I had the first session of my new D&D campaign today, and something magical happened. Something I originakly got into this game for, but that I never managed to properly see until today; my players did something that completely changed the story and the direction it was going in. Instead of going down the direction of the Lovecraft cult ruling the City and going down the path which started with them being accidentally sent for sacrifice, they instead managed to wriggle their way out of it, and began to focus on the seedy underbelly of the City, and suddenly, the entire story has changed. My plan now is to build this city up one odd job at a time, slowly introduce the characters and factions and politics and struggles and messiness of this crumbling, decaying mess of a city. Make it into somewhere that they feel is their home, somewhere they become attatched to. Then, if I can pull it off, a Character that one of the players got a massive grudge on (The bureaucrat who got them almost accidentally sent to be sacrificed) is going to manage to get into poeer in the upper echalons of the cult, disband the City watch and set up their own police force made of fanatics. Slowly, from there on out, have people be arrested. Gangs are flushed out. Friends disappear. The Cult Authority starts chasing the players. And who knows! Maybe it’ll never go in this direction! Maybe it’ll go some completely different way! I love this! I love it when the careful preperation gets destroyed, and instead of the players reacting to the world, it becomes the world reacting to the players. I’m just so happy with how this is going.