Plot Problems

When preparing (or improvising) Plot for your campaign,

watch out for:

* bottlenecks
* walls
* pits
* deserts
* jungles

.

What are all these, you ask? Here goes:

## Bottlenecks

You have reached a bottleneck in your adventure's plot when you suddenly realize that the player-characters are at a point where they *need* to find this exact clue, or solve that precise puzzle, treat that one NPC in this very specific manner, etc... or else, the adventure cannot possibly continue.

Some examples:

The adventuring group finally arrives at the final door before the archnecromancer's secret laboratory... but they haven't found the key hidden in the double floor of that chest next to that fireplace back in level 3 of this double-digits-level dungeon. And the GM's notes say that, without this key, there is no way to pass through this door...

The school janitor is the only one who has seen where the kidnapped cheerleader is being kept imprisoned. Unfortunately, a catastrophically bad dice roll on some social skills has just caused the entire party to become despised by this janitor, intensely and forever...

The riddle put before the group, the one with the circle of twelve cryptic symbols, is the only way they will figure out when and where the stargate opens to. The GM has found this idea so cool, he forgot to give much consideration to the fact that this riddle requires the player not only to figure out that the 12 symbols could mean zodiac signs, or might represent the numbers on a watch... but it also needs them to develop (and test) the assumption that perhaps the symbols' colours stand for the 'when', while their shapes reveal the 'where' of the stargate's destination at any given time in their local timeline. But what if the players think instead about the 12 apostles, 12 months of the year, of the atomic number of Magnesium, Jupiter's 12 moons, or of Hercules' 12 heroic labours? What if it never crosses their minds that the different colours the symbols are painted in might carry any significant meaning? What if they do figure out these things, but still don't get the final guesswork right?

Things like these often end up getting included in RPG adventures, because in movies or novels, that is how tension is built up, and dramatic pay-off is delivered. This can make an inexperienced GM assume that an RPG plot should be composed in much the same way, perhaps? That is wrong, however.

Different from a book or film, you (as the GM) have no (or very little) control over what your protagonists (the player-caracters) will do, think, notice, or feel at any given point during the game's plot. In fact, players are notorious for coming up with off-the-wall ideas out of the blue, and for derailing (presumably) completely predictable situations at the drop of a hat...

Therefore, don't let it come to this. When preparing an adventure (or scenario, for the more sandboxy-minded among us), keep an eye out for possible bottleneck points in the plot. The same is true when improvising an adventure (or scenario), only then you'll have to do it 'on the fly', with much less time to think things through from various angles.

When you identify a point in the story where a bottleneck could occur (this will usually be a scene or situation where you have a strong head-movie going on, and where it seems *just obvious* what the characters *must clearly* do next / in the face of this, so be especially vigilant around those), re-think the entire scene. Find alternate approaches the party might try, and ask yourself whether they couldn't work just as well as the one you originally envisioned.

My personal rule of thumb is something along the lines of *"Plan at least three possible* positive *outcomes for every scene that is necessary for your plot to continue working - and then prepare to get surprised by what players will actually come up with instead"*.

If nothing else, this will help you improvise when things come differently than planned, and give you more options and variants to fall back on for any given scene.

Because that is what you will need to do if you get your group stuck in a bottleneck - improvise. The only other option than that is to play 'hardball', and actually have the party retrace their steps all the way back to level 3 / solve the crime case (or fail to) without the janitor's help / never figure out how the stargate works... But because that runs a *very* high risk of player frustration, *and* takes a lot of time and momentum out of your adventure, it is generally not advisable to do this. An exception would be if you feel you need to educate your players on some specific point, in which case, go for it, just handle it carefully, as always with these things.

## Walls

A Wall is something that can happen (or 'arise') when a bottlenecks gets 'clogged', or that can be written into a plot from the beginning. The term is used to refer to an obstacle in the story, something the characters can't get over, no matter how hard they try.

In the fiction, Walls can take many forms. An indomitable golem guardian who blocks the entrance to the sacred cave, the stubborn king who will not go back on his once-made decision, a literal wall of fire that burns everyone attempting to pass it to cinders, or the natural laws that dictate that no space vessel can ever go any faster than 98.3% of the the speed of light, no matter how powerful its fusion drive.

