Story styles (roleplaying)

[robinbloke]

When designing campaigns/storylines and adventures for players I very rarely pre-write solutions for what I expect to happen or where the story "should" go; as in my mind the players are the focus of any story and where it goes and what is read as the pages turn should be focused primarily (in most games at least) on what they are doing.
This usually results in me running games where I am about thirty seconds ahead of whatever players are doing and this is when I run games best, with a vague overview of what is going on and sponenatity filling in the cracks as the players choose their paths.
My current campaign (now running for about 14 years) has reached a point where I can see what and where it is going to go, that the players are unlikely to have that much input into it. This is contary to my usual way of writing games because, as I mentioned, I like the focus to be on the players.
My question is this; if a game is set to follow a path or story that is unlikely to involve players much, how can you get the players attention, keep it rolling and most importantly not just write off an epic campaign resolution in half an hour with "Npc X does this, Npc Y does that, all finished."

I'm thinking out loud here, but ideas and suggestions are very welcome.

Comments

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Ye olde ancient evil rising up after being bound under the world for millenia and crushing life as we know it. Players are gathering info but need more for them to do while a npcs tries to convince some dragons to help them fight this thing.

[siranui.livejournal.com]

As posted elsewhere: certainly don't let the know that the outcome is set in stone.

Ideally make it part look like they actually *caused* the outcome somehow. I know it's cruel, but it's funny.

Of course, you can darken the camaign and slowly corrupt the party to 'the dark side' so that they HELP the ancient evil. Or you can darken the game to a very Cyberpunk feel...

If that's too dark, then moral decisions are good. Tempt the party in some manner and try to make them empathise with the ancient evil in some way. At least that way they'll question things and they'll be distracted from the inevitability of it all.

I suppose that you could seek a bit of inspiration from Star Wars, as the first 3 films are pretty much about this topic.

Also, as regards the Cyberpunk feel idea... you can take a bit of inspiration from WFRP here, as well... secret societies springing up and the rot not only appearing at the 'edges' of the world, but right at it's heart, too. Have a few old contacts 'fall' to the darkside and betray the party. Maybe if the party are 'a threat' they could be betrayed and declaired fugatives, forced to lead a war in the shadows against the onslaught of evil that the public have been kept blissfully unaware of.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Cheers :)

Evil in my campaign world is a highly relative thing.
There's the evil of demons and their mindless destruction. The evil of the rising ancient that will basically wipe out the world. The evil of the ice elves (aka dark elves) who are a slave based cast system, of which several of the players are from.
It keeps it interesting!

[siranui.livejournal.com]

would it work to have some people embrace even 'kill everything and end the world evil'... It would be an end to suffering, after all! Some followers may have nothing more to loose, while others perhaps see the world as a corrupted place that needs wiping out.

My Monday gang are quietly exploring 'We're the Imperium, die xenos scum' Evil with great gusto.