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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1137059" data-attributes="member: 5171">I'm quoting your early message, rather than the later ones.First off, I am the DM, and I do put in all the work.  I'm sorry if this offends you or makes you feel bad or defensive, but there you have it.  My players will occasionally talk tactics between sessions, but it's a rare occasion when one of my players puts in work-time between sessions.  Heck, I handed out XP when one guy made a new character sheet in anticipation of gaining a level that night.I, have to stat out the bad guys that the PCs might be facing if they take certain actions.  Sometimes I just slack and say that the main villain has right-out-of-the-MM henchmen, but more often, in an effort to make things a little more personalized and interesting, I slap on a few character levels or a template or something for at least one of the main henchmen.  When your PCs are 12th-15th level, the DM ends up doing a lot more work, because the number of monsters available as a fun challenge gets smaller -- which means that you either have to buy more material or add levels to or advance basic creatures.  Beyond that, the PCs can now teleport places, which means that you've got to have at least some kind of basic plan for anywhere the players might show up.The PCs still throw me for a loop sometimes, and I do spend some of the time winging it -- but I don't think that 3rd Edition D&D is something that's terribly easy to wing unless you're REALLY in your comfort zone.  I mean, sure, I can run a 10th level fighter without stats -- I can just squint and guess that his melee attack bonus is something like +15/+10 after strength and magical bonuses, and he probably does 1d8+5+1d6 of some kind of element with his axe or sword or whatever I just said that he had.  Maybe the players won't even know that I'm fudging. By and large, though, the game runs a lot more smoothly when I've done my homework.As far as people owing me anything... pick whatever word you want.  I like Henry's host-and-party metaphor.  Yeah, they have an obligation to bring chips if I said it was a pot luck.  Yeah, they have an obligation to wear a costume if I said it was a costume party.  If they don't, they're being rude.Frankly, though, I think we're talking about different things, and maybe we're both setting up straw men.  There was another thread about this awhile back, and my point of differentiation was metagaming.  In my opinion:The evil wizard laughs.  "You fools, you've just unwittingly agreed to my geas!  Now you must go and slay the gorgon-lich of Kazrak!  To do anything else will seal your doom!"is not railroading.  The PCs have several options.  They can try to kill the wizard, try to break the enchantment, try to just leave and hope that the geas wears off.  They can try to bribe the wizard with something else.  They can go to the gorgon-lich and see if the gorgon-lich can take the geas off them and then team up with them against the wizard.On the other hand, this is railroading.PC: Okay, I cast Detect Magic.  Can I see the geas?DM: No, and you have to start walking right now.PC: I'm going to bluff the wizard and try to make him think I'm immune to his geas, so he ought to just let it drop.DM: Um, he doesn't fall for it.PC: Do I even get to roll?DM: No.PC: Okay, I'm gonna cast Sending and send a message to the gorgon-lich that we're being forced to come fight him.DM: You can't, 'cause that's against the geas.PC: What?  The geas said we had to go there and kill him.  It didn't say we couldn't warn him first!DM: Well, the geas stops you anyway.  Now, two days later, you're at the entrance to the cave...The DM is not expected to do nothing that puts any in-game pressure on the PCs to act.  The DM is not expected to make every adventure a purely voluntary decision.  The DM is not expected to always allow PCs to turn down adventuring choices without any in-game ramifications -- like the destruction of a town that they decided not to go save, the ascension of a cult that they decided not to go eradicate, and so on.  If every adventure involves people holding the PCs' friends hostage while entire towns will be destroyed if they make any other decision, that's lame and a sign of a lack of imagination -- and yeah, that's probably railroading by habit.  But expecting it to never happen is silly.  Your PCs are not the most powerful forces in the universe.  Excitement requires conflict.  Many great movies involve unwitting or initially reluctant heroes.  It should be a give and take between the players and the DM.So perhaps our viewpoints are not so far apart.</blockquote>

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