PC Balancing Issues - Need Advice

[solbergb]

I have a number of tricks for modeling superhuman intelligence I've acquired over the years, but the first two rules are the simplest.

1.  If I'm really that smart, why am I in a position where PC's can fight me at all?  (the answer had better involve amazing motivation or incredibly bad luck or a hell of a lot of work by the PC's to get them in that position or some kind of gambit where win or lose the current conflict, the smart character wins in the end).  Also what are their 5-6 options for escaping if things go south?  If they're that smart and lived that long, they'll have some, and in a game like DFRPG, concessions combined with a really clever escape plan that impresses the players (and earns grudging respect from the characters) add a lot to the game.

2.  Make sure you have system mastery of at least the circumstances of the fight.  This is especially true if they're not merely brilliant, but also experienced.    The character should have anticipated much of the circumstances and allowed for it, even if they didn't expect the PCs to be there (if they did, expect answers to each Catch and hammering on aspects if they'd have any way of knowing about either, counters to the most potent, known offensive abilities, etc)...but even without knowing PCs might intervene, a spellcasting Denarian's going to have potions, enchanted items, pre-cast spells running, delcarations or similar maneuvers cast offscreen as an edge and one or two brutally effective approaches to combat that should work against a wide variety of enemies that should prove helpful, including access to some of the more common "catch" stuff...eg, they'll know where all the iron is on the scene if a fey shows up, and will have the lore to rapidly identify them as Fey if they don't know already.

For a really good example of what brilliance+experience on both sides looks like, consider the fight of the Archive vs most of the Denarians.  She and Kincaid killed most of them, had a plan for most situations but in the end, even with Harry failing to be distracted out of the fight, they accomplished their objective.  Brilliant on both sides = bloodbath but also layers within layers of defenses that get exposed as one side gets defeated and it tears away most of the contingencies and plans of the attacker in doing so.

If you can't answer #1 and #2, the highly intelligent/experienced individual is best left offscreen until you've had time to think it through and learn more about the game system.  You can have brutally effective ambushes done via minions (which can fail in execution because the minions aren't as brilliant), or some NPC that the PC's already respect defeated off-camera or similar to build tension and reputation, or attacks in social arena (a whispering campaign, or something like what Mavra did, blackmailing Dresden with something Murphy actually did that was wrong...)

Now not all Denarians rate this treatment.  Those that don't care about their hosts and have pride or overconfidence as part of their fallen nature (think Magog) consider losing their host the cost of doing business, and spend a lot of time wrapped in white hankies.  Those guys will mostly have some brutally effective tactics but will stay and fight until defeated if you poke on their aspects a little...they don't seem to think of defense much.

[Starjammer]

There's a general rule of tactics from Shadowrun that applies equally as well to the Dresdenverse:  Geek the mage first.

If you allow a wizard to stand off and get their spells in order and then throw fire down on you, you're toast.  A wizard who gets prep time is a wizard who wins, barring overwhelmingly powerful opposition.

OTOH, if you hand the wizard his ass before he even knows you're there, you win.

Another thing that can work in your favor is if the wizard lacks imagination - or at least has less than you.  If you can create a circumstance where the wizard cannot bring his magic to bear effectively, you also tend to win.  Note: this is why Harry practices running and carries a big gun in addition to a blasting rod.

[Theogony_IX]

Wow, yeah, that's a great way to model your super intelligent villains.  Contingency plans within contingency plans.  That is something I'm going to have to add to this first scenario I'm running.

I have a newbie Kemmlerite setting up a spirit devouring session.  Not a full blown Darkhallow, but a good way to boost his power.  While this is happening he is attempting to seduce my White Council Golden Boy PC onto the dark side by giving him a taste of Death magic.  A Red Court Noble is attempting to swell his ranks in the city and snag my Fist of Yahweh PC into a Red Court Venom addiction.  (The two villains are working in concert - the victim's deaths caused by the new vampires create the spirits that the Kemmlerite is gathering up for his ritual devouring.  To facilitate this, the Kemmlerite is using his human goons to distract the cops while the vampires raid apartment complexes.)  At the same time a group of kitchen witches in the area are going to attempt a cleansing at the old closed down theatre the Kemmlerite is using as storage for his spectres.  The idea isn't to confront the Kemmlerite or even the Red Court Noble, but to disrupt the spirit devouring ritual and keep the kitchen witches from being killed by the insane spirits being kept at the old theatre.

