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Do I need an attitude adjustment? (They're gonna nova the BBEG)
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<blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 8136796" data-attributes="member: 2629"><p>To answer the specific question: How do you balancer your fun with the player fun? </p><p></p><p>You're in a relationship with your players. In a good relationship, you want to make your partner(s) happy, and find joy in making that happen. Sometimes you need to sacrifice your preferences to make sure that things are good for your partner(s).</p><p></p><p>That being said, if you're sacrificing too much, perhaps it isn't the right relationship and you need to rethink it and try a different approach, such as not being the DM, playing a different campaign that better suits your desires, or otherwise creating more opportunities for fun.</p><p></p><p>I'd handle this situation by: </p><p></p><p>1.) Let them wrap it up with a big win. They came up with a good strategy. Let the story play out and let them get their win. If the story naturally develops to give them more challenges - great! If not, they'll lament that the BBEG wasn't as much of a challenge as they expected ... but they'll likely do it with a smug smile trying to escape. </p><p></p><p>2.) It sounds like you're not enjoying the railroad of a published adventure. I find a lot of DMs get frustrated trying to keep players 'on track', so I'd recommend getting off the track. In the future, if you're going to get a published adventure, try approaching it as a place setting, and not a script. Let the published materials give you the starting position for the story, but spend no effort keeping the PCs on track. Let them go off the rails and mix things up, sidestep things, or explore areas not listed. Heck, they may abandon the main storyline. Let them and play in the Sandbox. I've run one published adventure path with three different DMs. One stayed close to script while the other two went wildly off script to the point that I could barely recognize the later chapters. I had a blast in all three, and the DMs all enjoyed themselves.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jgsugden, post: 8136796, member: 2629"] To answer the specific question: How do you balancer your fun with the player fun? You're in a relationship with your players. In a good relationship, you want to make your partner(s) happy, and find joy in making that happen. Sometimes you need to sacrifice your preferences to make sure that things are good for your partner(s). That being said, if you're sacrificing too much, perhaps it isn't the right relationship and you need to rethink it and try a different approach, such as not being the DM, playing a different campaign that better suits your desires, or otherwise creating more opportunities for fun. I'd handle this situation by: 1.) Let them wrap it up with a big win. They came up with a good strategy. Let the story play out and let them get their win. If the story naturally develops to give them more challenges - great! If not, they'll lament that the BBEG wasn't as much of a challenge as they expected ... but they'll likely do it with a smug smile trying to escape. 2.) It sounds like you're not enjoying the railroad of a published adventure. I find a lot of DMs get frustrated trying to keep players 'on track', so I'd recommend getting off the track. In the future, if you're going to get a published adventure, try approaching it as a place setting, and not a script. Let the published materials give you the starting position for the story, but spend no effort keeping the PCs on track. Let them go off the rails and mix things up, sidestep things, or explore areas not listed. Heck, they may abandon the main storyline. Let them and play in the Sandbox. I've run one published adventure path with three different DMs. One stayed close to script while the other two went wildly off script to the point that I could barely recognize the later chapters. I had a blast in all three, and the DMs all enjoyed themselves. [/QUOTE]
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