Unlike Bottlenecks, it is not always bad to have Walls in your plot. In fact, an argument can be made that it is necessary to include *some* Walls in order to even *have* an identifiable plot. Every setting arguably has some kinds of Walls built into it, too. They regulate where the PCs can go, and where their options end. Limitation fans creativity, it is said, and arguably Walls incite players to become creative as well.

For a very literal-minded metaphor, think of your plot as a dungeon for a minute. Every dungeon consists of tons of walls. And whether it is a complex labyrinth or a pretty much one-way tunnel of horrors, the walls dictate where you can go and where you can't. Between the walls, there are corridors. In fact, corridors can validly be defined by their between-two-walls-ness. Sometimes, the walls open up into larger rooms. Walls in a certain constellation can force you to make the choice to go either left or right (or turn back) next. Walls can form dead ends, forcing you to turn back (or stay in place). Some Walls could be broken through, perhaps, and some might contain hidden doors to secret passages...

There are a lot of creative things you can do with Walls, but there are also situations or constellations where they can become problematic.

### Problematic Walls

Walls generally become problematic when they inhibit the players' fun too much. That is, when trotting along them isn't fun any longer, and the creativity they incite to try and handle them somehow has broken its teeth at too many failed attempts.

Don't "stonewall" your players. If they begin to become frustrated, be prepared to let their next attempt go successful (more or less no matter what the dice, your prep, or anything else says). Otherwise, you risk players whose motivation to engage with the limitations you set before them has become exhausted, and who may even cease to take action on their own initiative. If the Thief has tried to find hidden traps or secret doors 25 times already, but still hasn't found one... for the love of the gods, you should have probably given him *something* 10 attempts ago... a minor passageway, a small concealed spot with a few coins hidden under some rags, *anything...* The player is obviously interested in looking for something here, and you should cater to his signalling that. (Don't overdo this to the degree where it damages your plot or control of the story, but give them their fun, at least if they keep asking for it hard enough.)

If too many junctions in the dungeon lead to dead ends, where's the fun in that? Give them crossroads, give them left/right choices, hell, give them invisible, unnoticable (on casual passing) portals leading from one corridor in the dungeon to another within the same dungeon... anything to keep things interesting!

Don't put too many, and/or too confining Walls into your setting and plot, and those you do put in there - don't make them too unbreakable, either. The player-characters are supposed to be heroes, after all, or at least protagonists, if you prefer your main chars more morally unfettered, and they are supposed to become important movers and shakers, if not in the world at large, then at least in their part of its plot and setting.

### Handling Walls

Fortunately, there are a number of things you can do (or allow players to succeed at), in order to prevent the Walls in your game from just being static and un-fun.

#### Breaking the Wall

When faced with limitations and restrictions, many players will react to them as a small child would - their first impulse is often to test their own strength against the (perceived) solidity of the Wall set before them. Their very first approach may be to try and break through the obstacle. Of course, you should sometimes let them succeed at this, but sometimes it is more interesting / genre-appropriate / believable / convenient / required that they fail in this - and must look for another way past / forward / around...

For example, the party encounters the golem guardian in front of the forbidden cave, and have heard rumors of its indomitability. The wizard will believe none of sight unseen, and resolves to pelt the creature with a lightning strike spell. Perhaps it crumbles to dust, freeing the passage to the cave. Or perhaps it just shrugs off the wizard's magic, and stands there as if nothing even happened.

Which of these outcomes (or anything in between) is best for *your* adventure, you must decide, and it depends entirely on your plot, setting, dramatic arcs, and other considerations of all kinds...

#### Climbing the Wall

When breaking it does not work, player-character often try and become clever about overcoming any given obstacle put in front of them. We call 'Climbing the Wall' any attempt at overcoming that is more skill-based, better thought-out, or generally more complex and refined that 'Breaking' it would be.