From what you say though, my Kemmlerite should have at least 2, if not more, contingency plans in place to ensure that even if he can't seduce the White Council PC into necromancy, that he can still complete his ritual, and if not that, have a couple plans for escape.


GMing is not an easy job.  I gotta think smarter, not harder.

[Haru]

GMing is not an easy job.  I gotta think smarter, not harder.

The trick is to teach them to tie the noose around their necks themselves. Once you've got that figured out, it's a smooth ride.

[solbergb]

From what you say though, my Kemmlerite should have at least 2, if not more, contingency plans in place to ensure that even if he can't seduce the White Council PC into necromancy, that he can still complete his ritual, and if not that, have a couple plans for escape.

This sort of planning is most important on really long lived folks who also have experienced a lot of life and death situations.  So Mavra, a rare black court survivor, is shown as thinking really hard about Dresden when her scourge comes to town.  She fills the place with mortals, arms them with a variety of things difficult to defend against, puts out a decoy to "die" and actually spends the whole fight veiled and upstairs, taking pictures, so all the really destructive things that occur downstairs don't touch her AND she learns even more about Dresden and his allies - which she uses later to get her hands on Kemmler's book and eliminate anybody but Dresden who might have read it....

That's a very convincing portrayal of an intelligent survivor, maximizing her own abilities and limiting the scope of her enemies, using mostly resources she doesn't care about.

So if your Kemmlerite is somebody like that, someone who survived perhaps the White Council war on his former master and the hunting down of disciples, he's not going to try to seduce a White Council wizard without a damn good backup plan.

OTOH, there has to be a pretty big payoff to risk involving a WC wizard, so his alternative to do the darkhallow-thingie must either also be hazardous or it'll be less effective or, if neither, he's getting big fate point compulsions from aspects to involve THAT wizard in spite of an adequate alternative....in which case he'll be doing the alternative with a big wad of fate points in hand if the WC wizard does try to interfere.

At a bare minimum, his escape plan should be solid, or it isn't credible that he survived this long.  A perfectly adequate precaution is to not seduce the WC wizard in person.  The simple expedient of a phone call, or a letter writing campaign helps quite a bit, although they have the downside of being liable to interception, so maybe the mail drops off a stone and ritual instructions for the communication spell.  Or you work through surrogates that you can afford to lose, etc.   A WC wizard is mostly dangerous in line of sight, or with a connection to you that you don't know about.   Don't do the seduction with either of those things available (if using a ritual stone for communication, rig it so if very much power goes through it fries the connection, etc).

Now to kill two birds in one stone, have your flunkies be signaled when the WC wizard contacts you, so while you're doing the "come to the dark side" seduction, your minions are doing the apartment complex raids etc....ensuring that wizard won't interfere with minions not up to his weight class.

Red court noble has another problem - they tend to be long lived and cunning.  Again, best way to deal with a Fist of Yahweh is to introduce the venom while you are nowhere near the situation.  Spike his drink or his food, or send some flunky who has displeased you to try to introduce the venom addiction....I'm dubious that the venom would work very well on a True Faith type character given red court catch, but maybe the Noble's trying under the principle of "you never know until you try".

One payoff for clever PC actions is to maybe get in the same room with either of the manipulators to force a physical confrontation, where normally neither would get caught out that way.   Eg, the WC wizard insists on personal instruction out of a claimed fear of wardens and an insufficient skills with magical detection and veils to ensure privacy without his "mentor" helping, then sets up some kind of ambush.   The Kemmlerite then might enter a hornet nest of PC nastiness, but still should have a lot of routine items/potions/thaumaturgical aspects and basic all purpose escape and combat plans for ambushes.....I dislike "he escapes in black box text" type fiat ambush failures...I want it to fit the mechanics of the game.  DFRPG/Fate is easier than most because of the concession mechanic, but it still works better if everyone can believe their character would fail to catch the bad guy via the rules of the game, however expressed.

What I have found satisfying is when somebody like that has a realistic set of contingencies for an ambush, ANY ambush, not just the PC's (just look how much better Dresden got after a few years at war).   If caught in an ambush, a character like that doesn't fight.  He runs (see Nicodemus, pretty much always when at a disadvantage).  If the PCs have a really, really good plan, maybe they learn some cool new tricks for their own use later, and if they can compel the right aspects they might be able to keep the person in one place long enough to take them down...but it should feel like a hell of an accomplishment, and PC's should end the fight feeling like the dog that caught the wildcat...

