You know, it's kind of interesting that a common piece of RPG advice I've heard is "show your players the barrel of the gun", meaning that you should showcase the threat they might face if they fail, whereas the classic piece of writing advice is "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off."
Just, I don't know, strange that a satisfying story in an RPG might be seeing that "gun" and avoiding it entirely, versus common wisdom in storytelling saying that showcasing the "gun" and not having it actually do anything would be unsatisfying. Hazards of having your main characters also be your audience, I suppose?
