You've read all three installments
of the Strategic Gamemastering posts, and you're telling yourself that while
the method certainly could work for one-shot scenarios with strongly divergent
characters, you are still in doubt that the THACO tool could manage the several
pre-written adventures, modules or 50-scenario campaign that you have bought
for your favorite game.
Your main issue is that if, in accordance to the process described in
Part 3
of Strategic Gamemastering, you decompose a single scenario into its base
components and enter them into the THACO for subsequent exploitation, the
player-characters will enter the scenario in a manner certainly consistent with
their own objectives or background, but probably not in the manner envisioned
by the scenario author but by each following their own creative agendas.
Since player-characters will be entering the narrative threads of the
scenario in an uncontrollable and unpredictable manner, there is also a
definite possibility that the scenario will unfold in a manner wildly different
from the author-driven narrative direction. This, of course, implies a massive
uncertainty as to whether the ending of the scenario will match the beginning
of the next campaign scenario as envisioned by the campaign designers !
These reservations are quite legitimate. However, the Strategic
Gamemastering method also provides for long-winded campaigns and even follow-up
campaigns. This post will show you how.