I’ve had choices
Since the day that I was born
There were voices
That told me right from wrong
If I had listened
No I wouldn’t be here today
Living and dying
With the choices I made
—from Choices by George Jones
So this is kind of a companion post to the Time, Time, Time post (as well as something that I’ve posted about in times long ago). As described in the prior post, the players had a good bit going on. They had to make a choice…either go back to Nenlast and deal with the Winter Fey or remain in Winterhaven to deal with the abductions and Cult of Orcus. They couldn’t really do both. Because both of these “story lines” were going to proceed as time passed (rather than a “just in time” style of adventure), either the Winter Fey would continue to spread across the Vale or the Cult of Orcus would continue abducting villagers in their plot to open a rift to the Shadowfell. The players elected to head back to Nenlast and deal with the Winter Fey. Was this the right decision or was it a wrong choice? Answer below the break.
Ultimately, it was neither right nor wrong. But it did have consequences.
Unless you are choosing to actively derail or disrupt the game, to intentionally upset or harm other players, or are otherwise violating Wheaton’s Law, you really can’t make a wrong choice in one of my games. Each choice results in various consequences but none are necessarily right or wrong. Every choice you make will lead the campaign in certain directions as opposed to others. Those consequences lead to additional choices and decisions leading to more consequences. Rinse and repeat…the game goes on its merry, emergent way.
This is an approach that some players have had a little difficulty internalizing (at least in my experience). These players believe that there is a right or a wrong choice in the game. If they have to decide between a, b, and c, they feel that one of them is the “correct” choice or that there is a “correct” order of choice among the options. It may led to “analysis paralysis” where the players are so concerned about making the right choice that they make no choice (or at least not a very timely one). That’s something <tongue in cheek> that my wonderful Ratlings have never experienced. I have done my best to disabuse players of a notion of “correct” choice, emphasizing that their choices will just take the game in one direction or the other.
Players simply (simply…ha!) need to make their choices as best they can based on the information they have at hand. That isn’t to say that some consequences may not be worse than others from the perspective of the players (or just generally). They may not always make the “best” choice in terms of the resulting consequences. There may also be unanticipated consequences, especially when the players do not have full and complete information about something (and what kind of villain shares everything about their evil plans). In either case, the choices still drive the game forward often, to my delight, in unexpected directions.
In the case of deal with the Winter Fey or the Cult of Orcus, no matter which they chose to pursue, the other “plot” would continue to progress. If they had remained in Winterhaven, Talavi and the Fey would have continued their advance. It is likely that by the time they had “defeated” the Cult of Orcus that Fallcrest would have succumbed to Winter. Not an optimal thing from the perspective of our heroes or the NPCs of Fallcrest, but it would certainly have been an interesting twist to the campaign.
Instead, while our heroes were off dealing with Talavi (and some other distractions), Mirtis and his minions have continued their activities. This hasn’t been ideal for the residents of Winterhaven, more have been abducted and, I’ll just throw this out there even the players don’t know it yet (but may suspect), have been sacrificed. Mirtis might even be close to finishing his task, the rift will open, and hordes of undead flood out.
So either decision would have led to some “bad” consequences for the people of the Vale. You know, to some extent, that is also kind of the point. If there was a clear and obviously correct “choice,” it isn’t really much of a choice, is it? If you pull the lever, you save the day. If you don’t everyone dies. What do you do? Pretty obvious, right? If the “Amazing Widgetinator” is selling for 60gp at one store and for 30gp at another, which store do you buy it at? There might be other circumstances that would lead to the non-obvious choice (e.g., if you pull the lever, you save the day but your loved one dies; perhaps you are supporting your friend’s store by purchasing at the 60gp price). But once those other circumstances come into play, it is no longer an obvious choice, right? Or if it is (e.g., you always support your friend’s store), you may have just told us something about your character by choosing the non-obvious option.
Just like many “adventures” are going to be of the “just in time” nature in a campaign, many choices are going to be pretty obvious. It is those choices that are not obvious, those that the players may not have full knowledge when deciding, those that are between two or more less than optimal consequences, or those that lead to unanticipated consequences–those that require a meaningful choice–that have a bit more potential to lead to new and interesting directions for a campaign and/or to tell us a little bit more about the player characters.
So, dear Ratlings, don’t sweat over your decisions too much. Sweat some, of course, and just remember that as long as you find the game to be fun and fulfilling overall, then you haven’t really made a wrong choice, have you? Besides, even if you did make the absolute rightest most correctest decision-choice that a Ratling could ever make and do it every single time, do you really think that I won’t make your characters lives “interesting” in some other fashion? I think this is where I cue the evil, maniacal laughter as I fade into darkness.
