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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scott Christian" data-source="post: 8082797" data-attributes="member: 6901101">Well, I have said it twice in this post, but I will say it again: Other games can produce story in which the objectives are unknown. Your examples are great at demonstrating this. I have never argued about other games. I wrote that earlier, but it must have been forgotten. I am speaking about D&D (5e).I thought I did define tell a story: the elements of a plot are present. This of course includes character growth (or demise  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ). And again, I think your Wuthering Heights is a great example. But again, I am talking about D&D, specifically 5e.Sorry, my bad. I meant video links. My friends and I have had this discussion many times about numerous factors in D&D, be it DM's saying they get through six combats in four hours along with exploration and roleplay, or DM's saying they never follow a story and that the players are the ones that lead everywhere. I said this earlier, I have yet to ever see that happen on video. The links you post sound awesome. The game sounds great. But, just please agree with me that writing a recap is much different than watching it play out.So you prepped the setting. I assume you know who some of the NPC's are considering there is a kid and the PC's were told the rumor by someone. You have set up antagonists. I assume you have an idea of where they are or at least a chart to randomize where they are. And you may not have an end point right now, but if your players actively pursue the story hook and in the end want to confront the vampire, you will know the one of two endings that might happen, they live or die. (Of course there are variables like the vampire escapes, a cult leader sabotages them, etc.)The fact that they can go alternative routes, such as becoming grave robbers or join the vampire or whatever is no different than any other AP.Please see the post above about other games. Like you said, D&D has prep baked in. This is my point. You may not have any idea what your B, C or D will look like until the PC's make choices. But, that is no different than any AP. Tell me, in Curse of Strahd, if your players chose to become servants of the vampire lord, would you stop them? Probably not. But you could still use much of the book. If they decided to betray Strahd and try to rule a piece of the Shadowfell, would you stop them? Probably not. But you could still use much of the book - even though it is not written in the book.My point is very clear, DM's claiming their story is not pre-fabricated are still doing the same things as DM's running AP's. The DM may believe that they have a sea of choices or a tree of paths, but so do DM's that run AP's. And that supports that if you are playing 5e, you are telling a collaborative story; even if the ending is not clear.My bad. Sorry I got you confused with another poster.Again, none of that is different than a DM running an AP. There are variables to the any D&D story because there are dice. I said this earlier: Any experienced and good DM utilizes the same thing you are, even when running an AP. If a player in an AP campaign fails or succeeds on critical skill challenges, it established the story's fiction, and any descent DM can utilize it later. Just because an AP has prewritten encounters does not negate the fact that player choices and failures/successes establishes fiction for the DM to use.No. My argument was and always has been about the original topic of this thread: character connection to the plot is important because you need character motive. And if you have character motive, then you have a story. And stories in D&D follow a plot that is of the DM's design. They follow an A to B to C. The argument about an AP being A to B to C and other DM's saying they don't do that is, imho, them not looking at what they are actually doing. They are following a plot, even if they are prepping it weekly. Unless of course they are just doing random encounters or a dungeon crawl with no motive.That is all good stuff.I get where you are coming from. But a DM running an AP doesn't have say in their players' choices either. They can skip huge swaths of the AP, they can die, they can become villains, etc. I spoke about this in a different thread, A DM's job is to prep. An AP takes a lot of time to prep for this exact reason. Fortunately some of prep is done because the AP is a book that primarily discusses the setting of a story and events that will occur. If the DM is being true to their world, these events will happen regardless of the players' choices, and thus effect the setting for good or bad.Side quests are great. Players sometimes chase them and sometimes they leave it alone. If they chase them, that's just added steps to the A to B to C. And it might have an impact on one of those events. If the PC finds a wand of teleportation and then later, in the "C" event is trapped in a tomb, they can get out.A DM running an AP cannot predict what the players will do. But one thing is assured, the DM will design the plot and the players will interact with that plot. And if it is a story it will be A to B to C.</blockquote>

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