How do I pull off a "Precognitive plot power actually sticks

>>49263766
The letter of the prediction is vague as fuck.

>>49263766
Keep it vague enough that there's multiple possible ways of fulfilling the letter of the prophecy. Prepare each option and apply the one players get nearest to.

Nightmare mode: Give players the message, then ignore the prophecy entirely, prepare nothing. Good moment to apply it will come naturally, you'll know it when it comes, then just wing it.

>>49263766
Precog sees what COULD happen, not what will happen.

Introduce all the prophecies you want, then completely ignore them.

>>49263766
Only tangentially related, but maybe look up the goblin punch article on prophecy, it makes for good reading regarding implementation of prophecy in fantasy games.
I tried to link it but the spam filter stopped me

>>49263766
>Pic unrelated and definitely not virt
That's exactly what virt would say! What will we see if we pull off your mask, hmmm?

>>49264273

everything would be extremely painful

>>49263766
Make the prophecy say what won't happen. Then the players must try to get around it Like eowyn did when killing the witch king. Don't know if it's any good advice but I can imagine figuring out loopholes in prophecy being pretty fun.

>>49263766

I'm fond of "the character knows, the player doesn't" powers.

One example is the spell "Darkwater Oracle", from one of Reign's splat-books. When you cast the spell, your character gets a vision of a future event. The GM doesn't tell them anything. The player doesn't think up anything. Nobody knows what it is, but everyone at the table understands that the *character* does.

Afterwards, the player can do things to prepare for it. They can spend money, or time, or call in favors, but they never say quite what it is they're preparing for. Some examples from the book are:

>"I go and spend money on things I'll need."
>"I give detailed instructions to twenty of my followers."

Again, nobody at the table actually knows what it is they're preparing for, but the character knows exactly what their vision was.

Then, at some point during the game, the player gets to go "This! This right here, this is what my vision was of!" and then they pull out the special piece of equipment they need (which is what they were spending that money on all along), or have their twenty followers pop out and ambush the bad guys (which is what those instructions were), etc.

The result is a character that is able to perfectly see the future, without any chance of error, and make preparations for it, without any chance of railroading.

>>49263784
^^^


This exactly. When you say something like, "the doom of the heroes will be heralded by a white raven," it could mean that a literal white raven will land somewhere and then it will be followed by rocks fall everyone dies.


Or it could mean a knight with a white raven Crest has beef with a party member and he's a badass, or some shady shit us going down and the white raven tavern.

or maybe there's an army who's general's standard is a white raven, or a white river leads the party to the army or
....


well you get the idea.


Another way to flex things is to interpret literals as metaphors where appropriate, like so and so's doom could be the thing that kills them, or just their arch nemesis, or an element they are weak to.


Another example would be something like, "and when blah blah blah blahs the white raven will die."


The general could be known as the white raven, but his death could be him dying, or him gaining a different title, etc.

>>49263766
Make it something the players *want* to come true.

So that they are VOLUNTARILY gaming the prophecy to try and make it occur.

You have thay shit happen anyway. Like everything in your games, the world is gonna keep turning. Future sight says a great wurm will devour an artifact and become crazy powerful? Well, your players decided to pick pocket the king and have spent the last month trying to break out of prison. Guess what they see when they exit? Yo7 can only fuck it up if you have it specific to a player action. Never ever try to predict a player action unless you ask them on the side to help you.

I think the story of the feminist derailing the campaign, and then getting stopped by an unchecked undead army spells it best.

>>49264283
That's a big assumption.

Give them only some of the factors involved as specifics of the prophecy. Let the player's actions determine the rest. For example, "an empire will crumble in flame and dust and tears ten years hence" - they know what will happen and when, but which empire, how/why it comes about, and where the key events will happen are not known. The players by their knowledge of and reaction to the prophecy will determine the actual outcome. Another example "the King of England's shame will be brought by an arrow of black". The players know the who and the what, but not when, where, or why.

Once you introduce a prophecy that cannot be averted, you force the story to have a defined critical point down the line. The story is no longer "what will happen?", but "how do we get from here to there?". Some players will respond well to that, and some won't.

In reality, you're basically letting them in on some of your plans. Some of the best DMing advice I've seen is to plan out content that can be slotting in when the players reach it organically. You're giving them foreknowledge of what you've planned, but they still get to choose how they engage it - just like they would have anyways, but they're less in the dark.

>>49263784
This. Prophecy is always fucking vague.

And just make sure that the results are the logical conclusions of storylines.

An example of this is ASOIAF. Grrm introduces a lot of prophecies and generally ignores them as being meaningful but they tend to come true. The key however is that they're kind of vague and when they come to fruition, they are at the natural ends of a characters storyline so it doesn't feel railroaded.

>>49267352
or it could be like some crazy albino beggar.

White Ravin'

>>49263784

This is the best answer.

See Odin Sphere for a good example.