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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 6452512" data-attributes="member: 5143">This is just impossible in most cases.  If I show up with a copy of the Tomb of Horrors in hand after saying "Hey guys, I'm going to run the Tomb of Horrors next week, if you want to play show up with new characters, level X and be ready to play.  The game will take place in Greyhawk and will take place in and around the City of Greyhawk." and a player shows up and says "I'm a pirate.  I own my own ship.  I rob ships and use it in order to fund my private crusade against Y country that I hate and want to liberate." I'm going to say "Alright, you can be that, but you'll need a reason why your character is going into the Tomb of Horrors and you'll need to realize that your ship, your crew, the country you want to liberate and that entire storyline is likely not going to factor into this adventure at all.  We are playing Tomb of Horrors."I don't want my players "adding to the richness" of Greyhawk.  I know what all the countries look like and a general idea of its geography and political situation.  I don't want my players making up new countries.  I want them to make their character to fit the world, not the other way around.  Feel free to make up things as long as they fit within the framework I've established as a DM before the game started.I'm also running a written adventure.  The adventure will not focus on the player's personal goal except as how they relate to the plot of the adventure at hand.  The above pirate PC might be delving into the Tomb of Horrors in order to come up with great riches to fund his crusade.  But the crusade is what happens after the adventure finishes, off screen(likely...unless it interests me enough that I decide to make it the focus of the next adventure).No, I don't hate player authorship.  Player authorship is fun in a game designed for it.  It is fun in a more free form game with mechanics designed around player authorship.However, I've never bought a D&D adventure that said "The BBEG wants to kill the king and take control...here is his plot to do so...unless, of course, the players come up with a different plot or want to do something else...then, you know, scrap this adventure and follow their plot lines instead.  Player authorship is important."I've also never once run into a situation where a player didn't enjoy the overall experience at the table.  I've had people complain about a specific event but at the end of the day they'll still have fun.  No one has ever brought up "I didn't have enough player authorship in your game" as a complaint.No, they aren't being treated as children.  They are being treated like players and not like the DM.  They understand their role within the game and maturely play that role instead of demanding abilities that aren't part of their role.To me, it would be the same as showing up for a hockey game after being told that you'll have to be the goalie and then complaining that you don't get to skate around the ice scoring goals.  That's not what a goalie does.  I understand that being the goalie for the team isn't as much fun for some people.But when you show up, you realize that you are playing your character, not writing the plot of the game or designing the campaign world.In my experience, players tend to have no limit on what they'll ask for if you keep giving them stuff.  In the example I used in that post regarding my Rifts game, my restriction was "You must choose an option that is IN the book, no making up your own stuff."  I don't consider that an especially restricting experience.  However, that didn't stop a player from saying "Something IN the book, eh?  What if I combined TWO things in the book together to make them more powerful?  That's following the letter of your rules, so you should allow it, right?"It's obviously a disingenuous attempt to see what they could get away with.I was one of hundreds of those attempts I had to deal with.  I should note that I started DMing when I was 15 and mostly played with my friends at the time.  Though our primary group consisted of people between 15 and 23.  Over time I've DMed with all ages of people but when I first started all I got was attempts to become the most powerful people on the planet.  In another Rifts game, someone wanted the gun from the SDF-1 mounted on their armor because the stats in that RPG said it didn't do damage, it just destroyed EVERYTHING in its path.  They asked me for it at least once a session.  They thought it would be hilarious.  It was my job as the DM to say no for balance reasons and to keep the game within the theme, power level, and tone that I wanted it at.  That would have ruined it.Most of the player's I've run into tend to write things so that the story revolves around THEM.  If their goal is to overthrow a country, the adventure better revolve around that.  The other players better just be background to their grand quest.The problem is that when you have 6 players who each want to write their own stories, have their own goals and ALL want the story to revolve around them.  All of them can't be at the table at once without the plot becoming a chaotic mess.  So, it's been my experience that the DM gets to decide on ONE plot and the players have to compromise and follow that plot whether it is the one they wrote or not.</blockquote>

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