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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Krensky" data-source="post: 5555292" data-attributes="member: 30936">It's breaking the game because they agreed to play an Adventure Path style module, then not only refused to follow the initial setup, but then turned that setup upside down and lit it on fire. They agreed to play an AP, then decided to play in a sandbox. It's a dick move. It's showing up at a touch football game and playing rugby without discussing it with the other team. It's not engaging with the world, it's breaking the implied table contract that "We'll play this AP." while mooning the GM at the same time.It's not a question of allowed.Let's go with a more concrete example.I'm currently running Rise of the Runelords. I advertised the game as that AP. I layed out a few simple rules.1. Engage with the adventure. This is a published adventure path. There's plenty of subplots and secondary encounters possible, but don't refuse to engage with the AP.2. No villainous characters. The party and your characters should be heroic or at least anti-heroic. You can come up with any reasoning or background you like, but when crap hits the fan you should rise to the challenge and save the village.3. No PvP. Inter-party tension and conflict is fine. Backstabbing, infighting, etc. is not.4. Don't be a douche. To me, to each other, to the game. There were a few others, but these are the relevant ones. I fact these four rules (or rather, rules two through four and some variant of one) are more or less standard for my table regardless of who's GMing.Now, let's go back to your question with the above firmly in mind as a concrete example.The equivalent of Shaman's example is:Me: Ok, so you're all in Sandpoint for the Swallowtail Festival.Player 1: No I'm not, I'm heading for Riddleport.Player 2: Yeah, let's go check out the local hive of scum and villany.Player 3: I want to head to Kovosa and assassinate the Queen.Etc.I would stop the game and remind them of rule one, that they agreed to. (Which has been a premise the whole time that everyone knew they were playing an AP style module.) If they insist on breaking the game, that's fine. I have other things I can be doing then running a game for a bunch of jerks.Your example would be that partway through the players decide to become  Karzoug's lackies and help conquer the world. I'd stop the game and point the to the no villains rule. If they insist, once again, I have plenty of other things I can do rather then run a game I'm not interested in running.What makes these players 'breakers' is that they agreed to play in a game of one style but insisted on playing another style. This is a extreme hypothetical, since these are (more or less) mature adults who aren't setting out to be jerks.I did say in my original response to Shaman that the GM in his example didn't inform the players he was going to run a adventure path style module, he made a huge mistake and the table has big issue. If he did (which is the premise this whole discussion is based on) and the players did what happened in that example, they're jerks who set out to break the game the GM and they agreed to.</blockquote>

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