Freedom / player's choice vs storyline

[RobbyPants]

The trick is to not play it completely by ear. You have to give yourself hard guidelines for monster spawns. Sticking with only outsiders when you're on the planes is a smart move to maintain cohesion. Using only undead for a Tomb-crawl is an other type of smart move.

What? You don't want to do this:

[Xenologer]

This is why I actually swore off of playing through any module with any GM for years. I had had too many GMs that thought of the PCs as spectators for their plot rather than participants in it, because after all! The plot's already been written. It's going to end the way it's going to end, even if that means things happen that make no sense.

For example, one time we had an NPC stab us in the backs, and we didn't know how or why they'd done it. I ended up reading that module later, and it turns out the NPC is "supposed" to use key super-secret information that we were actually too smart to give them. Rather than say that betrayal didn't happen or that it happened for a different reason, it just happened anyway and we were left speculating IC and OOC as to how.

My worst experiences with this have been with printed plot hooks that the GM didn't seem to realize were not full plots, because then we get all the nasty module pitfalls (which I understand are not universals) plus the extra bonus fun of there not being a larger plot at all. We'd get dragged along to... nothing. That part where the GM is supposed to say, "Okay, I used this shortcut to get the PCs together. Now I will give them my full attention!" just didn't ever happen.

In retrospect, that might have been for the best, because at least it meant the campaigns ended sooner.

I've been in railroady games that I enjoyed, but that's because the rails were--as fectin mentioned--of the "string of legit plot hooks that the individual characters will care about" variety. I don't have much trust in plot hooks or modules that were written before the GM even knew who the PCs were going to be. I end up feeling like I might as well not be there at all, except maybe to save the GM the effort of writing one more NPC.

[tzor]

(minus my character because dwarves and swimming ... not a good idea)

What is this, LOTR? Not every dwarf is Gimli in full plate.

No, but he was a fighter ... this was a 2E game ... and he was well armored becasue he could be ... and he didn't have any swimming skills.

[mean_liar]

My typical MisterCaverning plan is to write up a metaplot mindmap that spans 20 levels with multiple key plot points along the way (say every 2-3 levels), and then wing it to fill gaps.

The personal setting we play in when I run is unpolished and kitchen sink-y enough for me AND the players to have plenty of bullshitting room to make up whatever we need to make those jumps between major plot points as smooth, PC or metaplot centric as the group feels like in the moment.

The plot points themselves are mapped pretty well as the group encounters them (to save me the effort of levels 8+ in most games ), zooming in with building layouts and key NPC and minion builds as well as the mini points central to that major plot point, again allowing bullshitting insofar as it meanders its way through those minipoints.

In the end the campaign is a weave of player-driven actions that I couldn't account for which become, in essence, MisterCavern-post-facto-approved "just so" narratives to link major plot points, as well as the GM-supplied plot links for when the players wanted to sit back and let me do the heavy steering for a while. It's working very well and I'm quite proud of it, and the players all seem very satisfied.

[JonSetanta]

No, but he was a fighter ... this was a 2E game ... and he was well armored becasue he could be ... and he didn't have any swimming skills.

Ah. AD&D. Back when your PC can't even wipe their ass unless they have the specific Non-weapon Proficiency to do so.

[tzor]

No, but he was a fighter ... this was a 2E game ... and he was well armored becasue he could be ... and he didn't have any swimming skills.

Ah. AD&D. Back when your PC can't even wipe their ass unless they have the specific Non-weapon Proficiency to do so.

Which was an improvement over 1E AD&D where he didn't even have a non weapon proficiency to begin with.

I had quite a liberal DM at the time; there was a point where he could have become a paladin ... but he would have had to give up his weapon specializations ... so he declined.

[RobbyPants]

Well yeah. Weapons specialization meant something back then!

[Princess]

I'm sandbox one. My impact to the game is to make the beginning of the story (just because most of times my players don't tend to seek troubles on themselves), to write a decent house rules and to model the events after PC actions. Couple of times I had problem when players felt being lost in fog not knowing what to do, one campaign ended abruptly because of this, on other game I said "guys, you do nothing, do you need train or what?" and we barely made through this.
Once I had grand conflict with two new players when they failed a quest. By failed I mean failed, there was no TPK with being raped by 25-inch dick. Their chars was perfectly alive, paid and level up-ed but they raged and the core of their discomfort was "where the fuck our rails?" (although they never said so directly because it is trendy to hate rails and railroading here, but rarely someone give players any freedom beside roleplaying their insignificant chats).

My interest of being DM is to watch what would players do (and by this I mean actual deeds and decisions, not "roleplay your chat and get on the train"), so I cannot understand DMs who just want to tell their own story (which sucks 95% of time).
I play rarely but usually prefer sandbox mode, or at least when storyline have enough spare time for my char own activities.

[TheFlatline]

Most groups are going to find an equilibrium point naturally. Bad DMs and really lazy players will destroy this equilibrium however by expecting RPGs to function fundamentally differently than they do in that particular group, and wanting to force everyone else to their style of play.