Daniel (@dungeondive) opens session three by introducing a second oracle layer — Eric Bright’s Encounter Building Decks — and immediately uses the Decisions deck to interrogate the regulars about the cult. Reya’s connection to ruins in the wilderness becomes a dungeon-dive seed. A side-quest board built from Folklore: The Affliction’s Rumours deck yields a Layer of the Mother hook (a woodcutter’s family lost to the fae) for a future session.
Two scenes drive the Plundered Tribute plot forward. An investigation scene in Saleem’s church becomes a fight against four hell cultists pulled from the Red Tide sourcebook — sloppy dice rolls from both sides are played as Harlan trying not to break the stained glass. He wins, banks a second victory point and clue, then converts the clue into a conflict scene: a back-room search for a single page of stained leather (a plague incantation, rolled on Table Fables) that Harlan recovers but fails to identify cleanly, costing the cult a victory point in return.
The most useful takeaway is a craft note from commenter Fred Bernarski, repeated approvingly: set up situations, not plots. Stop scripting an entertaining narrative; drop the character into a charged scene and let dice and oracles do the writing.
Does the “situation, not plot” principle hold up for longer-form solo campaigns, or does the lack of a guiding plot eventually flatten the dramatic arc?