For example, the stubborn king still refuses to change his mind on the policy concerning the peasants' taxes, and has in fact just beheaded another peasant representative who came to lament her people's suffering... The situation seems set in stone, the king impossible to detract from his taken course. But the player characters have put it in their minds that they will change his opinion after all, they just need to be a bit more tricksy about it. Perhaps manipulating his daughter the princess to make a public statement might be the way to go here? Or bribe everyone on the king's council so they influence him in the PCs' interests? Let us say a mind-control spell has already been tried on the king, and it failed (because that would be Breaking the Wall, quick and brutal, just make him say 'yes' once, and seize the moment thus created), but how about some more complex magics - such as abducting his sleeping mind in his dreams and taking him on a vision journey to teach him to re-balance his pride and honour against his empathy and stateman's cunning...?

Climbing the Wall usually takes longer than Breaking it would. It requires the players to apply way more thought (and ingame time and resources) to the task, and can thus make for interesting, entertaining, and challenging gameplay in its own right. I would advise you to very rarely "slickwall" (which is like how a stonewall is unbreakable, only this one is unclimbable) players, at least when you can see they are really trying to come up with something creative and clever. If they are, be a happy GM, for your players are awesome, and you should give them some leeway for success in the matter at hand.

#### Making the Wall Interesting

Some Walls have more to them than shows on first sight, or have built-in details that offer further opportunities.

As a GM, when you *have to* put a Wall into your plot that is both unbreakable and unclimbable, you should try as hard as you can to at least make it an interesting Wall. So yeah, it *will* limit the players' options in the specific ways it does, *but* it can still offer surprises or alternative options. This helps to make it not just a boring, unremovable obstacle, but actually also contribute some positive content to the game.

We have identified several variants of how to go about this:

* Surprises (traps, secret doors)
* Alternative Options (doors or windows, embellishments, ledges and stairs, monsters chained)
* Curvewalls (deceptive, not actually a wall after all)

In the following, we will discuss all three of these categories, giving a literal interpretation for each of them first, then more symbolic or figurative ones later.

**Surprises:**

to stay with the metaphor of a literal Wall, you can always have it conceal **traps** or **hidden passages**, so it's not merely a stupid old wall like any other. The first of these is bad for the players, obviously, although they might perhaps manage to turn it around to work for them (e.g. lure a monster into the trap they detected and managed to avoid triggering before) . The second one is mostly likely to benefit players (finding hidden doors is always a good thing, right? It lets you get places faster/safer, and maybe you even find some treasure hidden in there...), but this too, could be turned around - in this case to be used against them. (E.g. what if the party finds a secret passageway in a dungeon, but opening it alerts the lurking cobolds in the lower levels (which are connected to this passage) and from now on they have to worry about little lizard-monsters suddenly emerging from that same door (or popping up in those secret tunnels) in the most inconvenient situations...)

To become a bit more symbolic for this one, let us return to our beloved indomitable guardian golem, from above. So yes, the golem is indomitable, this is established. (That's what makes it a Wall in the first place.) But let us say we discover some runes engraved into its chest, runes that look just like maybe you need to trace them with your fingers to activate some as-yet-unknowable effect...? Now, putting a Trap in here, the GM resolves that the runes are coated with a contact poison... perhaps a non-lethal but pesky one, so that actually tracing them with your fingers, will paralyze your hand(s) for 3d8 turns (Fortitude save halves) or something along those lines...

**An important side note about Secret Doors:**There are two variations to be identified - because all Secret Doors take you *somewhere*, but not all of them allow you to actually bypass the Wall they're in. For example, if the above golem simply had its 'command word' engraved into its chest, (that'd be kinda stupid, sure, however) it would allow characters to command it to leave its post in front of whatever it's guarding - and it would thus cease to be a Wall in the game's plot. So this would make those runes a Secret Door of the first, more obvious type: the type that allows you to get past a Wall. The other type would be the runes that are described to the left - something that lets you get *somewhere*, in this case *gives you some info*, but does nothing to erase the solidity or impassability of the Wall it's in.

However, in order to not be a complete jerk (after all, he'll still want to have players to continue the game with next week), the GM also decides to include a little 'Secret Door' in this encounter: He resolves that, if any of the player characters can actually read the runes (he thinks about what language they should be in, digging out his copy of his players' sheets while he does so...) and utters them aloud, the golem will come to an unholy, still immobile, but now eerily glowy-eyed kind of life, and begin to talk to the characters. They may then learn interesting stuff, e.g. about the golem's maker, its original purpose, the ancient time in which it was made, secret details about the sacred caves it guards, etc., perhaps depending on how clever or polite they are in asking for it.

