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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andor" data-source="post: 6375347" data-attributes="member: 1879">No, I'm not sure how I could have conveyed that impression. In fact the successfull collaboration between the GM and the players is key. Or rather the characters. The world advances on it's own agenda, as influenced by the PCs actions. If your preplanned story arc had the Duke plotting to take over a harbour town and the PC actions cause him to change course even though it disrupts the intended plot, that's fantastic. If you stick to the original plot even though it no longer makes sense then....My ideal campaign world would be a sandbox where several key figures have plans and agendas and they continue on with them in the absence of the PCs. When the PCs are on screen they should have the agency to change things. Whether that be by disrupting plans, helping them or just killing the plotter is up to the PCs. They can also ignore everything around them and drink themselves into an early grave if they really want to, although at that point you probably do want to ask the player why he's playing D&D.I'm not saying there are no meta-game concerns or decisions involved. I'm sayng that they should never visibly intrude into the game. In WOW I can watch the mobs respawn and the game reset, erasing all of my agency as a player. That was the point of the comparison. I don't want the world to ignore my actions. Conversely I don't want to feel as if the entire world just sits there on hold waiting for my special snowflake of a character to accomplish everything. NPCs shouldn't just sit there with blinking exclamation points over thier heads. If I ignore the guy who wanted me to clean a band of orcs out of a mine for two weeks something should have happened in the mean time. Antoher group killed the Orcs, or they moved on, or forted up and now have three times as many in a defensible position, or stuck a deal with the guy and now work as guards and miners for a cut of the profits. Or they killed him when he tried to negotiate and now are shipping ore to the Orc warlord. PCs actions should have consequences even if the action was ignoring a plot hook to chase a barmaid.Likewise in the context of this discussion, which is about pacing and 'easy encounters' if my party is seeking to bring down an Orc warlord who has gathered a great warband of goblinoids then I should bloody well have to deal with scouts, patrols and guards. Whether that dealing involves combat or invisible flight is up to us as PCs. On the other hand, if the entire army forms a corridor to let us saunter up to the final encounter which is exactly balanced to be the level appropriate XP total for our party as a "Hard" encounter...Random tables are useful tools to add verisimilitude when used properly. Sometimes plans are wrecked or altered by pure chance. An invasion fleet sunk by a freak storm for example. A random encounter table that serves to illustrate the local setting is fine. Random weather is fine. Bandits trying to rob the PCs randomly is ok, that's what bandits do. Having someone try to kill the PCs specifically just because a table said so? If the assasins are competant that should be an unprovoked and campaign ending TPK. You could fairly accuse me of metagaming by designing an encounter table that will not randomly TPK the party, and that's fair enough. It is metagaming to never have an Ancient Red Dragon just swoop down and destroy a first level party. But it's not intrusive metagaming unless the party has sent him a long and insulting message and then sauntered down the road dressing in barbeque sauce and bacon. I'd probably have them eaten then, but it wouldn't be at random. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

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