>
> DM's should not plot the elevation or demise of their PC's with
storylines,
> they should develope external events which will be obstacles for their
> players. Players must always have their own success or failure in their
> hands. . . Stuff happens elsewhere, and sometimes this stuff impacts
> the players.
>
Fine points. And your previous message had some good points, too. But it
can be overdone ("I have everything that will happen to the player scripted
out at least two years in advance, and he'll get his oportunity to conduct
a Rule Action when I deem it appropriate, not sooner, not later.") Say you
have a plotline in mind where a neighboring ruler is kidnapped, and this
leaks out to the player (say he has spys in the other dude's court) dispite
the best efforts of the kidnapee's staff to keep it under wraps while they
send an (NPC) adventure party to rescue their captive lord (and/or arrange
a ransom).
You, as DM, have in mind that the party sent by the abductee's minions
will fail, and that as a result the kidnappers will just pocket the ransom
when it is payed but not release their captive. You expect that the player
will organize the "real" rescue mission. . .but the player surprises you,
and instead of leading a heroic rescue mission, his response is to take
advantage of the situation to grab a border province from his sometime ally
and neighbor (a province which, lets say, had been disputed between them in
the past but presumably all that was put behind them when they developed
closer relations, and you didn't think the player would take this tack
now).
Two ways the DM could respond: he could think to himself "perfidious
player, how dare you upset what I had in mind. You will pay, your armies
will be defeated by whatever means I can come up with." Or he could think
to himself "well, that's a fine mess, interesting choice. Of course I just
sent that dude's best men off on a rescue mission so now his armies are
leaderless." And go from there.
In the first case, the player would be "suitable chastened" and put back
on the "right track" ("after you're armies are defeated and you are
captured, the lord's steward agrees to free you if you liberate his lord
from captivity. Until then he'll hold your troops as hostages, and have
them killed if you betray him." Thus the adventure is "back on track". In
the other instance, the player's forces might succeed in capturing the
province, a deal *might* be worked out whereby he'll agree to undertake the
rescue mission in exchange for recognition of the new borders. OR the DM
might have to just decide something else happens, because the player isn't
interested in freeing the captive lord. What happens next will then be at
varience with what the DM assumed would occur. . .)
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