**Alternate Options:**

Walls can have doors in them, and/or windows. They can have paintings or tapestries hung on them, and/or other decorations/information/stuff. There can be ledges, ladders, stairs, etc... Monsters and/or prisoners can be chained to them...

A **Door** will allow you to pass through the Wall, if only into a small chamber set inside it, perhaps. In distinction from Secret Doors (described above), normal Doors are clearly visible, of course, and it is possible (although not a given) to know where they lead before entering them.

A **Window** allows you to look through the Wall, but not necessarily to pass through it. (Although some Windows can be 'misappropriated' to be used like Doors, by climbing through them, which arguably constitues a special case of Climbing the Wall, described above.)

Anything that is hung on or otherwise applied to the Wall, such as **paintings, inscriptions, etc.**, can be looked at, and while not changing anything about the Wall itself, it serves the purpose this section is dedicated to: It makes the Wall more interesting than if it were just a bunch of stones piled one over another, sitting there doing nothing but block the way...

There can be **Ledges** on the Wall, potentially climbable to provide a vantage point or good defensive position, and/or **Stairs**, and/or **Ladders**, that make this more easy/tempting. All these often are good lead-ins for PCs to attempt to Climb the Wall, as well, since putting these things there sends them the message that, yes, it might be viably tried to get somewhere, here.

And finally, you can attach **Creatures** to a Wall, e.g. prisoners or captured monsters. These are golden opportunities for interaction, and interesting because situations can arise such as that you can't interact with the Wall (e.g. reach and use a Door set into it) without interacting with the monster chained to it, or when you find a helpful (e.g. knowledgeable aboout this here dungeon) prisoner, but you can only interact with her while you are near the Wall yourself (and possibly exposing yourself to the Traps it may contain)...

For a more figurative collections of examples, let us return to our stubborn king, from above.

A Door in the Wall of his refusal to reconsider his stance on the peasant taxes issue could be this: The King has refused to lower the taxes, *unless* one of the characters agrees to marry one his (numerous) daughters. There seems to be no other way to change his mind, but he says that this would do it. The Characters in this example can clearly see the Door (it is not a Secret Door that they would have to guess or probe for), and they can know what's behind it. The question put before them is simply: are you willing to go that route?

A Window in this Wall might be if one of the characters has some historical knowledge and can relate to the others how this king's predecessor, his late father, has also handled such issues (peasant poverty and unrest) in the same way during his own reign, and how that turned into ugly uprisings and bloody civil war back then... In this situation, the characters, while still having no way to cross that Wall of Stubborness, can 'see through it' and learn what awaits the realm on the other side of the Wall.

**Why Stairs are Cool but Elevators are Boring**A stair makes you put in some work in order to climb it, as does a ladder. An elevator-type asset put into a Wall, however, requires almost no work for characters to get to the top of the Wall.Be careful not to make your 'side quests' too easy. If the overcoming of a Wall in your game is too much a matter of 'just going there and pushing a few buttons', players may feel underchallenged and complain that they are made to 'just go thrugh the motions'.You can (and likely will) employ techniques like this at times, but we have refrained from including them in the main text here, because while they *do* tend to happen in every game one plays, they have a tendency of greatly reducing a Wall's significance for the plot, and can thus retroactively damage what used to be cool plot elements by robbing them of their meaningful presence in the story.

