| Griffon1x |
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Take this for what it's worth:
Don't let the players play you. Make them play the world, and the NPC's. If Tsuto is unreasonable, then reason will NOT work. Have him give unreasonable (even perhaps nonsensical) replies. His replies don't even have to make sense to YOU. They're Tsuto's words, from Tsuto's mind, which is bigger and more twisted than the bit that the AP told you about...
YOU know that townspeople WILL get hurt/killed because of something that's coming up, so having them be evacuated seems like a good move, to someone who knows what's coming. But the town doesn't know what's coming, so they're not going to evacuate over words. Or... "You're the heroes. YOU protect us so we don't have to think about evacuation"
Knowledge checks are what players make, not NPC's. If you want the PC's to have knowledge from an NPC, then the NPC has it, and gives it (perhaps after some check the PC's make 'against' the NPC. For "theater's" sake anyway). If you don't want the PC's to get knowledge from an NPC, then the NPC doesn't know it. Or lies. And it doesn't have to look like railroading, or stonewalling either. No matter how pretty your dice roll, the 'reality' is, this person does not have that info to give you.
If they won't go to Thistletop, have a little Thistletop come to them. Maybe some travelers come staggering in bloody. "They slaughtered us!" But have the travelers mention there were "a dozen of them" or "Dozens" to get the party off the 200 idea. There never were 200, there were 'some'. and the world moved on, and eventually that fact came available to the team.
Also, if the PC's are not doing what the AP outlines, that doesn't mean the AP stops. Goblins continue to do goblin things, until it becomes unbearable for the PCs to sit idle. Mayor says "Some heroes you turned out to be." Bartender says "Why am I letting you drink free in my bar again? Remind me" (Sure, she's a fan of adventurers, but consider: How far would that -really- go? The book says she'll treat them well, but the book is not the bartender. The bartender doesn't know she's supposed to be a slavish fan of the PC's no matter what they do or don't do. She didn't read that part of the AP...)
Skinsaw murderers murder people, and the stories get back. Thistletop takes its next step in its plan. YOU know how the AP advances, but the people in the world don't pace themselves off you, or the players, they just live their lives, and the bad guys continue to advance their plans.
The world doesn't wait for the PC's to get to their marked places in the 'timeline'.
And, I'm glad to hear that your friends are clever geniuses. I would hope for nothing less. RP'ing is no fun with out cleverness and inspiredness. :-)