GM looking for advice on current fantasy game.

[Halaku]

First a bit of back story.

I'm currently running a fantasy game where the player characters liberated a town from the bad guy who had been controlling it and the underground town that the party had grown up in for the last 50 years. They did this by exposing his deceptions to the people and liberating their Masters from his dungeon (The PC were apprentices under masters of their classes)

They have had a few small adventures in the surrounding area and have found out that a local orc tribe is massing for an attack on the town, their Masters sent them off to get aid from the nearby Dwarven king while they orginise the defence.
They are currently rushing back with the Dwarven forces to aid the town.

My dilema is do I have them be too late, do I have the town destroyed and if I do are their loved ones captured or killed?

On the one hand the town is a good base of opperation, on the other hand it may prompt them to head out to explore more of the world.

Advice would be most welcome.

[damned]

Has the town become boring for you?
Has it become stale for the players?

If not then dont worry about them continuing to build their story around the town.
There are many things that could happen.

The orcs may ambush your rescue column.
The orcs may have met stiff resistance from the town folk.
The orcs might have looted and left.
They might have put their hobnailed boots up and taken over as the new masters.

Dont force the story away from the town if you are all enjoying it.
If you are not enjoying it have important people kidnapped and taken away.
Keep the kidnappers one step ahead in a merry chase through whatever madness and mayhem you might like to place in the parties path.
Leave the occasional taunt for the players... a lock of hair, a bloodied favourite shirt, a severed small finger...

[Zacchaeus]

Getting the players to go out and explore is easy enough if you give them quests which encourages then to do so; and if they are following a quest line you have some control over events and how they pan out. If you destroy the ton they might have no clue what to do next and worse they might set off somewhere that you haven't prepared. So I would save the town and keep it as a base.

As usual damned has come up with some cracking ideas too, so I would also observe what he has to say closely.

[Topdecker]

Showing up late for a battle kinda sucks. Realistic - probably. Fun - nah, not unless you are using it to pump up a villian of some sort. Doing some damage to the town while extolling the evil of a some appropriately villainous foe that seized something of importance from a small temple - yeah, that sounds like a tale worth being a part of...

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[Halaku]

Thanks for the advice guys, I think I am going to keep the town around, how much damage is done to it I think I will leave up to player actions.
So I plan to have several orc scouts watching the road to warn of anyone aproaching the rear of the orc army, if the players spot them and don't let them get away then I'll have the Dwarves catch the orc force unawares otherwise the orcs will be ready for them.

[damned]

Pitched battles between large forces can be hard to role play...

[Halaku]

yeah I'm going to have the battle as scenery more than anything else I think, Have the players take out a mage on a hill overlooking the battle, sneak behind enemy lines and disable artillery stuff like that.

[Myrdin Potter]

I typically break out a few set scenes and have the players fight them only while giving them the story of what is happening in the bigger battle. I change the end part of the battle depending on what the players do.

Generally, I avoid a losing battle that cannot be rescued by player action unless with my one group that I have played with forever that trust me to have good story reasons.