För att citera HP: MoR :
"You wouldn't go along with that and neither would I," said Harry.
"This is our world, we don't want to break it. But imagine, say,
Lucius thought the Conspiracy was your tool and you were on his side,
Dumbledore thought the Conspiracy was my tool and I was on his side,
Lucius thought that you'd turned me and Dumbledore believed the
Conspiracy was mine, Dumbledore thought that I'd turned you and Lucius
believed the Conspiracy was yours, and so they both helped us out but
only in ways that the other one wouldn't notice."
Draco did not have to fake being speechless.
Father had once taken him to see a play called The Tragedy of Light,
about this incredibly clever Slytherin named Light who'd set out to
purify the world of evil using an ancient ring that could kill anyone
whose name and face he knew, and who'd been opposed by another
incredibly clever Slytherin, a villain named Lawliet, who'd worn a
disguise to conceal his true face; and Draco had shouted and cheered
at all the right parts, especially in the middle; and then the play
had ended sadly and Draco had been hugely disappointed and Father had
gently pointed out that the word 'Tragedy' was right there in the
title.
Afterward, Father had asked Draco if he understood why they had gone
to see this play.
Draco had said it was to teach him to be as cunning as Light and
Lawliet when he grew up.
Father had said that Draco couldn't possibly be more wrong, and
pointed out that while Lawliet had cleverly concealed his face there
had been no good reason for him to tell Light his name. Father had
then gone on to demolish almost every part of the play, while Draco
listened with his eyes growing wider and wider. And Father had
finished by saying that plays like this were always unrealistic,
because if the playwright had known what someone actually as smart as
Light would actually do, the playwright would have tried to take over
the world himself instead of just writing plays about it.
That was when Father had told Draco about the Rule of Three, which was
that any plot which required more than three different things to
happen would never work in real life.
Father had further explained that since only a fool would attempt a
plot that was as complicated as possible, the real limit was two.
Hur du undviker plotthål är att ha mycket enkla planer. För att vara rättvis behöver dessa planer inte vara enkla, men de behöver inte ha mer än två saker "gå till höger". (I övrigt planerar identifiering av dessa avgörande punkter att göra bra tillfällen för PC-engagemang.) Planer som du formulerade i din fråga planerar "Steg 1, Steg 2, Steg 3", så tänkta av behöriga militära strateger, eftersom de bryter ner och är sårbara till stunder av kyllogik. Som fiender är benägna att tänka på dina planer på ett helt annat sätt ... gör dem inte för komplexa.
Istället fokuserar på logistik. De två stegen behöver inte vara enkla, men genom att räkna ut det logistikspår som behövs för att åstadkomma dem, har du all din "utarbetande" och komplexitet som går för att stödja två och bara två saker.
Skriv inte vad som kommer att passera från en "skriv historia" -synpunkten. I stället ge dina NPCs avsikter som kommer att forma sina handlingar. Genom att ge dem avsikter men utan att låsa dem i steg 1, steg 2, steg 3 planerar du att låta världen resonera till spelarens val och olyckor.
Som en extra anteckning, använd PC-fängelse mycket sparsamt. Det är i allmänhet inte roligt och mycket svårt att sätta upp utan att vara tunghänt om det.