Exchange of Realities

Well, that didn’t go as expected.

The plan was simple. Party’s going after a guy who pretty much controls the world in which they’re dreaming. Split the party, mess with the party’s heads, everyone wins (…eventually, for some value or another of win, whether IC or OOC), and I get to play my favorite antagonist one way or another in four different windows.

In theory. Of course, it would have worked a lot better if the entire group had been present (one’s entire RSVP was an offline IM sent less than an hour before I got home, and as a result I had no warning whatsoever), if one of the players hadn’t shown up most of an hour late, if it hadn’t been so transparent what the plan was, and if I’d actually gotten to play the silly antagonist. Everything’s better when I’m one of my favored characters.

So, the splitting. As far as the antagonist was concerned, it was all about the old divide and conquer strategy. I’d originally conceived it as pairing something I enjoyed with something I didn’t; I’d had a plan involving one fight and a couple of conversations. And with one of the players missing, sure, I had to rewrite my original plan (it wasn’t too feasible anyway), but at least it meant I could take the character whose player stepped out in a medias res situation he himself was responsible for and not have to subject him to a plothole. Anyone who reads this regularly can probably guess the extent to which I hate plotholes. I’d thought I was going to get a teeny bit of the split-session done during session, but it was late, I was behind on my article, and don’t get me started on my Saturdays.

And people wonder why I try to avoid planning specific events ahead.