done that, then the US would have made dealing with Japan a higher priority than getting involved in the European situation, giving him a far better chance of achieving his goals. By the time the US turns their attention back to Europe, they are not only weakened, but face a far more entrenched fait accompli. They might well have baulked…

A faction – even a new one – doesn’t exist unless it’s trying to achieve something. And that agenda automatically creates the opposing force.

Is there such a thing in a campaign where something is simply too big to be stopped? Even if they “nip it in the bud” there, similar [possibly even unrelated] events happening elsewhere bring it about anyway – tho maybe not in the same way I had originally planned? Or is that wholesale cheating on the behalf of the DM?

There are so many ramifications to this question that I can’t begin to do it justice here – so I’ll give a fairly unsatisfactory response and mark it down as the subject of a future article here at CM.

The short answer is yes, it can be reasonable to have something so big coming that even if the PCs stop one cause of a given change, other causes can produce the same result. But unless the PCs know that other forces are pushing towards the same result, it still feels like a DM’s plot train. So the only time that I would do this (even though it’s unrealistic) is if their victory gave them the necessary information to stop whatever is happening at the 13th hour in one last, desperate, act…

You wrote:
Your players will put 2+2 together and come out with 7 on a regular basis.

…

Will the player’s knowledge of the truth impact their immediate activities? Then they’ve got it right, and should be congratulated.

Sometimes when they get “7” instead of “4” their actions are crazy, and they go about searching for things that don’t exist. When that happened I FELT like telling them “ok, this is how these things are connected, this other had nothing to do with it!”

Exactly right. What should happen in this situation is that they buy into one situation, expecting it to solve two things, and find out that one had nothing to do with the other. It’s only when the “7″ is a logical and rational answer that you should consider going with their solution and not what you had in mind.

Oh, a final question: for the sake of completeness do you want to see the rumors I’m starting with?

While they might be interesting as campaign seeds for other people, I don’t think so. You never know when one of your players will come across this blog….

In addition to having multiple storylines, I also need to say that just because the players are investigating one (or maybe a couple if they get the right rumors) rumors at once, as time goes on, whatever ones they are not investigating, the consequences of not dealing with that plot line becomes more and more severe. For instance, if I have 3 plot lines going on at once, for convenience labeled “A, B, C,” “J, K, L” and “X, Y, Z” respectively. They find out about A, which leads to B, which culminates in C and at the same time X -> Y -> Z but they don’t have time to look into J -> K -> L – the final disastrous product might be present where they have no choice but to address it. But is that fair to the players who spent their time elsewhere?

You wrote:
[Characters need] back stories that motivate them to be interested. A little personal stake in the outcome makes a big difference… [and] to ensure that much of the character backgrounds are open-ended, unresolved, or otherwise unexplained.

When I read a background, or plan a plot point I go by a motto “NEVER is everything EXACTLY as it seems.” Cogs within cogs, and shadows within shadows – Just when they think they have the whole story, some other piece of information is found or needed to make everything fit.

You wrote:
Every significant power bloc should have a defined opposing power bloc, and the drive of the campaign should emerge from the tension, the move-and-countermove, between these groups. And don’t neglect the potential of groups that are being blackmailed into activities they would not normally countenance, or of groups targeting the wrong enemies, etc!

I try not to have it as a “this side against that” I try to have 3 or more sides to an issue. In D&D there are 9 alignments which can be roughly divided as “good, neutrality, evil” and “law, neutrality, chaos” (though I never divide things up that neatly)

You wrote:
There’s usually a vast gulf between what is actually happening and what the general public thinks is happening. Generate rumours that describe the latter, and pre-load your characters with them. These are usually the mere tip of the iceberg in comparison to the real story, but these breadcrumbs are starting points. Generate rumors that describe the latter, and pre-load your characters with them. These are usually the mere tip of the iceberg in comparison to the real story, but these breadcrumbs are starting points.

Maybe that’s the core of some of the problem(s) I’ve been having. I’ve told way TOO much of what actually IS going on vs. what people think is going on. But what’s wrong with the way I did things? Everyone can have their own character stories, their own reason (and sometimes *no* particular reason) to be in town – in essence side stories to the main plotlines, and each of the side plots add depth to the overall storyline, and may or may not be (ultimately) relevant to the overall plot.

You wrote:
Each PC, by virtue of who they are and who they have had contact with, will be ‘exposed’ to this propaganda, which can also be stated in the form of rumours; their relationship with the source will dictate the level of credibility.

Sometimes the ‘truth’ of the situation is far uglier than anything that can be (reasonably) believed, even if it IS the truth. (Briefly), an example of this was when a character I had introduced in a one on one game showed up stark raving mad. She knew a good portion of what was going on, but no one would believe her (in fact she was so mad the players didn’t even ATTEMPT to hear her out)

You wrote:
One of the best techniques is to treat the character background generation process as a series of mini one-on-one roleplaying sessions.

I’ve done this, but kinda in reverse. I gave the rumors out and they did a RP session to find out more. One person’s RP gave them a LOT more information than I had originally planned on giving out, but the rolls were in their favor (and with rolls THAT good, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to show a bit more of the picture)

You wrote:
You don’t have to decide on the outcome just yet – these are events that are taking place concurrently with the PCs adventures, and in which they may take a passing interest or even an active involvement.

I was trying to build a game around their active involvement, making the rumors the ONLY things the PCs actively were involved in. Maybe that’s another problem in my approach.

You wrote:
Every faction should always be doing something to bring advantage to themselves and disadvantage (or discomfort) to their enemies – even if they are nominally on the same side!

What about factions so new that they seem really to have no sides, save their own? No one actively opposes them per se, but no one that takes an interest in their activities either.

You wrote:
[Regarding plot/ actions some will be] brief and opportunist others subtle, preplanned, and long-term.

Is there such a thing in a campaign where something is simply too big to be stopped? Even if they “nip it in the bud” there, similar [possibly even unrelated] events happening elsewhere bring it about anyways – tho maybe not in the same way I had originally planned? Or is that wholesale cheating on the behalf of the DM?

You wrote:
Rumours are no good if you don’t sell them to the players through roleplay. Any tavern scene should involve a chat with the local gossip to get the latest unofficial news and a sense of local affairs.
I completely agree. Though if I had to give EVERY rumor out via bar conversation that would be tiresome. Some of the “essence” of the rumors I have them experiencing directly. Some of them I had them start out with (having them roll for which rumors they got)

You wrote:
Your players will put 2+2 together and come out with 7 on a regular basis.

That’s happened to me and they were putting together things that had nothing to do with each other (and couldn’t, in fact because of their disparity of locations)

You wrote:
Will the player’s knowledge of the truth impact their immediate activities? Then they’ve got it right, and should be congratulated.

Sometimes when they get “7” instead of “4” their actions are crazy, and they go about searching for things that don’t exist. When that happened I FELT like telling them “ok, this is how these things are connected, this other had nothing to do with it!”

—

You mention updating the big picture. I hadn’t thought of that before other than having things continuing to go regardless of whether the PCs investigated or not.

Oh, a final question: for the sake of completeness do you want to see the rumors I’m starting with?