MGibster
Legend
As a GM, I'm interested in resolving the story in a satisfactory way but I can't reasonably expect the player characters to do it exactly how I might have thought it would be done. Sometimes players surprise me, mostly in a pleasant fashion but sometimes in a not so pleasant fashion. I'm usually happy just so long as it seems as though the players are invested in the game.Yeah, I more or less agree with this. Having too much invested in the story coming out the way you want it is honing to make a rod for your own back.
I was running a Trail of Cthulhu game, and the PCs came across a group of Shan, alien bugs that fly into people's heads and control their minds. The PCs figured out the Shan were just trying to leave the planet, and instead of confronting them the PCs just made a deal with them instead. i.e. The PCs sold out the humans to an alien threat because they were more concerned with another threat and didn't want any trouble with the Shan. And because the Shan just wanted to be left alone so they could work on escaping Earth, they were more than happy to cut a deal with the PCs. POOF! There went about a quarter of the campaign I had planned out. I didn't expect things to pan out that way, but they were able to get what they wanted from the Shan without a fight. I wasn't the least bit upset at the players for doing this. I probably should have given them a good Sanity loss for selling out humanity though. I didn't think about it at the time because I was so shocked at their actions.
While I do my best not to be a director, I do sometimes get frustrated when players seemingly go out of their way not to engage the adventure. I ran an Angel (of Buffy fame) campaign years ago, and I had a player who really loved dragons so I included one in the campaign. We spent sessions building up the character's relationship with Sir Kay (of Arthurian fame) with plenty of foreshadowing of a dragon to come. When the big day came and the dragon appeared, the PC pretty much said, "Nah, not interested," and went to go do something else instead. Kind of pissed me off a bit.