Changing Courses in the Alternity-verse....

[gwendolyngrace]

Aliethen asked:
Can you give us a sense of (a few of the) plots which were surprises but worked really well in the end? For example I always had the impression that Terry/Hermione was supposed to be endgame at first but Draco/Hermione ended up evolving organically...was I right? (Was it even known at first that Draco would be in the Order in the end?) Did you always know Harry and Neville would die?


I felt like that sort of thing deserves its own thread, so here. Discuss!

Comments

[gwendolyngrace]

A lot of times we postponed things, because we knew "x will probably die" but we wanted to wait for the right circumstances and to make sure we could lose the character (and wouldn't need them later). Some characters probably should have died {edit:] at certain points in the action but players wanted them protected, so we figured out how to avoid getting them killed.

Toward the end, when we were gearing up for the Battle for Hogwarts, we asked players to think carefully about which characters they would be willing to risk, and then, too, what endings they saw as being suitable for their characters. We also asked what they definitely would not want to have happen, and what they could live with if it had to happen to satisfy part of the story. We used those thoughts to help figure out ways to protect characters who weren't supposed to die and to explain what might happen to those who were potentially (or definitely) on the chopping block.