The setup and the payoff

We just watched the Harry Potter films on TV over a week. It's weird seeing the progression from whimsy to gloom in a matter of days rather than years. (The last two-parter is about 35% beautiful shots of people in dark clothing standing alone under leaden grey skies. It looks lovely, in a strange Ingmar Bergman way.)

And there are plenty of rousing moments of characters returning, stepping up and joining the fight.

And there are also at least two characters who pop up from out of nowhere even in the last one. Dumbledore's brother arrives a bit late to seem fair. And we could have been introduced to the two-scene magic burglar earlier as well.

So the stuff that's set up is great. The stuff that isn't... isn't.

I'm sure some of it comes from writing the books one a year with gaps, just like the tone (as well as the average length) changes drastically as it goes along.

As a Storyteller or GM, there's only so much groundwork you can lay when the players are moving in various unexpected directions. It's why my mysteries tend not to be very mysterious, or very long. I generally manage to sketch out some NPC conspiracies and enmities for overarching plots, but what they're up to might be pretty minor. Also, I tend to work in more of an episodic TV manner, with each session largely a small story and maybe a bit of an arc rather than planning a serial saga with a big smash-all-the-sets finale. Might be fun to try...