{"id":20973,"date":"2017-08-11T00:53:39","date_gmt":"2017-08-10T14:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/?p=20973"},"modified":"2017-08-11T00:55:35","modified_gmt":"2017-08-10T14:55:35","slug":"elephant-gray-room-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/elephant-gray-room-3\/","title":{"rendered":"The Elephant In The Gray Room, Pt 3 of 5: Significant Repairs"},"content":{"rendered":"
This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series Elephant In The Gray Room<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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‘blue logo element’ from freeimages.com \/ A perfect1<\/strong>
has only abstract relevance to this article, it’s a leftover alternative Designing A Game System (for the Zener Gate campaign)<\/a>.
That said, it still seems somehow appropriate…<\/p><\/div>\n

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As long-time readers will know, I like to break up larger series, on the theory that any given subject will interest only part of the readership. On that basis, I’ve let this series lie fallow for a few weeks, but now it’s time to get back to it!<\/p>\n

The Elephant In The Gray Room is a metaphor to represent Plot Holes.<\/p>\n

These are matters of huge significance or importance that everyone is overlooking because they are not immediately obvious, but that once you see one, you can never forget that it’s there.<\/p>\n

This is a series about methods of fixing plot holes so that even when they get noticed, it’s just a spur to your creativity and not a complete calamity.<\/p>\n

Part one<\/strong> introduced the topic and offered a system for determining how critical the problem was, and the concept of matching the severity of the solution to that measure of criticality (you can read it here<\/a> if you need to get up to speed).<\/p>\n

Part two<\/strong><\/a> dealt with minor repairs, the sort of things you can do to handle small problems before they have time to metastasize into something nastier.<\/p>\n

Part three<\/strong> – which you are about to read – deals with more serious repair techniques for plot holes of greater significance to the campaign in the medium term.<\/p>\n

Part four<\/strong> – in a week or two – will deal with plot holes that lead to substantial structural problems. And part five,<\/strong> which will conclude the series, will deal with catastrophic problems and the critical repair techniques needed to correct them. And I hope you never need them – though, if you GM for long enough, the odds are that you will, eventually.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Significant Problems need significant solutions. Or do they?<\/h3>\n

There were three factors involved in assessing plot hole significance: the damage to adventure potential within the campaign, the interval until the damage becomes obvious to players, and the extent to which the damage will persist and cause ongoing harm to the campaign.<\/p>\n

Clearly, if we’re talking about an assessment of “significant” then there are only a few combinations that fit the bill. Critical damage with a reasonably high persistence that is still some distance away, for example, or critical damage that won’t linger but that is on you right now.<\/em><\/p>\n

In fact, it’s hard to think of any combination that falls into this category and doesn’t have one of those two factors – persistence or immediacy – at a high level, but not both.<\/p>\n

Of course, these are relative measures; a less-damaging plot hole that has either of these extremely high is about the same as a more-damaging plot hole when you have a small window to correct before the world comes crashing down.<\/p>\n

These are nevertheless important distinctions to make. The more time you have for a solution to take effect, the smaller the solution that you typically need to apply. Similarly, if the problem will only be important for a short period of time (no matter how significant the impact might be for that period), the less radical you are justified in being in terms of a solution.<\/p>\n

Solutions from Part 2<\/h3>\n

Before you implement any of the significant solutions to be discussed later in this article, you really need to satisfy yourself that a lesser solution won’t do the job while inflicting less harm. So that’s my starting point: by revisiting the part 2 solutions and discussing them in this new context.<\/p>\n