A Stair or Ladder in the king's Wall could be that it is known that the king will listen to no one for advice, except for his court wizard and personal advisor, who has, however, been missing for a couple months now... Dropping something like this into their laps gives the characters a chance to go on a side quest, and if successful, 'ascend' a bit on the king's Wall. Perhaps they even reach the Ledge called 'in favor with the king' in the GM's notes, e.g. by bringing back the wizard and making friends with him. Still not necessarily having crossed the Wall by this alone, they will nevertheless be in a better position to negotiate or argue with His Majesty, once he has taken a certain liking to them... (the Wall gets softer)

Finally, an example for a Monster chained to this Wall might be the King's vicious Grand Warlord, who has taken an immediate and intense dislike to the PCs as soon as they first met, and is resolved to discredit, ridicule, and oppose them at every turn. This 'monster' is 'chained' to the King, because the characters principally wouldn't have to deal with him, if it wasn't for them trying to deal with the King's stubborness. However, while working on that, there is probably no way to avoid the Warlord's destructive attention either. Looks like the party must find a way to deal with both challenges at the same time, or fail in their set task.

**Curvewalls:**

Heh. Geddit? It's like a curveball, only it's in the shape of a Wall! Clever, right? Hehe.

Some Walls can be deceptive, such as when they contain previously unnoticed Traps, as described above. Curvewalls, however, take this to a narrative extreme. They are so deceptive, they end up turning out to not even be Walls, at all.

Perhaps what was thought by the adventurers to be a rough, impassable rock wall encountered somewhere in the dungeon turns out to really be the belly flank of a huge, sleeping dragon, pressed up against what is really an opening in the dungeon walls... or a giant gelatinous cube, who has accumulated enough dust and rubble on and beneath its surface as to be not transparent any more... the wall might actually be a cursed wizard, just waiting to get freed so she can enact her cruel revenge - and richly reward her rescuers from captivity in this weird polymorphed shape... Finally, the wall could also be a magical illusion hiding the secret entrance to the lizardmen's throne room...

**Night of the Werewalls -** **If your Plot Obstacles contract Lycanthropy**

We speak of Werewalls when it occurs that a Wall of some specific type changes into another Wall of some other specific type, e.g. a soft-seeming slickwall with a Secret Door changes into an impenetrable, but easily climbable Wall with a Trap. This can suffice to add some surprise and entertainment into the game, keep your players guessing, and provide them with interesting challenges.

True Curvewalls, however, need to change even more drastically than that, since they are meant to really pull the rug out from under the players, not just dazzle them a little.

The principle works very well for literal Walls, but it is a bit more difficult for more abstract interpretations. for those, basically keep in mind that the Curvewall needs to convincingly appear like a normal Wall in the beginning, or else it doesn't count. There has to be a possibility of the PCs never finding out about the truth behind the presumed Wall, and a possibility that they to *do* find out. If and when they do find out, the Wall needs to change its function in the plot completely, and cease to be a Wall type obstacle entirely. (Otherwise, you have a Werewall, see the grey grey box to the right.)

Demonstrations of these principles in the above examples might include the presumed Wall turning into a Threat (when it becomes clear it's really a dragon's belly), a Treasure Guardian (gelatinous cube), or a Helper/Mentor/Guide (when it is revealed to really be a cursed Wizard).

An example would be if the stubborn king turns out not to have acted out of stubborness, after all. And also that his gripe has nothing to do with the peasants and their taxes, really. Perhaps the whole thing is in fact (and unbeknownst to most of the people in the royal court) really about his planned marriage to the neighboring realm's queen, whom he seeks to impress and seduce, because he wants to conjoin the kingdoms...

Suddenly, the characters are put before a very different situation than what they thought they would be dealing with. The choice put before them is, obviously, whether they choose to retreat and reconsider under these circumstances, or whether they stay the true course and continue to pursue their interests, even in the face of these changed auspices...

#### Painting the Wall

Finally, there are some Walls that are totally okay to have in the game. Either they are essential parts of the plot or setting, or they have arisen in-game, but everybody has made their peace with them. If that happens, you might as well paint these Walls in a nice colour, settle down next to or between them, and call them home.

Maybe the players like the idea of the stubborn king, and, while he is problematic for their characters, the players accept and even appreciate that, and totally buy into the idea of a king in this part of the game world being so stubborn as to drive the plot towards an unavoidable civil war. Perhaps that is not what the GM originally planned, perhaps that king was meant to provoke opposition and outrage from the players, to present an obstacle to overcome, or become an antagonist to oppose. Regardless, the GM should always be vigilant for such developments happening. You know, Always Listen to Your Players and all that.

