At least in my case, because the tasks in question are narratively trivial ones the detailed resolution of which would add nothing of interest to play. It's not as if, because we skip over them, we won't have anything to do in our game! We'll do the interesting stuff, like getting vengeance on the grell![\quote]
If hiring the mercenaries is critical to achieving vengeance on the Grell, then they are not narratively trivial. If they are narratively trivial, then why are we bothering to go all the way back to the city to hire them at all? Just go kill the Grell yourselves.
Suppose we look at it this way. The
players can make the siege relevant to their goals in the city just by engaging with it - @
Hussarmentioned some possibilities upthread, like using the disruption caused by the siege to cover up or facilitate their own skullduggery in the city.
Whereas the players can't make the
desert relevant to their goals. Only the GM can do that. Which is what Hussar was getting at with reference to "bread crumbs" upthread, I think.
Again, the difference to me at least is night and day. The relevance of the siege is self-evident - our goal is under siege! - and there is a situation that the players can, proactively, leverage in pursuit of their goal.
Whereas the relevance of the nomads is entirely in the hands of the GM.
Can't the encounter with the nomads in the desert be set up this way? Like, the nomads can be hired to cause a distraction in the city while they try to make their way to the goal inside? Again, this is all decided by context.
Well, the relevance of the siege is entirely in the hands of the GM. He can make them completely hostile to the players, willing to work with them, immune to being distracted, or whatever. Or, he can work with their plans. Why can't the same be applied when the GM frames the desert encounter? I think it definitely can be.
Exactly. If the relevance of the nomads is entirely up to the GM, so is the relevance of the siege. Just as the players might be able to negiotiate with the besieging force, or in some other way use it to their ends, could they not fire up the nomads, in some way persuading them to besiege the city? If the relevance of a siege is self-evident, then the fact the nomads could be used to lay such a siege is as well. Randoml encountered scorpions? Hey, maybe we can rile them up and herd them towards the siege - while the army deals with the scorpions, perhaps we can get past them and into the city. That is, use this very relevant desert to achieve the goal of bypassing this narratively trivial siege.
BTW, I don't recall indicating you or Hussar were acting in bad faith, but if that is the way my comments were taken, then I apologize for the lack of clarity and the insinuation it caused.
It's one thing for a poster to say that, for them, they wouldn't care which complication the GM used. But it continues to baffle me that some posters can't see why, for others (eg you
and me) there would be a pretty obvious and important difference.
I think the difference you perceive baffles many of us. Were I your GM, that would be frustrating as, without unerstanding why you perceive a difference, I am shooting in the dark selecting complications going forward.
@
N'raacwas not just descrbing a game in which details of setting are present before play. He was describing a game in which the GM knows what is relevant and what is not before play. It's the second element that (i) distinguishes what he described from a sandbox, and that (ii) led me to characterise it as a railroad.
I don't agree. I can know full well that the lady selling flowers in the town square is the illegitimate daughter of the Duke, and the heir to the Dukedom is aware of this and has a soft spot for his sister, but cannot reveal his father's indiscretions without causing him considerable political embarassment, so he cannot be very overt in making her life easier. Yet he would be very grateful to the party for doing so without compromising their secret, or the Duke could be blackmailed if the PC's knew this secret, or any of a hundred other possibilities. This is significant relevance, to me, for the flower girl. But, in a sandbox game, that relevance may remain only potential, and never be actualized, because the players don't pursue any agenda involving interacting with the Duke, the heir or the flower girl, so it never comes into play.
That one's iffy, depending on the player(s). A big problem with trying to make the desert encounters relevant to the city is that it's not usually going to be immediately visible what changes have gone on. The siege though? They can directly and immediately observe the changes it's causing in the city. For players who prefer things to have more of an immediate (or at least known ahead of time) impact like Hussar seems to, that's going to make things a bit limiting. Granted, some of the most interesting stuff comes out of being limited, but it's possible it'll take a bit more work to keep things going.
I disagree (surprised, anyone? 
). The players cannot see into the city past the siege to directly observe its impact. Perhaps the people have starved (including that fellow we want to contact) as all resources went to keep the military healthy, and only a skeleton guard with no remaining supplies is still in there. Maybe they have gardens and wells, and are patiently waiting for the invaders to give up and go home - just like the last three sieges of this generation alone. And if they happen to see the Chain of Office of the mayor of the city hanging from the neck of the Nomad Chief, still stained with blood, that may be a clue of something that has gone on in the city in which these nomads were involved.
[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] - love the "five wandering monsters" example.
[MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION] - agree 100%. The problem is that the desert is assumed to contain nothing but a slog through irrelevant encounters, and the siege assumed to be designed as directly linked to the goals of the players. For some reason, we assume a GM who is completely horrible designing the desert travel will become a genius when turning his attention to a siege instead. That seems the least likely of every possibility presented on this thread.
