but, at the very least, I can definitely say that the "you need to be subtle and you can't blow your cover" thing won't last for........ too much longer. Relatively soon in this campaign the gloves will come off and I think the tone from that point on will be more natural for these 4 PCs
also in Act 1 & 2 i did try my best to inject some sidequests with "basically just go to this area and fight stuff" objectives. neither Blackblood Cay nor the Cult of the Eye were in my original outline for Act 1/2 at all lol so I'm sure that'll happen again in Acts 3 and 4 at some point 🤔
i mean it's not like the spy elements have been too much either. mostly because our version of subtle is kicking in the front door.
we're about to hit Peak Spy in the next arc 🤔 I'm thinking a lot about how exactly to run it so it doesn't just become 4 bored pirates going from conversation to conversation but I think I'm working through it and have some cool ideas now