How should a GM handle refused plots

[ArchfiendBobbie]

I've actually been in the kind of situation where a GM forced a plot on us. In my case, my character was prophesied that the person she married would become the Herald of Pelor... and the villain we were trying to stop was a succubus sorcerer who was prophesied to gain great power if she married a holy-powered follower of Pelor. The GM's idea was that my character would marry this NPC queen who worshiped Pelor he kept forcing upon us, use the power gained from her buffing us, and defeat the succubus.

The GM didn't expect my character to resolve the issue at level 5 by proposing to the succubus.

Ultimately, it's better to just have multiple stories prepared. Prepare a few ahead of time, break one out if the one you want doesn't go through. Otherwise, you get weird things like a succubus ending up the Herald of Pelor just because the paladin's player proposed to her out of spite.

 

[Lanefan]

Trust me, forcing players to run on an adventure they actively don't want to be on is not a fun experience for the DM as well.

And I can say from dire experience it works the other way too, in two possible ways:

1. The players really latch on to a particular plot or story and are thus forcing the DM to run something in which she isn't interested, or has lost interest
2. Both the players and DM have lost interest in a particular plot or story that at one time held promise, but are now deep enough into it that in the fiction the characters for whatever reason have committed themselves to finishing it out (in other words, a situation where good character-consistent roleplay trumps player and-or DM interest - yes, this happens!)

The only real answer to both of these from the DM side is to treat it like pulling off a band-aid: grit your teeth, get on with it, and get it over with as soon as possible.

Lan-"ouch!"-efan

 

[der_kluge]

My experience with this sort of thing has usually been from the player's perspective, and I'm working with a fellow player to actively derail a very railroady kind of campaign.

I played a game many years ago, and the GM had a PhD in Psychology. He literally knew how to manipulate players into going exactly where he wanted them to, and it drove me and another player absolutely NUTS. Once we'd figured out how he was playing us, we'd specifically go out of our way to do things he wouldn't expect. I specifically remember my sorcerer diving in the water in the port of this town looking for random adventure just to avoid doing the thing he wanted us to do.

I would imagine that if you have players actively trying to avoid running the campaign you've set out for them, perhaps it's because you're railroading them along, and they're getting tired of it, or perhaps they're just tired of running in your campaign. Perhaps its best to take up a character sheet for a while and let someone else take over.

 

[S'mon]

2. Both the players and DM have lost interest in a particular plot or story that at one time held promise, but are now deep enough into it that in the fiction the characters for whatever reason have committed themselves to finishing it out (in other words, a situation where good character-consistent roleplay trumps player and-or DM interest - yes, this happens!)

The only real answer to both of these from the DM side is to treat it like pulling off a band-aid: grit your teeth, get on with it, and get it over with as soon as possible.

No. The real correct answer is "OK, three months later you defeat the Arch-Necromancer Bobby
McBoring at the Battle of Borington, restoring Cosmic Balance to the Lands of Dundee. In the aftermath of the Great War, many new opportunities beckon. It is the dawn of a New Age... What do you want to do now?"

ie: If it gets boring, skip it. You are never obliged to play boring stuff.

 

[3ArmSally]

I'm of a mind that if you're forcing a game down people's throats you're wrong. Whatever makes the most people have the most fun wins. I've had the luxury of being a city dweller so I can discard disruptive PC's when I run and abandon poor game masters when I play so my pragmatism may not be an option for you.

Although I firmly believe force feeding is bad you can still salvage your baby in a few ways.
-For plot-lines vital to a campaign, write them as a flow chart. When PC's ignore them they progress sending ripples and waves through the campaign until they have sufficient motivation to involve themselves. As incentive mounts motivation should follow, but let them goof off or pursue personal interests until then.
-For plot-lines that you just like. Save 'em for later, ask why the PC's didn't like it and try to build something from their critiques.
-For plot-lines inside of prepackaged adventures. Put a piece of sheet metal into a phone book and batter them about the head and neck leaving no bruises. (don't actually do this, but fantasize about it HARD). If they are trying to go seriously off script on something you bought or downloaded they are likely just being disruptive jerks. I've run into these before and it's not worth trying to appease or coerce players like this.

 

[Caliban]

I try to have a few different plotlines running, a few based on the character's backgrounds, and usually a somewhat apocalyptic plotline as the major theme of the campaign.

If they don't want to follow up on their own plotlines, no big deal. If they don't want to follow up on the major storyline...then as they go about their own adventures the world starts going to hell because they weren't there to stop the bad guys. Eventually they either step up, or it becomes a post-apocalypse game, or a "The Nazi's Won!" type of game for the next set of characters.

 

[Aenghus]

Thanks for all the replies, everyone! I deliberately didn't provide particular examples because I was interested in the general case and different perspectives on these problems and I find a specific example can lead to people obsessing about an isolated detail and ignore the general case.

Often the language of the statement of a problem propels readers to a particular solution, and to neglect consideration of other options. It's difficult to state problems in an accurate but neutral way that allows for the full possible range of solutions to be considered by the reader.

My solution is to have multiple plots, and not invest in particular plots because I don't know which ones will hook the players. Similarly for NPCs I don't know which ones will seize the players interest and which ones won't.

I remember once I had a concept for a NPC who would become a major big bad in the campaign in a super serious plot, but I made one mistake. When the players learned the NPCs name one of them immediately realised the name could be turned into a pun, a funny one in the context of the campaign, which led to a stream of jokes about the NPC and gales of laughter about the table. The NPC became a laughing stock with zero credibility as a villain long before the party even met him.

Now I've been at game tables where the referee would stick to his guns and insist on using the NPC as intended, despite the fact that the joke names and humour would pursue him for his entire lifetime and sabotage his street cred. I've seldom seen this end well.

So, seeing as I have a million NPCs and can always make more, I let the new NPC be the comedy relief that serendipity had dictated and moved the villain role over to another entirely distinct NPC.

Similarly, if the players seem to actively dislike a particular plot, I'm willing to drop it will lesser or no consequences. I have limited time to play RPGs, no need to dwell on non-productive material, better to focus on material everyone is enjoying. There is literally no percentage in punishing players for their play preferences.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I’m a big fan of honoring player choices, though they also need to respect the work that a DM puts into coming up with interesting and fun adventures. If I can reskin the parts of what I had planned and improvise the rest to accommodate what they want to do, that’s the route I go. If I can’t, then I will tell them “you can totally do that, but we’re going to have to end the adventure right now so that I can prepare for that.”

Now, if it’s more-or-less deliberate sabotage, particularly if it’s just a single player or two, well, then I’ll confess to being a little less forgiving.

If this keeps happening, I definitely think it’s important to look at what they’re ignoring plot-wise and what their interests are. One of the more successful campaigns I ran a while back had a rocky start because I was coming up with heroic-mode adventures, whereas they wanted to play greedy, amoral mercs out for themselves. Once I realigned to that, everything went swimmingly.

 

[76512390ag12]

Don't invest. Have a Toolbox of monsters and locations that can be used in the plotlines they choose.

Sent from my SM-G901F using Tapatalk

 

[LordEntrails]

If you follow the advice here, you won't have the issue of your players not following your plots.

IMO, Justin has one of the most well thought out blogs on GM'img. Check out his other articles on scenario design and the three rule clue.