[solbergb]

The trick is to teach them to tie the noose around their necks themselves. Once you've got that figured out, it's a smooth ride.

A long time ago, I ran a Traveller campaign, and there was a little book of adventure seeds.  One went something like this "while leaving the planet the PCs are framed for smuggling and release is contingent on infiltrating local pirates...."

Well...my PC's had in FACT smuggled stuff onto the planet and were trying to smuggle more stuff out.  Frame them hell.  They were guilty    Some plot hooks are easier than others.

[Theogony_IX]

Nice!

My Kemmlerite is of the Corpsetaker persuasion, so he switches bodies.  Where the story stands right now, he has taken the body of a local minor talent who is a trustable old lady who appears to have some kind of motherly relationship with the gang of teenagers the Kemmlerite is using to distract the cops.  My wizard PC has just arrived at her home without his companions there to back him up.  When they sit down to talk, the old lady will weave this story web of how The Day of the Dead is this big countries-wide ritual to hold the power of Death at bay from the world, and she is versed in combating this power.  The same power that has been popping up at ritual locations around Las Vegas binding spirits and moving them forcibly around Las Vegas.  She will offer to teach him how to combat this power, but really she is going to teach him how to access it, and while he's deep in concentration, attempt to take a drop of blood from him (success, one of the other PC's will tell him after the fact that he has a nose-bleed; if failed, he will notice the nose-bleed right away before the lady can take any).

With successfully taking the blood, the Kemmlerite will set up a spell to disable the wizard.  At the same time the Red Court will send some ghouls to attack the other PCs.  The spell the Kemmlerite manufactures will have two ways out:  An extremely successful endurance roll (rare), or a magical defense only if using the power of Death to bolster the spell (an easier path to escape).  Having willfully accessed the power of Death, and me compelling the PC's aspects "the temptation of power" and "to the rescue," I should be able to put enough pressure on him to really make him feel like he's tipping over the edge.  I figure, sprinkle in a couple innocents that need rescuing, and maybe a Senator Palpatine speech at some point, and I might be able to get him to devour a spirit or two . . . with the best of intentions.  (Oooh, maybe I should have him attempt to kidnap one of the other PCs so they need to be rescued in order to really put the pressure on.  Maybe have that happen in the same scene with the ghouls.)

The Red Court Noble is a little trickier.  He's new to his position and fairly brash due to thinking he has something to prove.  His attempt to gain the Fist of Yahweh as a tool is more an action of opportunity rather than a well thought out plot like the Kemmlerite's.  He's got a two pronged attack on the will of the Fist of Yahweh.  The Fist has a reputation for being somewhat impure being into gambling and girls (the setting is Las Vegas).  The character he wanted to build was one that really struggled to remain on the path of righteousness.  My thought was to have him use ghouls to harry the group, but have a pair of Red Court throw in on the fight when the Fist needs them to make an alliance seem really appealing.  Then, when the Fist goes down to the strip club to either investigate these actions of confront whoever is doing this in the Red Court, use his penchant for weaknesses of the flesh to get him alone with a stripper and a healthy dose of Red Court venom into his system.  Being that he isn't living righteously, I think his faith would do little to protect him.  If he avoids the fleshly temptation, then maybe he can be talked into an alliance after seeing how helping a couple Reds can be as back-up.

What do you guys think?  What might you add or remove?

[solbergb]

Ok.  Your Kemmlerite needs to be in the room with the WC wizard to get the maximum payoff (blood).  If you're a body switcher, the obvious last ditch escape plan is to have another person within line of sight when you take the big risk, or  hell, better, have their hair or something which lets you switch when they aren't even in the room. 

If the WC wizard reacts badly to the attempt to get blood, and it looks like he'll do something you can't easily talk yourself out of or escape by other means. swap with the other body, while he's threatening/interrogating the poor schmuck that is now inside your former body.

Totally in character, totally fair.  If you escape by more normal means (talking your way out, physically escaping, winning a throwdown) fine and good, but if the wizard gets the better of you, his big reward is learning that you're a body-switcher, assuming he doesn't just kill the poor schmuck you swapped with (he probably won't, as you are mortal too, hence lawbreaker but he could have a gun or knife or something).