Examples for Walls that are built into the setting can be found aplenty as well, and for these, it is even imperative that everybody is cool with them existing, and agreeing that nobody will try to break or climb them... *too* hard.

In one of the first examples given at the beginning of this section, we mentioned a Sci-Fi setting that has some natural laws implemented that add up to limit the speed of a space vessel equipped with a fusion drive (let's assume that this is the state-of-the-art technology in this setting) to no more than 98.3% of light speed. In this case, let's just stay optimistic here for a moment and assume that all this is not just some throwing around of complicated sounding tech-babble without any real in-game consequences - but that there is a real and meaningful reason for this to be in the game.

Perhaps this game is about the players taking the roles of the crew of a small-to-medium-sized space vessel, have to equip and finetune that vessel, and then go fly on missions with it. Perhaps this game has very hard-and-fast rules for what effects happen to a very fast-moving vessel at what increments of light speed (e.g. time-space distortions getting stronger the faster you go, perhaps other reality-warping phenomena manifest... there might be extensive tables and detailed lists for all this...) and how much every piece of equipment you can add to the ship will cost and what its benefits are.

In such a game, it might be a viable strategy to build a ship to be as fast as you possibly can, and then use it to its fullest potential while going on missions. If this is the case, having a hard cap for maximum speed implemented can make sense from a gameplay perspective - it might be there to prevent some otherwise potentially imbalanced combos, for example, or to force ship-builders to make hard choices during vessel construction...

As you can probably see by this point, whether such a rule is perceived as an arbitrary limitation unpopular with players and complicating things for the GM, or whether it is a well-liked and generally accepted element of the game's setting (and/or mechanical balance), depends on a lot of other details to decide.

Another example is constituted by the doomed relationship that vampires have with the sun. In V:tM, and many other games featuring these particular type of undeads as playable characters, vampires cannot walk into the sunlight, at least not without taking serious harm. Now, this is a very essential element of the setting, and deeply connected to a lot of the vampire genre's themes, mood and atmosphere. At the same time, it *is* a Wall.

But players will mostly accept this Wall, without even thinking much about it, in fact. It is like the fact that there is little to no water to be found outside of the few settled areas in the sprawling, arid desert setting of Dark Sun, or like how there isn't a single character in all of Pendragon who could pull the sword from the stone (except Arthur Pendragon, of course, but he isn't a playable character in this game, nor should he be).

Such Walls are not perceived as obstacles to overcome, but as important elements that define the setting, distinguishing it form so many other possible worlds in which one could play, and thereby giving it a very special, unique note.

For all of such types of Walls, the following things are true: they may be as unbreakable as they want to (and in fact often are *very* unbreakable), extremely hard to climb (if at all possible), and still, people accept having them in their game without much (if any) protest.

Some of them are already 'painted' and perceived as 'home' when the players start the game. Others, you can swiftly get there, and they prove easy to 'paint'.

Not all impenetrable obstacles are necessarily bad - as a GM, you need to learn to tell one sort from the other, in order to improve your campaign across all categories of play - from Exposition (how you decsribe the Wall to the players) and Prep (what attributes you decide to give it in advance), to Impro (which you will invariably have to do eventually anyways, so it can't hurt to be ready for it when it happens) and Direction (Major obstacles and impenetrable Stonewalls in your setting/plot may require their own considerations with regard to Spotlight distribution, Scene selection, Rules arbitration, etc. etc.)

## Pits

Like a Wall, a Pit is something in the plot or setting that blocks characters from going certain places or doing certain things. Unlike Walls, however, a Pit is not something that is *there*, but rather is defined by an absence, by something lost or missing.

The party's dead Cleric who could have healed everyone, that lost bit of knowledge that would be necessary to re-create the golden past of the setting, or the stolen data-slates containing the coordinates of the secret rebel base - they are all Pits.

In all of these examples, notice one essential difference between Pits and Walls: you can see over a pit to perceive what would be beyond it, if only you could get there. Walls conceal. Pits, however, show you something - they make you curious, incite hope or longing, or can, if too uncrossable, inspire despair and resignation.

