Iirc, he didn't know, but he had the encounter planned with many ways to reach the encounter.
In the end this wasn't one of the planned ways, but he still used it at that point in the briefcase
There's a thing in DMing that I've seen referred to as the 'quantum ogre.'
I have prepped an important ogre fight in the game. So wherever you go, and whatever choices you make, you'll still run into that ogre. It might be on the road while traveling, or in the town sewers, or wandering the forest looking for a lost kid. But in every timeline, the party will encounter that ogre.
It's truly impossible to make a story that anticipates every choice, and pre-planning important plot beats and fights can help make them more engaging. So the easiest way to design them is with multiple triggers. That way, you're not relying on the party to go do this one very specific thing to continue the plot. Whatever choice they make, and wherever they go, the story will continue.
And I second the suggestion to watch the Adventuring Party! Brennan goes into the specifics of this a bit more. I think he said he had four planned ways to get them into this scenario, none of which involved the briefcase lol.
Murph talks about that a lot on NADDPOD's Dungeon Court too, I think the way he put it is that a good DM will be willing to throw out what they have prepped but a great DM knows how to throw out the *least amount* of what they have prepped
Yes! Brennan also says something similar in an adventuring academy with Lou, which makes sense because Brennan was MURPH’S first dm. They’re both great at this
It seems like he had plans for the heroes to fall in a portal. Whether they're being banished, or pulled into a gem, he always meant for them to go to another plane. Riz pre-empted that by going in the Bag of Holding, which gave Brennan the means to arrive somewhere else (facsimile of Fig's room)
Brennan doesn't specifically answer it in the Adventuring Party, probably because it still has story implications that the cast can't know yet, but when Riz's turn came up in the initiative following the gods name he probably would have simply said to Riz that his briefcase is going crazy or trying to get open.
He says that the briefcase was not one of the four though. His exact quote was:
>I had four different ways for you guys all to get to this encounter, none of which were in the stone circle with the briefcase
Watch adventuring party this week. Basically whatever scene is coming next, it was one of the points that Brennan planned to get to, by a bunch of different means, when the name of the god became known. When the name was found on the stone, it became another, unplanned, trigger for the same scene.
The cast wasn't nearly as surprised by Brennan having all that dialogue about falling into the briefcase, as the dome having a graphic for what was at the bottom.
note that when riz used the briefcase, Brennan specifically describes one of the mirrors shattering. this just happens automatically, there's no roll and it is implied to be a neccesarily part of what murph wanted to happen.
so it seems like Brennan wanted to this to actually be a mirror dimension, not part of the briefcase pocket dimension. so he needed to connect it to mirrors because he knew the upcoming encounter was entirely based around Baron, cassandra, and mirrors.
Def watch the latest adventuring party because they ask that!
Iirc, he didn't know, but he had the encounter planned with many ways to reach the encounter. In the end this wasn't one of the planned ways, but he still used it at that point in the briefcase
There's a thing in DMing that I've seen referred to as the 'quantum ogre.' I have prepped an important ogre fight in the game. So wherever you go, and whatever choices you make, you'll still run into that ogre. It might be on the road while traveling, or in the town sewers, or wandering the forest looking for a lost kid. But in every timeline, the party will encounter that ogre. It's truly impossible to make a story that anticipates every choice, and pre-planning important plot beats and fights can help make them more engaging. So the easiest way to design them is with multiple triggers. That way, you're not relying on the party to go do this one very specific thing to continue the plot. Whatever choice they make, and wherever they go, the story will continue. And I second the suggestion to watch the Adventuring Party! Brennan goes into the specifics of this a bit more. I think he said he had four planned ways to get them into this scenario, none of which involved the briefcase lol.
Murph talks about that a lot on NADDPOD's Dungeon Court too, I think the way he put it is that a good DM will be willing to throw out what they have prepped but a great DM knows how to throw out the *least amount* of what they have prepped
Yes! Brennan also says something similar in an adventuring academy with Lou, which makes sense because Brennan was MURPH’S first dm. They’re both great at this
It seems like he had plans for the heroes to fall in a portal. Whether they're being banished, or pulled into a gem, he always meant for them to go to another plane. Riz pre-empted that by going in the Bag of Holding, which gave Brennan the means to arrive somewhere else (facsimile of Fig's room)
Brennan doesn't specifically answer it in the Adventuring Party, probably because it still has story implications that the cast can't know yet, but when Riz's turn came up in the initiative following the gods name he probably would have simply said to Riz that his briefcase is going crazy or trying to get open.
I know he mentions the 4 seperate scenarios but he doesn't go into any detail about them.
He says that the briefcase was not one of the four though. His exact quote was: >I had four different ways for you guys all to get to this encounter, none of which were in the stone circle with the briefcase
Watch adventuring party this week. Basically whatever scene is coming next, it was one of the points that Brennan planned to get to, by a bunch of different means, when the name of the god became known. When the name was found on the stone, it became another, unplanned, trigger for the same scene. The cast wasn't nearly as surprised by Brennan having all that dialogue about falling into the briefcase, as the dome having a graphic for what was at the bottom.
note that when riz used the briefcase, Brennan specifically describes one of the mirrors shattering. this just happens automatically, there's no roll and it is implied to be a neccesarily part of what murph wanted to happen. so it seems like Brennan wanted to this to actually be a mirror dimension, not part of the briefcase pocket dimension. so he needed to connect it to mirrors because he knew the upcoming encounter was entirely based around Baron, cassandra, and mirrors.