So you've got 3 conditions, all interesting.  1, you get the blood and Plan A is in operation, 2, you don't but manage to escape via physical or social talents that don't give anything away, and maybe pushed him into a little necromancy trying to stop you 3, you are forced to resort to your emergency body-swap spell (preferably done as an enchanted item or potion to make it nearly impossible to prevent without foreknowledge of such a power) and he learns you can DO that.  So now he knows if he really wants to stop you he'll have to have to shut that down...which again might tempt him into necromancy as an obvious counter.  Plus he has to be paranoid about anyone he encounters, because it might be you.

Plus a bunch of other options where he ends up willingly going to the dark side and working with your necromancer, just cause he wants the power or is convinced via social interaction.

[solbergb]

  Being that he isn't living righteously, I think his faith would do little to protect him. 

Yeah, that's a pretty good approach to work around the faith protection.  Gives him a nice out too, he can overcome the addiction later by living more righteously and having the holy burn it out of his system (or at least start the road to recovery from any consequences).

I think the basic approach of putting as many ways to get venom around him WITHOUT throwing down against him is sound.  Preserves the resources of the Red Noble, gets him used to thinking of Reds as allies, etc, which should open a lot of opportunities for eventual addiction if the first attempt doesn't succeed.  A RC Noble is long lived, patience is going to be in the mix - even a "brash young lord" is probably a few hundred years old and "needs to prove something in a hurry" is still likely measured in months or years, not hours or days.

Ghouls are a good counterpoint to the two mastermind types, gives some straightforward opposition to burn off tension or frustration.   

Only risk  I see is that with so much attention given to these two characters, the rest of the PCs better be given something pretty cool to do in the ghoul fight, something that pushes their buttons, to share the spotlight and such around, and to distract from the more subtle maneuvering.

[Theogony_IX]

Good point about the RC noble.  I'll keep that in mind with how he reacts to whatever happens in this scenario. 

And the body switch to escape plan sounds fantastic.  I'll add something like that in.  Outcome 1 and 3 sound like the greatest amount of drama, so I'll probably skew in favor of those two outcomes.

I've got one PC who's new to the campaign, and I haven't figured out how to include him yet.  He's the (now) evothaum sorcerer.  I'll have to see what aspects he chooses to fit him into the plot.  I'm worried it might be difficult, so I'll keep your suggestions in mind and give his character many opportunities to shine.

The last PC, the minor talent cop, went off the rails.  I don't think I'll have to worry about him feeling included.  I was originally thinking he would have to deal with some internal conflict, struggling between watching his friends succumb to their darker nature if he clings to his "loner" and "sole survivor" aspects, and wanting to get involved to keep them on the light side of the force.

Instead he killed a teenage gang member in our first session while he was MIA when he was supposed to be on duty.  Now internal affairs is involved in his life.  He then goes to a "gray arts" practitioner to get the evidence in his car (which held the body) cleaned up.  While he's there, he can't afford the cost of the wizard's services so he offers hair from the Fist of Yahweh in payment.  On his way out he steals a grimoire from the dark wizard and narrates it in a way that there is no way the the wizard won't notice shortly after.  So now, not only is IA on his tail, but now a dark wizard has a score to settle with him.  He's definitely my most entertaining character.

I have plans to have the dark wizard track him down, hide behind a veil to ambush him, block his friends from interfering and having a stone hunter demon grapple him into immobility so the dark wizard can search him for the Fist's hair he's holding in his pocket, and take some of his hair as well as a threat to hold over him. Where it goes from there, I haven't decided, but I'm thinking it's a good opportunity to create some tension he has to deal with before the big event at the haunted theatre.

[Starjammer]

All of the above is good stuff - nah, more than that, it's gold.

However, I'm going to play devil's advocate and offer the cautionary counterpoint here, just as a reminder.  As a GM, it's not your job to "win" the game, it's your job to provide an entertaining game for your players.  Intricate plotting and dramatic reversals are all very good, if that's what your players go for.

I speak from experience:  If your players aren't up for this kind of game it's possible to intrigue yourself right out of a campaign.  If you stack the deck too heavily against your players or short-circuit their options, they may resent it.  If you stack the deck too heavily against them and then have to give them an obvious out to preserve them, it makes them feel powerless to affect the outcome.

