D&D 5E Rejecting the Premise in a Module

Rdm said:

I've rarely found an AP whose story I couldn’t personalize enough to make it ‘about my player’ to a good degree.

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Every AP I've played in, the goal has been to finish the AP (even though I've never played an AP to the end); my experience is that people play differently with that goal as opposed to more character-oriented goals. Every AP I've played in has had little-to-nothing to attach the characters to, other than finishing the AP; because they're written to be suitable for any bunch of characters, there's nothing in them to particularize them for the characters in the party. Every AP I've played in has had something in it that broke my suspension of disbelief, usually violently.

If that’s the case I highly suspect you went into the AP looking for something to object to, and if you are searching you are going to find.

When I was a young DM, we'd often play modules (I inherited a ton from a friend). It wasn't that unlikely for the players to go off track (assuming there was one), so it helped refine my "on the fly" skills. It was fine, but sometimes annoying if I liked the module. Nowadays, I'd be extremely annoyed, since I paid good money for that AP which is now wasted!

My current group plays on Roll20. Because of the time needed to prepare things on the VTT, there's an unspoken agreement that the players will agree to the obvious plot hooks, but may later choose to abandon them for something else (this should always occur at/near the end of a session). Sometimes we still go off the rails mid-session, but everyone knows that everything will turn into Theater of the Mind the moment it happens. Two of my three last sessions both ended completely differently than I expected, causing me to re-prepare the following session, scrapping my previous work. I can't be upset though, because every time it was within the context of the story arc/adventure, just an unexpected twist.

Raaron said:

If that’s the case I highly suspect you went into the AP looking for something to object to, and if you are searching you are going to find.

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At this point I expect to have troubles with APs, but that hasn't always been the case. The vast majority of APs I've played in, I went into them wanting to play them.

Good guess, though.

WayOfTheFourElements said:

Which is why CN is the best alignment. Pure excitement and mayhem. Climb the ladder of Chaos.

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"Chaotic Neutral: Creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else." PHB, 122.
You are leaving out the second part of CN's definition - personal freedom. They follow personal freedom. That means they follow freedom. They would be inclined to help those that are not free. They would be inclined to help the downtrodden. They achieve this through chaotic means. It doesn't mean they don't care about anything and do anything they want at any time. (Side note: I also said it was the player acting on their emotions, not ones their characters would actually have.)
Example of CN: I don't like the way this tyrant has all these indentured servants. They are not free. So chaotic me doesn't mind wreaking havoc on his life, on his family, and on his business partners just to help free those people.
That is why chaotic and lawful are attached to good, neutral or evil.

Side note: I also said it was the player acting on their emotions, not ones their characters would actually have. You bold only part of my definition. As we know, anyone can bold half a definition and misrepresent it. As a reminder, I rewrote what I said and bolded the entire thing for you.

Scott Christian said:

There are few things worse than a player that doesn't play their character consistently. But instead, they use it as a conduit to ignite whatever whim of emotion they have in RL.

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See how that has almost nothing to do with roleplaying the character, but instead acting on real life whims of emotion? And it disregards the OP's implied information that they finished half of the adventure without "acting" CN.

prabe said:

At this point I expect to have troubles with APs, but that hasn't always been the case. The vast majority of APs I've played in, I went into them wanting to play them.

Good guess, though.

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I can’t see how they be any more immersion breaking than any other adventure you go through which in every single one, home brew or not will have logic bombs and problems in them that you glide over for the sake of playing.

I have no problem with either home brew or modules, but I run them differently. My brain simply has to process them in different ways, even if I customize the module. When I'm running home brew, I tend to be a lot more focused on character depth and expect the players to provide story hooks for me to work with. If they want a more casual game, or a module looks fun to everyone, I'm totally good with running it. There have also been times when I know I don't have the time to put into a campaign, but still want to play, so a module it is.

But... the deal, up front, is that they have to have characters that are compatible with the module and aren't allowed to go outside the painted area. I don't care if they are heroes, mercenaries, join the bad guys, or just compete with them. They have to address the subject matter, though.

The other thing to consider is: Maybe they don't actually know how the adventure is supposed to unfold?

Killing the quest-giver doesn't ruin the adventure but it may change the goals. Events of the adventure will still unfold and the PCs could still be part of it, maybe unwittingly, or perhaps just a witness to things going on. Assuming they take initiative to do anything, they'll still come into contact with the adventure but their goals may not align with the end-goal of the adventure.

And it might happen that way because they actually don't know how the adventure is supposed to end.

In Dragon Heist I accidentally killed the Data Dump NPC. (This is what the adventure gets for letting us catch him red-handed breaking into somebody else's house!) I was rather happy with myself because I finally got to do all the stuff that makes a Tabaxi not just a human in a fur coat - including throwing my Yklaw at somebody just out of melee reach. Thrown weapons cannot do 'knock-out damage'. Our DM let out a surprised cry and we packed up a bit early for the night, so he could think it over during the week. We were able to recover and continue with the adventure.

In Ashes of Athas 1 - 1, my group broke the plot in the very first scene. We were supposed to be captured by slavers and put in a caravan to get us outta town. We actually beat up the slave-takers and interrogated them briefly. I happened to have a character background feature that got us moving forward again: Caravan Master in Training. I found the caravan master and asked him to take me as his apprentice plus my friends as general-labor hirelings. We got into the caravan in a quite different situation than the adventure expected. Our DM was able to roll with it.

In contrast, my Tiamat group tried to play Murder in Baldurs Gate when the adventure brought us to that city. After about four sessions of not knowing what we were supposed to be accomplishing, I sat down after-game with the DM to get some insight or explanation. He didn't know either! The group wound up murderhobo-ing our way out of town and hooking up with the HotDQ plot again from a safe distance outside the city walls.

Edit: punctuation and typos

Scott Christian said:

Now, I will say this on your behalf: Maybe your DM wasn't doing a good job. Maybe the players you were with weren't buying into the storyline, which caused you to not enjoy it. Maybe there were external factors at the table making it an unenjoyable experience. I don't know. But it should not be blamed on Curse of Strahd.

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No we actually had a lot of fun, and managed to go in all kinds of unexpected diretctions and stuffed up majorly quite a few times. I'd like to go back to it but the DM has been unwell and not in a positon to run (or play) for over a year now and he is the best new DM I've seen in 35+ years of gaming and keen to et him back into the group as soon as he feels well enough.

However, the premise of the adventure meant we've no buy in or agency except for wanting to get the hell out of Dodge ASAP and the easiest way to do that is deal with the main protagonist but intead we are being led round by the nose till we are high enough level to do so and is one of the fundamental issues with most of the APs.

Tomb of Anniliation worked well when I started with a 7-8th level group and instead of pissing round in the wilderness for 2-6 levels till high enough level for the actual adventure we, you know went and did it- a few encounters in the wilderness with some of the areas I wanted to run then straight to their objective- the city itself. It still took 3-4 months to complete but made more sense the way i ran it (at least to me).

Stadh is the same- trim it down and pitch the adventure for level 6-10th level pcs then (maybe they were onto something with the original module) and it would be a great, much tighter experience.

We enjoyed the the Death house (but WTF how was that ever designed for a newbie party?) However, once we had completed that we were eager to get on with the adventure but intead we are spinning our wheels grinding through the "side quest" type stuff till we get high enough level to actually deal with the adventure so to me it is simply a waste of my precious free time. the Dm did do a good job and dealt with our curve balls but still after 6 months we felt we were getting nowhere, were bored and ready to move onto something new.