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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 6422392" data-attributes="member: 5834">What do you mean no authorial control? Character building is a powerful element in a story. Their decisions drive a story. Their development is what makes a story interesting. The story doesn't exist without characters driving it forward. A DM could write out a great adventure, but he would have nothing to do without the characters playing it. How is winning battles or any other character interaction not authorial control?Character background and roleplaying choices drive my adventure development all the time. For example, if a player spends the time to write a background where his parents were killed by a particular demon, you can bet I incorporate that demon into the game. If a character decides to be a serial killer on the side, I incorporate that into the game. Just because the combat challenges in an adventure are usually plotted, does not mean every aspect of a character's life is plotted by the DM. Players engage in other activities all the time. As a DM you must be able to incorporate them into the game to make the world seem real for the player. Kingmaker was a great example of this. The barbarian king spent a great deal of time drinking and whoring. He also wrote a background where he was sent by a foreign power to create a kingdom. I incorporated both elements into the story by having his bastards show up all the time requesting money or asserting their claim to the throne. I had the kingdom go to war with the foreign power when the barbarian refused to be a vassal.It is lazy DMing to not allow players authorial control. Why even have them make a background or roleplay out anything if you don't intend to incorporate it into the story? I even had a bard ridiculing the barbarian king with bawdy tales of his lustful encounters. I did this for all the characters incorporating their roleplaying choices into NPC interactions, combats, and the enemies peppered throughout an adventure.Players definitely have authorial control if a DM pays attention and incorporates the players role-playing choices, backgrounds, and other aspects of character into the overall story progression. But that is something a premade adventure cannot do for a DM. A DM that too rigidly follows either his own creation or a premade creation isn't doing his job, which is to incorporate character into the plot and setting he has built. Players develop character, which in turn affects plot and setting.Cooperative story telling with multiple authors adding their bits to it. Why would you think players have no authorial control? Is this based on personal experience with DMs that don't incorporate your choices into the overall story arc? I guess because I take such pains to do so, that my particular game may be unique. I know many DMs I've played with don't do things like I do. I like to think that there are some that do. I don't feel get as much out of a game if you don't let your characters affect the world and plot as well as have subplots of their own creation whether its a romance, rejuvenating a city, or some other element of character that leads to changes into the overall plot and story.</blockquote>

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