So the other important question to ask yourself when making these intricate plots is:  How do I see my PCs getting out of this one?  Long-lived intelligent bad guys are great plotters but they tend to be rigid or arrogant.  (That's what makes Nicodemus the most dangerous villain, the fact that he's not.)  Powerful bad guys tend to lean too much on their power; shut it down and they have to scramble.  Bad guys with an agenda tend to think solely in terms of that agenda or they have a psychological soft spot that the agenda is designed to compensate for.  You don't have to plan the heroes' victory for them (they won't follow that plan in any case) but you do have to make sure that there are holes in the bad guys' operations.

Your original problem was that you let the PCs steamroll you - and that is a genuine problem.  Just make sure the pendulum doesn't swing too far in the opposite direction.  I'm going to reiterate: As a GM, it's not your job to "win" the game, it's your job to provide an entertaining game for your players.

[solbergb]

The goal is to make all options entertaining, success or failure.  Failure just leads to deeper stories.

The problem in a game like DFRPG is that the opposition ranges from a plain, ordinary thug or police or bystander who doesn't understand to literal gods.

It's a thing in this series, a lot of why the stories are entertaining, to have opposition, older, wiser, more powerful and beat them anyway.  But you don't get that level of satisfaction without earning it.   Cowl isn't Cowl because he scared Harry the first time he met.  He's Cowl because Harry foiled his plans and every time they've met again, Cowl's avoided direct confrontation and STILL nearly killed Harry, plus accomplished something, even if not his primary goals.   Marcone's picked a different arc.  Mavra a third.  Nicodemus a fourth.

The sign you are on the right track is when players are emotionally engaged in the bad guy.  Marcone's become a frenemy, a much more interesting outcome than Harry blasting him to ash after he "lost" a soulgaze in the first book.  Harry never got Cowl, but Cowl's so badass that his "minions" are all at about Harry's weight, so he got the satisfaction of getting the other Kemmlerites the first time, the White Court (cripes, most of its leadership) the second time and Peabody the third time.   Mavra's an example where the GM maybe pushed it too far, and having her permanently exit the game in favor of the Nickleheads was a good move.  There was no way to make Mavra's conflict more interesting, Harry's final threat was convincing - it was the player saying he'd make a campaign altering move, possibly ending move, if he saw her again, just to kill her.   The Denarians, by contrast, again have tiers of opposition - we go from merely foiling the plan and defeating one of the minions to pretty much wiping out all of the second tier and perma-killing one or two of their most dangerous human hosts to, well, spoilers.   That story isn't over, and it looks like it may be Michael's story more than Harry's anyway.

This is why I wanted the corpse-swap trick to be an important plot point.  The PC's have advanced against the Kemmlerite in an important way when they force that tactic.  It's a reveal as big as when Cowl and the ghouls got called in, or when Peabody was revealed at the trial.  Changes the whole nature of the conflict, so the players should feel some accomplishment even if the big bad gets away to return someday....even gives  them some hooks on how to go after the Kemmlerite instead of just reacting.

The Red Court plot, by contrast, is an attempt to set up a Marcone-like situation with a side of venom addiction.  Since the path to freedom is clear (live a righteous life) and that's a primary conflict of the character, the player signed up for this kind of plot (just as the White Council player with a temptation of power trouble signed up to be tempted and manipulated by his desires, much as Harry was).

You can do a whole story or campaign without super-competent opposition.  But if you're going to bring in the nobility of the Red or White courts, black court that are old enough to have survived the purges, first generation Kemmler disciples, or non-thug Denarians, your players are going to EXPECT them to be super-competent and be just as let down if behave like a street-corner thug in planning and preparation.  The primary difference between a recurring villain and one that's just there to show how awesome the PC's are and is forgotten the next day is the former knows when to concede or retreat, and does it MUCH earlier.  Give PCs enough time in a fight and they'll win.  Also in DFRPG, losing isn't what it is in other games.  If you miscalculate and your super-competent NPC wins, presumably the PCs were formidable enough to earn respect and then you go with the recruitment offers, or the using them as bait to draw in others, etc, something that furthers the story.     

Hell, losing is a heck of a way to learn about the opposition.  DFRPG greatly supports that trope, if the player's ok with bad things happening to his character before being rescued or escaping somehow.  Seriously, Harry's player has a very strong stomach for that, more than most people.   The game won't work as well if PC's aren't willing to concede sometimes, and GMs are encouraged to show the way by having their bad guys concede, to show it isn't the end of the world.

