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In the big box of imaginary LEGO that builds a campaign world, published adventures are the kits that make a single object. I'm not saying modules are evil, or lazy, or that you're a horrible GM for ever having used them. They are great for one-shot sessions, conventions, and spur-of-the-moment, let's-get-a-game-together instant fun. Rely too much on shrink-wrapped creativity, though, and your ongoing campaign can end up choppy, disjointed, and sterile. It will be, in a word, typical--and since you're visiting Gamegrene.com, typical is not what you're after.

Ironically, the Achilles heel of modules is NOT a lack of creativity. Pre-packaged adventures are often gems of originality, polished until nothing contradictory or superfluous remains. They can contain memorable foes and intense conflict set against cinematic and vivid backgrounds. But what they don't do--and can't do--is supply the philosopher's stone that transforms a series of adventures into a living campaign: consequences.What happens after the marauding band of giants is eliminated? Did that evil baron have anyone who cared when the PCs chopped him into julienne fries? In life every action has consequences, for good or ill, whether perceived or not. And though we roleplay in part to escape the real world, those Newtonian principles inherent to our existence nag at the back of our brain: thermodynamics is not just a good idea, it's the law.

Modules run the risk of breaking that law, because by definition they stand alone. Discrete. Unable to affect anything outside their cardstock covers. They cannot recreate the throughline of conditions and connected events that define our lives, and consequently (pun intended) the campaign seems lifeless and "unrealistic." Incorporating consequences into a campaign is a relatively simple process, but takes a bit of work from the GM. Fortunately, such work does not involve laborious cross-referencing of monster stats or a graph paper masterpiece: all it takes is a bit of deduction--nothing more than saying, "What if...?"

Every encounter, every mission, and every action taken by the PCs is another potential adventure. What if killing the orc chieftain and his elite bodyguard means the tribe recognizes the party as its new leaders and swears allegiance? What if that +1 mace the cleric got last session is the ceremonial weapon of an enclave of githyanki? And they want it back? The enterprising GM need not even stop there--consequences can have consequences, too. In the above example, suppose word of the orc tribe's new loyalty reaches the ears of the duchess who funded the PCs mission to exterminate the humanoid menace. Now she believes the party has turned from the path of good, and hires a paladin and his entourage to bring the PCs to justice. What if that paladin was the same straight-laced do-gooder that the PC bard had ridiculed in the Crown and Thistle tavern two missions ago?

By examining the consequences of the characters' actions, an instant plot has sprung to life--an adventure in which the players are emotionally invested, because it feels like they created the problem. And what's more...they're right. Roleplaying is cooperative storytelling. By letting the players participate in the story of the campaign rather than dictating their lives through boxed text, the world of the PCs comes alive. The players begin to "know" recurring NPCs, have tangible stakes in the world events, and even develop their own agendas. The GM will find that rather than needing a new module to provide a plot hook, more stories are waiting to be explored than there is time to play them.

So what happens when you have five or six great consequence-related plots waiting to be developed? Which do you start first? All of them. Or at least two or three. Real life cannot be divided into neat little modules, and not every event in our lives is related to a Master Plot. Life is messy. Published adventures try to simulate this with random encounters: events and challenges that crop up that have no relation to the main story. In a web of consequences, however, your "random encounters" can simply be other story lines that ripple back and forth across each other. Let the PCs figure out what relates to the task at hand and what doesn't. If it all feels important, good. Life doesn't have a rule book, and RPG life should be no different.

Trying to plan out every detail of every consequence is an impossibly tall order for a GM. But remember, crosscurrent plots don't need to be fully developed before they are introduced. NPCs are not necessarily driven by a master plan, any more than the PCs are. Try dropping in a brief encounter based on a repercussion from a PC's prior action, especially if the scene is unrelated to the current goal. That encounter will itself become a source of further consequences, until the resolution of that story line becomes the main focus of the party or dies away of its own accord.

Start thinking about consequences, and you'll never lack for material: stories grow and develop with every game session and PCs move seamlessly from adventure to the next. Players will marvel at the complexity of the plots, and the GM can sit behind the screen and smile enigmatically, letting the players continue writing them.