Hi. I’ve been DMing for a group of five players for about a year now, and so far everything has gone pretty smoothly. But a month or two ago I introduced a new plotline without thinking about how it would work. At all. I’ve been scratching my head ever since then on how to satisfactorily pinch off this plotline, since the more I look at it the more I’m convinced that it’s a terrible idea and can’t be solved by my players.
Essentially, my question is: how do I lead my players away from this plotline and make them forget about it without everything being super awkward and nasty in terms of storyline? This wouldn’t be too hard if it were a more minor thing, but I’ve dropped hints about it involving a character from a past campaign and I don’t want to leave everyone unsatisfied.
If you need more details about what exactly I’ve told my players so far, let me know. Otherwise, to all the more experienced DMs out there, any advice?
Have the players made any inroads to start the plotline? How much info do they have about it? If the answers are "no" and "not much" then you can always simplify whatever you have given them into a true "sidequest" type single session thing. So if they know that "past character x" has a big secret that you've encouraged them to uncover, rather than some dark knowledge or world spanning thing...it could just be the location of a magic item and the news got blown way out of proportion in the retelling before it reached your players.
Then, they can get a magic item, and you can close out the original plans you may have made.
If they've started, or have a lot of info, you can do the same thing, but we would likely need to know what they know in order to help you most effectively.
You can just take a sharp left turn and go on with a new plot. Let them wonder about the old one. Leave hanging there, tantalizing them. Then, if you come up with a better resolution you can revisit it, or pop it back in. Maybe still leave them the occasional bread crumb about it. Treat it like it was a red herring, and eventually, they will, too. If you really want that old NPC back in, just have them show up one day, completely confused about why the PCs think that something strange was going on, since they've just been here, tending bar (or whatever) the whole time.
Or just ignore it. Storytelling from pro writers is littered with unresolved plotlines, partly because life doesn't tend to just neatly resolve itself and give everyone a satisfying arc. Some things are left unfinished.
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Hi. I’ve been DMing for a group of five players for about a year now, and so far everything has gone pretty smoothly. But a month or two ago I introduced a new plotline without thinking about how it would work. At all. I’ve been scratching my head ever since then on how to satisfactorily pinch off this plotline, since the more I look at it the more I’m convinced that it’s a terrible idea and can’t be solved by my players.
Essentially, my question is: how do I lead my players away from this plotline and make them forget about it without everything being super awkward and nasty in terms of storyline? This wouldn’t be too hard if it were a more minor thing, but I’ve dropped hints about it involving a character from a past campaign and I don’t want to leave everyone unsatisfied.
If you need more details about what exactly I’ve told my players so far, let me know. Otherwise, to all the more experienced DMs out there, any advice?
Thanks in advance!
Have the players made any inroads to start the plotline? How much info do they have about it? If the answers are "no" and "not much" then you can always simplify whatever you have given them into a true "sidequest" type single session thing. So if they know that "past character x" has a big secret that you've encouraged them to uncover, rather than some dark knowledge or world spanning thing...it could just be the location of a magic item and the news got blown way out of proportion in the retelling before it reached your players.
Then, they can get a magic item, and you can close out the original plans you may have made.
If they've started, or have a lot of info, you can do the same thing, but we would likely need to know what they know in order to help you most effectively.
Yes I agree. Despite what YOU know about the plot, what the do the PCs know about the plot?
Just change the plot that the PCs DON'T know about without changing what they already know :-)
You can just take a sharp left turn and go on with a new plot. Let them wonder about the old one. Leave hanging there, tantalizing them. Then, if you come up with a better resolution you can revisit it, or pop it back in. Maybe still leave them the occasional bread crumb about it. Treat it like it was a red herring, and eventually, they will, too. If you really want that old NPC back in, just have them show up one day, completely confused about why the PCs think that something strange was going on, since they've just been here, tending bar (or whatever) the whole time.
Or just ignore it. Storytelling from pro writers is littered with unresolved plotlines, partly because life doesn't tend to just neatly resolve itself and give everyone a satisfying arc. Some things are left unfinished.