IC Story Thread: Ch.1,Ad.1 - A Sensitive Matter

What's the next move gang?

Here's the map that Andireg provided you guys.

I circled Pelargir in green. Umbar is down there toward the bottom, center leftish.

Let's talk about what you're thinking and what options you all see.

In or Out of character is fine.

I think the issue was more that passage is generally booked out many days in advance on the kind of large passenger ships that regularly make that voyage.

And so between the lead time and the passage time, it wasn't much faster.

But yea, wouldn't be all that different going back the other way I suppose, so...

A cart you guys.probably don't have the funds for (I don't know tho), at 100 silver? But a wagon is only 35 silver, and the seller would throw in a canvas cover on the deal, if you guys can muster that?

Hey gang, I'm gonna @ you all to draw your eyes, because I think it's time for a group decision:

@Drakis2,@Stefron,@Dr_B,@rpgventurer so I don't know that we need to get too wrapped up in the planning.

I've been thinking about this a lot over the American Thanksgiving holiday break, and here are my thoughts:

1. At first I was thinking about handling the return trip as a Skill Challenge, because I certainly don't want to play it out in a "normal" moment-to-moment fashion. Because wile I think there is potentially a lot of drama and interesting things that could happen on this return trip, in moments of close calls and survival-y challenges, etc, I don't know that that's the story we want to take our time to tell over the coming weeks and potentially months? What do you guys think?

Because while there is potentially lots of dramatic things that could happen, I don't think it would be a very high action story. It could be kind of depressing or stressful, frankly, and a maybe even bit boring outside those few moments.

2. But also, because there is a Fellowship Phase/down time waiting for you guys on the other side of the return trip, I don't see there being any meaningful consequences to play out via a Skill Challenge even, other than: "you get caught". Hit points, Exhaustion, Conditions, even money - all the "knobs and levers" I have available to me to create game play consequences at the end are pretty meaningless because there's a break in the action after this.

So all the consequences would be narrative. And there's only one narrative consequence that would really change anything...

And because this is "just" the lead-in adventure, I don't see: "You get caught.", as being an interesting/viable direction to take this story.

3. So what I would like to do is essentially just handle the return trip via exposition. I narrate us out and into the next chapter. I think your impact on the story, and the world will be realized from the consequences of the choices/actions you guys have already made in the "meat" of the adventure/the rescue.

What are your thoughts on all that?

Essentially, I'm ready to move on from this chapter of the story. We've taken 4 months IRL to go through this chapter, and I don't know that its fun to continue to do so anymore? I feel like we still have good momentum with you guys and I want to keep that going, and maybe to do that we need to move on to the next thing?

But If you guys, want to play out the return trip in a more genuine fashion, to see what happens, I would also be fine with that.

frankly, I was hoping for the kidnapping and rescue to be part of the intrigue of a wider plot, but it sounds like it was a warm up mission, and the return journey is inconsequential.
Just want to make sure I understand the expectations I should have? Do you see this as a sandbox type thing? Or do you plan on running plotted adventures?
Nothing wrong about hexcrawling/sandboxing of course, they're just not my first choice of game. Some GMs prefer an improvised style, rolling for encounters and complications from tables, etc.

The kidnapping is a part of a larger picture.

It is also a warm up mission.

The return journey isn't inconsequential per se, but also if you get captured before getting the kids home, the story is over.

You wouldn't be heroes. So you wouldn't be asked to do the things that the story goes on to focus on, which would only be asked of heroes.

So - spoiler alert - you won't fail at getting the children home.

So is it really worth our time to play out something that essentially only has 1 possible outcome?

I think I mentioned up front that this campaign has a linear plot. It is not a sandbox.

I think the sandbox thing to do would be to play this out, scene by scene, and see if you all do in fact get captured.

The linear plot thing to do would be to just narrate the conclusion to the thing the story requires.

No?

So if you don't like sandboxes, you should be ok with just narrating this adventure to it's conclusion.

No?