### Problematic Pits

Pits are also sometimes the result of a clogged Bottleneck (e.g. the dead cleric, above, whose absence renders the party de-facto unable to continue on the adventure), and constitute a further reason why Bottlenecks should be avoided in plot preparation. It is not too bad if one corridor in the labyrinth is blocked off by a bottomless pit, on the other side of which we can see something tempting or desirable - *if there are other ways we can still try to get ahead.* You can easily afford to put some Pits and Walls in front of your players, just make sure you always keep a few pathways open for them as well. (Or be prepared to let them Handle the Walls and Deal with the Pits.)

...

### Dealing with Pits

There are several workable approaches for how to deal with Pits, most of them focussed on Crossing the Pit somehow, of course. Player-characters can attempt to Cross a Pit by various methods, all of them potentially strongly metaphorical, of course.

#### Leaping the Pit

You can try to **Leap the Pit**, that is, if you think you got it in you to fight the Arch-Demon of Murder and Mayhem without the Sacred Blade of the Promised Peace (which you could have gotten in the course of the adventure, but failed or neglected to actually acquire), then you are welcome to go ahead and try anyways. You will face harder odds, naturally, but it may not be impossible to overcome the challenge ahead even inspite of some plot-vital thing being missing or lost.

Leaping Pits is a staple of what makes a hero. Luke Skywalker killing the Rancor without having his trusty lightsaber with him, [add more examples]...

Leaping a Pit is comparable to Breaking a Wall, in that it can be a player's impulsive first reaction to being faced with a Problem. How 'unleapable' a Pit is will determine the initial, immediate amount of player frustration it causes.

When you fail in Leaping a Pit, you will ***Fall Into the Darkness***, see below.

#### Bridging the Pit

Less heroic, but nevertheless effective, probably more pragmatic, and certainly safer than to Leap the Pit is to Bridge it. **Bridging the Pit** involves more time and planning, and often an elaborate (and fragile) plan for how to pull it off. This can be a workaround, a substitute, or a completely new solution to a situation otherwise made unsolvable by the Pit, i.e. by the lack of 'solid ground' to walk over, plot-wise speaking.

Bridging Pits is comparable to Climbing Walls, in that it encompasses a protracted effort, as opposed to a quick-and-direct approach (as Leaping/Breaking would be).

The advantage of a Bridge can also be that more people than one can use it, in contrast to how Leaping the Pit works. (There, every hero has to make his own leap, and succeed or fail on her own merit.)

Where Leaping is the domain of heroes, Bridging shows how clever and crafty you are. Which makes it the domain of the tricksters, wizards, artificers, scholars and savvyheads out there.

Examples for Bridging a Pit could be:

Those stolen data-slates containing the coordinates of the secret rebel base? Yeah, they're gone, but there's gotta be other ways to find out about those coordinates, right? How about if we manage to find a way to sector-scan the entire likely area? Okay, so that's a couple hundred planets, but we could use the energy-trace of their ships to look for, and if we could only calibrate our space-scanners precisely enough, while simultaneously widening their beams...

Or in the case of the fallen Cleric, whom nobody can resurrect because, well, no other Clerics in the party, and who was the only one who had access to healing spells, and without whom the final stretch of the adventure seems eminently unmanagable... a solution might be for the Wizard to go back to the Derelict Occult Laboratory they found earlier, and use it to try and modify one of his recently-acquired summoning spells... and if he can manage to develop a spell that summons a unicorn (which has healing powers and will share them with its summoner's allies) instead of a griffin (which he knows how to do), that would adequately Bridge the Pit that was left by the Cleric's untimely demise.

A special case of Briging the Pit are so-called **Pocket Bridges**. Imagine a small, portable solution to a huge, suddenly-appearing problem. This applies to situations where, say, the Cleric dies, and the Wizard merely goes "Pfah - here's my Scroll of True Resurrection. I raise him back from the dead. Can we go now?"

Adventurers, especially in heroic genres and in games that are heavy on equipment, tend to accumulate these over time. They can be a great opportunity for the player to shine and prove that they're well-prepared, have bought all the right items to solve every problem, and are generally awesome. On the other hand, this can become taxing on the GM - if there are too many of these things in the players' hands, you may face a hard time giving them any real challenges, since most things will stop being real problems for them. See the Sliding Scale of MacGyverism for a more detailed discussion of (amongst other things) Pocket Bridges.

