Daphne pulled off her headset and leaned back in her chair with a groan.

Elliot peeked out from his cubicle. “Long day?”

“You ever have a quest line go completely off the rails?”

“I thought your necromancer quest was going well.”

“It was! But, the necromancer wasn’t actually supposed to be able to revive his girlfriend,” Daphne complained. “The ritual wouldn’t have worked, but this paladin stepped in and gave him an ally buff. Gave him the juice he needed to pull it off.”

Elliot laughed. “That’s what’s great about the game, though. The players have enough agency to change the story you’re trying to tell.”

“I guess. It’s still frustrating to be on this side of it.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“I don’t know. I had something similar happen today. Remember I told you that the dungeons I programmed were getting erased from the map?”

“Yeah, you sent some player off to find out why.”

“Turns out it was an NPC getting into the dungeon core and pulling out the mana roots. So I tell her to make him stop, and I figure she’s going to kill him, right?”

“Right…”

“Wrong. She becomes his best friend and convinces him to go around doing party quests with her instead of dungeons.”

Daphne gaped. “Can they do that? Party together?”

“Sure,” Elliot shrugged. “The programming is the same, except the NPC doesn’t get a minimap to show where the other party members are. It doesn’t happen very often though, because when an NPC dies outside of their home area, they get deleted for good. Players don’t like it when their teammates can’t respawn.”

“Huh. I see what you’re saying though. She didn’t do what you expected, but still technically accomplished the goal.”

“Right. No harm, no foul. And it’s fun to be surprised when they get creative like that.”

“So… Are you going to tell Craig about it?”

“About my successful quest that doesn’t need intervention? Definitely not.”

Daphne grinned. “Yeah. Me neither.”