d&d geekery - DMing question
for those who run games...
damn it's cold. (-3 F, -24 w/ windchill. curse wisconsin.)
sorry. anyhow.
so, your party of intrepid PCs has fought, magicked, and outsmarted their way through your fiendish dungeon to the main Boss Battle. after a long hard fight, they emerge successful, and the famous words of adventurers everywhere passes their lips: "so, what loot do we get?"
you have meticulously charted and made notes on every coin, gem, shield, wand, and wondrous item in the stash, and one of them happens to be the all-important Quest Item the party needs (but doesn't know they need). they don't see an immediate use and decide they want to hock it for the gold.
do you put something with the hoard to explain its value (knowing that whoever put the item in its present location either knows what it is and doesn't want others to know OR they don't know its importance) or do you let them do what they want to do and let it come back to bite them in the ass? ("you had the fabled Sceptre of Logarius and you SOLD it to a merchant in Cardahy? do you know what you've done?!")
specifically: i've got a Dragonlance game in the works and the party's about to clean out a small vampire lair in a former monastery for monks of Majere (part of a quest for one of the characters who wants to become a monk). i have a staff that's kind of like the Blue Crystal Staff (god-given to the world, to be used for the cause of Good and all) and i want the party to get it and deliver it to the right people, then find out that they're the right people. i would like to try and avoid them just handing it over to the Solamnic Knights the way they did with the dragonlance.
all right, they didn't just "hand it over" - they had a nice long discussion about whether the solamnics were the right people to keep the lance and it was decided that it would be better protected in a castle with knights than with a small party of adventurers.
but they're gonna get this staff, and come back from the mountain and find out that war has broken out between the forces of good (ie: the Solamnics and their allies) and the Dark Knights and the (draconian) nation of Teyr. Tarsis has already fallen to Dark Knights (a plot they've already come across and decided they need to do something about). most of the southwestern part of the continent (Abanasia, if i'm not mistaken, as well as Qualinost and the area around Pax Tharkas and as far south as Dark Knights are willing to go without hitting the Icewall, and east as far as the edge of the desert and the swamplands) is at least monitored if not controlled by Dark Knights.
anyway, sorry about the rambling; again, it's cold and i need something to occupy my time between customers. so if there's discrepancies or confusion, let me know and i'll clear it up, but mainly the point is this:
how do i keep a group from getting rid of something that could prove vitally important in the future without making them feel like they're riding the Plot Express (whoo-whoo! chuga-chuga-chuga) along with not letting them know the importance of the item but that they need to keep it?
(and if my players didn't abide by the suggestion, and did click, don't worry guys. i'll be changing stuff up enough that you won't be all "oh, i read about this. here's what we'll do about it." so there.)
suggestions? criticisms? insults about my mother? lemme know.
damn it's cold. (-3 F, -24 w/ windchill. curse wisconsin.)
sorry. anyhow.
so, your party of intrepid PCs has fought, magicked, and outsmarted their way through your fiendish dungeon to the main Boss Battle. after a long hard fight, they emerge successful, and the famous words of adventurers everywhere passes their lips: "so, what loot do we get?"
you have meticulously charted and made notes on every coin, gem, shield, wand, and wondrous item in the stash, and one of them happens to be the all-important Quest Item the party needs (but doesn't know they need). they don't see an immediate use and decide they want to hock it for the gold.
do you put something with the hoard to explain its value (knowing that whoever put the item in its present location either knows what it is and doesn't want others to know OR they don't know its importance) or do you let them do what they want to do and let it come back to bite them in the ass? ("you had the fabled Sceptre of Logarius and you SOLD it to a merchant in Cardahy? do you know what you've done?!")
specifically: i've got a Dragonlance game in the works and the party's about to clean out a small vampire lair in a former monastery for monks of Majere (part of a quest for one of the characters who wants to become a monk). i have a staff that's kind of like the Blue Crystal Staff (god-given to the world, to be used for the cause of Good and all) and i want the party to get it and deliver it to the right people, then find out that they're the right people. i would like to try and avoid them just handing it over to the Solamnic Knights the way they did with the dragonlance.
all right, they didn't just "hand it over" - they had a nice long discussion about whether the solamnics were the right people to keep the lance and it was decided that it would be better protected in a castle with knights than with a small party of adventurers.
but they're gonna get this staff, and come back from the mountain and find out that war has broken out between the forces of good (ie: the Solamnics and their allies) and the Dark Knights and the (draconian) nation of Teyr. Tarsis has already fallen to Dark Knights (a plot they've already come across and decided they need to do something about). most of the southwestern part of the continent (Abanasia, if i'm not mistaken, as well as Qualinost and the area around Pax Tharkas and as far south as Dark Knights are willing to go without hitting the Icewall, and east as far as the edge of the desert and the swamplands) is at least monitored if not controlled by Dark Knights.
anyway, sorry about the rambling; again, it's cold and i need something to occupy my time between customers. so if there's discrepancies or confusion, let me know and i'll clear it up, but mainly the point is this:
how do i keep a group from getting rid of something that could prove vitally important in the future without making them feel like they're riding the Plot Express (whoo-whoo! chuga-chuga-chuga) along with not letting them know the importance of the item but that they need to keep it?
(and if my players didn't abide by the suggestion, and did click, don't worry guys. i'll be changing stuff up enough that you won't be all "oh, i read about this. here's what we'll do about it." so there.)
suggestions? criticisms? insults about my mother? lemme know.