[solbergb]

So the other important question to ask yourself when making these intricate plots is:  How do I see my PCs getting out of this one?

Have some options but really, my experience is most PC groups will surprise you.  The trick is to go with it.  That's why I keep harping on "have some strategies of general use" for your competent bad guys.  They'll use something that clearly would work under most circumstances but maybe the PC's did something strange and it's less effective, so they then panic and do something else even more dramatic etc....if the PC's really do out-clever the situation, then they win of course.  Concede or accept destruction if you miscalculate, get taken out and they call for death.  (see Corpsetaker...at least until Ghost Story)

If your PC's have a bad encounter where the players (as opposed to characters) are frustrated, then it's important to change tone while you figure out what happened.  That's one reason I like the ghouls as secondary opposition, and red court trying to "team up" vs a third party...they give some easier, more straightforward physical conflicts for players to feel good about when they show off and win, after maybe getting dinged up a bit.

If your players (or a specific player) don't react well when faced with competent, super-smart opposition, fade that out of the campaign as a primary threat, or keep the focus of such threats on the PCs that are having fun with it.   You want to give the Players what they asked for.  DFRPG/Fate is unusually good about signaling what kind of story they want with their aspects.   Seriously, if they turn out to not like "temptation of power" when they experience it in play they can signal that by changing aspects on an upcoming milestone, or can talk to you about what they meant when they wrote it down if they were expecting something more like "being powerful and being tempted to misuse it" instead of "being offered power in a variety of ways tough to turn down" so you can shift focus.

[Theogony_IX]

That's actually a really good counterpoint, Starjammer.  I should include some general operating flaw in some of my antagonists, a fatal flaw as it were.  Maybe turn it into an aspect that can be assessed, but only in the right situations.  Or give them a standard operating procedure in most circumstances that reveal a pattern of behavior.  A couple of my players are gamers at heart and having a system they can game will make them feel competent.  I can then up the difficulty by better hiding this pattern of behavior/fatal flaw, or have them team up with other villains that have complimentary strengths.  Then, to avoid the game becoming stale, have some antagonists that are rather chaotic in their behavior, but aren't as intelligent.  I probably need to create something of spectrum for my antagonists and place them accordingly.

So if I'm hearing you correctly, solbergb, my NPCs successes or failures should almost always give my PCs an opportunity to gather more information and dig deeper into the story.  Successes move the story toward the NPCs final goals which should provide clues to follow that clever PCs can use to get in the way and create failures for the NPCs.  Failures should reveal deeper insight into the NPC and how they operate.  I.e. it's easy to stay cool when all is going according to plan, but how you react when your plans are going to hell says something about you.  Are there other ways to set this up so that my NPCs actions are helping to feed the story?

To get my players emotionally involved it sounds like I need to have my NPCs press my PCs in places that are personal.  Mavra goes after Murphy, Bianca goes after the an innocent Harry agreed to protect and also attempts to destroy the Sword of the Cross Harry's actions lost, Nicodemus goes after Ivy.

Thinking about this also made me realize I need another set of spectrums (spectrii? spectra? yeah, spectra) for my bad guys: the morally reprehensible axis and the scary axis.  I say morally reprehensible axis as opposed to the moral axis because all bad guys are morally reprehensible even if to themselves they are completely justified.  The scary axis is how easily they can kill you with simple overt force should they ever want to.

I should rename this thread GMing 101.

[solbergb]

Fate really emphasizes this more than most systems but yeah.  What you want is INTERESTING outcomes.

If your scene is solid and grows the story whether your bad guy wins or loses it's easy to just let what happens, happen.

In a d20 type game, a miscalculated combat encounter can end the campaign with a TPK...and going soft on the wrong group in a tough encounter to prevent that can destroy the trust and cheapen their victories.   Warts and all, Fate systems don't have that problem, as long as players have the sense to concede or the GM can find a reason why the enemy wouldn't simply always use "die" as a take out result.

The challenge in Fate is to make those concessions believable, and more importantly, interesting.  If things really go sideways, it is perfectly ok to ask for a time out while you think things through and look for inspiration.   The thing with the killed gang member, body concealment, too broke to pay for the magic etc is a good example of that kind of improvisation...the player dug himself deeper and deeper and it just got more fun, and left the GM with lots of future story opportunities to pull in whenever he needs a dramatic shift somewhere.