[Dungeon Fantasy] Adventure - Heart of The Great Forest

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Walrus

The Mountain has been discovered to be rich in valuable ores. Mining settlements have grown fast. The main city with a lot of foundries was founded at the foot of the Mountain near the Great Forest as a source of charcoal.

And these activities of cutting wood for building, mining and charcoal burning disturbed Nature Keepers: savage forest elves, druids and all sorts of natural and not so natural beasts and closely related monsters. They began to raid woodcutters and especially coalburners and there are rumors that the horde is gathering to destroy The City with its forges and foundries.

Sounds very Hayao Miyazaki ala Mononoke-hime.

[Walrus]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Sounds very Hayao Miyazaki ala Mononoke-hime.

Yeah, it is one of the inspirational sources.

[Dammann]

When Robin Laws addresses questions like this (how do I get my players to choose the one option they need to in order to get to the fun), he usually advises something like, "Your characters are all deciding to go to The City. Why would they do that?" If there is a right answer, trying to elicit that choice instead of just jumping past it seems like an unnecessary manipulation. Asking for motives or reasons will give you hooks, return agency to the players, and surprise you (always nice).