You keep using the word interested, and I'm leery about that. Invested is a much better word. If I am not invested in the scenario, then it is generally not very interesting to me.
I think we're dealing with semantics here - it seems pretty clear from your comments that a prerequisite for you to be interested is that you have a pre-existing investment. That doesn't preclude the existence of an uninteresting complication to something your are invested in, but it does preclude a interesting complication to a situation you are not invested in.
Two things. First off, it's not random. I've explained why it isn't random. Calling it random isn't really going to help here.
It's not random
as you perceive it. JC has articulated it much better than I have, but if the GM cannot clearly perceive why certain complications are, and are not, perceived as relevant/engaging/interesting, then the GM has no way of determining which complications you will, or will not, be prepared to engage with in-game. Statements that "I might be very interested in that sometimes but not other times", or "Well, it was OK in this instance even though I might have balked if the exact same thing happened on a different day" are not helpful in predicting what encounters might engage you, and which might enrage you. It seems to come down, much more than you want to believe, to "how you are feeling on any given day".
Secondly, if you present 5 scenarios and one of your five players vetos the scenarios each time, you have MUCH larger problems at that table than a veto power. You've got a table where you have failed to engage the players five times in a row. ((Note, by "you", I don't mean you specifically N'raac, but the general "you"). The DM has presented 5 scenarios with zero buy in from at least one player. The DM in this case is so out of touch with the group that the veto is simply demonstrating how bad this DM is, rather than showing anything else.
I agree this indicates a serious problem. I do not agree that the only plausible explanation is a bad GM. It may be a bad player (say, one who consistently rejects anything but the precise scenario and results he envisions), but that would mean the same player vetos the succession of scenarios. It may be an incompatible play group, due to diverging layer styles (and we must have 6 different styles in my example, one that rejects each of the five situations, while the GM's style would presumably accept all of them). Or it could be a perfect storm - these 5 scenarios, in succession, rejected out of hand with the rest of the campaign preceding an fllowing being smooth (just the fact anything DOES follow indicates some group cohesion).
If players are vetoing scenes frequently, then this is a pretty clear sign to the DM that something needs to change. Forcing the players to play through these scenes is not fixing the underlying problem.
You have frequently questioned the apropriateness of a player saying "just set the game out, Mr. GM", so why is the GM the only person for whom this is a pretty clear sign that something needs to change? Maybe what needs to change is a player, for example if one player is consistently shouting down scenes the rest of the group is either OK with, or even actively wants to play out. Maybe what needs to change is a level of respect for the enjoyment of others at the table - a steady diet of "my way or the highway" is often best answered with "highway's all yours, then - don't let the door hit you on the way out". Maybe we're looking at GM burnout, and someone else has to step up and volunteer to run something for a while.
I honestly have no idea why you think this would be common. I've flat out stated that it isn't. I cannot think of any other way of stating it.
To me, at least, your statements are not consistent with the real life examples you have presented. Both seem like reasonably common in-game occurences, and both make you come across, at least as I read it, as pretty rigid and demanding. The GM either acquiesces, with no discussion or complication, or you are going to "get shirty".
Note, you are mixing a few examples up there. There was no teleport in the grell example, for one thing.
No there was not, but you have said repeatedly that anything a Teleport
could bypass should be allowed to be bypassed whether or not the in game resources exist to do so. That means I have to consider what a teleport could bypass in pretty much every example, doesn't it?
Would a siege be acceptable? Well, it does seem pretty out of the blue and it certainly looks like the DM is roadblocking - "I don't want them to hire troopies, so, quick, let's add a siege that sucks up all the available troops in the city." Not knowing any more information, and if the siege was added after the troops were requested, yeah, I'd probably call shenanigans on the DM. This is pretty obvious road blocking.
On the one hand, I do not disagree that this is a reasonable interpretation. On the other, however, I do not agree it is a less reasonable interpretation of the siege around the city in the desert, of which you are quite accepting.
Why would you bother? This is roadblocking by definition. The whole purpose of the nomad blockade is to harass or kill the party and prevent them from entering the city. I'd object to this simply on the grounds that the only purpose of this scene is roadblocking. Geography doesn't enter into it at all. You've taken away all the bits that the players can actually use and only kept the stuff that frustrates the PC's.
I disagree that this siege is any less capable of being leveraged (or being structured to permit such leverage) than the siege surrounding the city walls. Both could be complete roadblocks - I think we have established that for the city siege (Slaad florists and army ants, or just a complete commitment to maintain the siege and not accmmodate any PC negotiations) and for the nomad siege (the last, at a minimum). But this nomad siege would seem to have similar, if not identical, issues arise as the "surrounded by a ring of troops" siege. The city will have shortages of goods. The PCs might be able to negotiate with the nomads to a variety of effects, for example an all- out attack which will raze the city, under cover of which the PC's slip out with the Whatever It Is leaving all others to believe it was lost or destroyed in the rampage. Or they might be able to negotiate with the city leaders to help them with their siege problem (troops or nomads) in exchange for accommodating their achievement of their own objectives. I see very little, if anything, that the PC's can do with the siege surrounding the city gates that could not be parallelled with the nomad siege, including roadblocking either one to use them as nothing more than an impediment to accessing the city as well as more engaging in-game interactions.
I have no idea where this comes from. I like adventure paths. I've run one and played in two others. I have no problem with AP's. Actually, if you count the World's Largest Dungeon, I'd say I've run at least two AP's in 3e alone. Ran a fair chunk of Dragonlance way back when. Did the GDQ series as well. So, no, AP play doesn't bother me.
From your consistent rants against pretty much any goal set, cmlication arising, or event occuring for PC's that the players have not agreed to and been fully informed of in advance? I would likely not count World's Largest Dungeon, which is a setting more than an AP as I understand it.
Well, if the cost of one option is far, far greater than the benefits, then that's railroading right there. Sure, you have the option, but, the option is so bad that no one in their right mind is going to do it. I mean, how long is the desert crossing going to take? This would be one of the questions that could be asked.
Note, in my example, the party gets to get a lot more detail before making decisions and will make the decision that they actually buy into. Maybe toiling in Gehena is preferable. I dunno. Doesn't really matter. Maybe the toil is safer than the desert but, eats up more time. The Gm would determine the offers and counter offers and whatnot during play. I was mostly spitballing off the top of my head, so, if three months is too unreasonable, then maybe three weeks. Don't get too tied up in the details.
The devil is in the details. Always. If the players want to be in the city now, then I fail to see how playing out time crossing the desert is any more problematic than playing out time toiling in Gehenna. But hen, I also don't see every deal or negotiation the PC's make automatically having full disclosure. NPC's with their own motivations that they do not clearly spell out are pretty common, I think, and they should be. So maybe you don't get to know in advance the details of everything that lurks in the desert (although you will certainly know what the guy with the Teleport scroll tells you, and anything else you've learned on your own), or the details of toil in Gehenna ("well, how was I to know that the Flames of Gehenna are HARMFUL to you mortals?" or "how was I to know you would take some offense at pitchforking human souls?") Here again, we come back to this expectation of omniscience that I find problematic. So I, as a player, say "NO" to this omniscience. Play on, with no further assumption or expectation of omniscience.
