Rollinrollinrollin

There has been a lot of discourse¹ in the last few days about when to roll. The general consensus appears to be that you should only roll when passing and failing are both interesting. I think I can get behind that.

There was a great example of this at the weekend. My group is in the process of wrapping up Dragon Heist, and it has taken a long time. We organised a big finale session to have the big boss fight and warp it all up in a really satisfying way. Reader, we did not.

We finished up our previous fight and then needed to find the big bad. And we did, and it was fun, and interesting. What it did do was take just over two hours. We tasked the many allies we had won over the course of a long campaign to find the big bad, and when we woke up we needed to be involved in everything. The question I asked the DM when he gave me a lift home was: What would have changed if we hadn’t done that? Would we have not found him and the world ends? He said no he really wanted to do the big temple fight. We were always going to find it. A really interesting discussion for both of us. I think having seen it at the same time as the discussion running round Bluesky I’m determined to avoid a similar situation.

There is a tension with this approach and railroading, but I am comfortable with a little light iron fisted guidance where appropriate. We’ll see I guess, I’ve not spent 4 years herding us weirdos. No plan survives contact with the players.

Peace out, Tim.