Another special case of Bridging is to simply **Fly Over the Pit**. This is kind of a mix between Leaping and Bridging, and some would argue that it deserves its own category. I think however, since it is such a rare case, and by far not available to all characters at all times, that a sub-category should suffice.

Flying Over is interesting, in that it comes in two variants: Sometimes, some of the characters in the party (e.g. the ones with Jetpacks, Levitation spells, or who are Birdmen) are just simply able to Fly Over a given Pit, just like that, because they can. (To them it's like Leaping, only even easier, barely worth a thought, let alone to perceive it as a challenge.) But other characters can't, and that's where the situation can become interesting.

The other variant is when there is nobody in the party who can *just simply* Fly Over, but there are ways and means how they can get there, i.e. develop a means of Flying Over, be it by building themselves Ikarus-style wings, inventing an aircraft-type device of some sort, or asking an NPC sorcerer to nechant them with the ability to become airborne at will... (This is the variant that is more similar to Bridging, since there is more effort, player creativity, and time involved.)

Either way, Flying Over differs from Bridging in that it does not create a pathway that others can still use later. Like with Leaping, only the ones who do the actual Flying will get over the Pit.

An example to help distinguish these cases from each other:

The Purple Cough, a notorious and widely feared plague, has come to Pondiria, the small kingdom our heroes have had most of their adventures in or aroung so far. Now, the elders remember that there once was a known cure for this plague - but ever since the Vaults of Wisdom have all been burnt to the ground during the Great Raids of 472 A.S., almost two generations ago now, this knowledge has been lost... And everyone has silently dreaded the day the feared disease would rear its ugly purple head again. This day is now here.

The missing medical knowledge here is a Pit. It blocks people from curing characters that have contracted the plague. On the other side of this Pit, you can see a brighter way of how things could go, however. If only a cure could be (re)discovered, the future would look radically brighter than it does right now.

Now, Leaping that Pit, a hero party may resolve to just venture into the realm's more heavily infected areas nonetheless, hoping for their stamina (and praying to their gods) to keep them save enough until they have done what ever it is the current adventure requires them to do. This can, of course, go horribly wrong, and one or more characters may well Fall Into the Darkness if and when they get themselves infected after all.

Bridging that Pit, on the other hand, could be if the party redolves to develop a way to prevent contagion while they are in the infected areas. Note how this is not the same as inventing a cure (that would be Filling It In, see below), buz would nevertheless suffice to protect them while exposed during their upcoming adventure. Since a Bridge is by nature more narrow than a Pit, this protection can do nothing for people who are already infected, and it may even protect the party only for a short time, or only under certain circumstances, or perhaps never more than 2 or 3 of them at the same time..

A Pocket Bridge in this example might be if ***the Paladin already knows a spell that does just what is described above, and has perhaps even already memorized and prepared to cast it. In this case, he can potentially resolve the entire problem within minutes, hours, or perhaps by the next day (depending on how long the spell takes to cast, and whether he indeed has it prepared or needs to wait until after his next night's rest before doing so.)***

Finally, Flying Over that Pit, ... *(pala can do it himself, others can't)*

...could be the party's Paladin suggesting that they all go to one of the kingdom's major temples first, to get cleansed in a complex and lengthy ritual while praying to the gods for blessings and health. He thinks that he can perhaps pursuade a friendly-minded god or two to add some divine support to the party's mission, and maybe get them immunized against the horrible plague. This will no doubt take longer, and may mean efforts or sacrifices for some of the involved party members (e.g. leaving behind certain material possessions as a symbol of your cleansing yourself of previous taint, or getting asked to complete difficult tests in order to prove their faith) - but if it succeeds, the party now has a way to cross the Pit of Lacking Knowledge that troubles them.

**Fill In**

A notable aspect, and slight downside, of Bridges is that they invariably cover less ground than the Pit has 'devoured' from the plot.

#### Skirting the Edges

(circumventing)

.

Descending into the Pit / Falling In (??)

.