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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3404952" data-attributes="member: 4937">Which is an interesting thing to say, because the story in Dragonlance contains a notable act of betrayal by a friend, and leaves the characters uncertain if they can rely on each other.But more to the point, few games can survive one of the PC's exploring the issue of treachery.  As I said, one of the restrictions that in practice we have on tabletop games is that they are ensemble casts, where no PC can be significantly more important to the story than any other and where most often all the PC's must be on screen at the same time.  From a practical standpoint, the game cannot be run if this is not true.  Besides which, the Dragonlance modules have a reputation for railroading that is only partially warranted.  The difficulty with them is that the story that they want to tell is beyond the ability of a novice DM to handle without railroading, and so they include the mechanisms a novice DM would need to keep them on track.  But an experienced DM with some guts and a willingness to put more effort into the modules can run them in a fashion that leaves more room for player choice.I have no problem with backstories within limits.  What I have a problem with is a player writing 'forestory'.  If a DM cannot expect to have a story unfold exactly according to his designs, then players should not start with the assumption that they know exactly where thier character is going either.Whether scripted or not, the story is always determined by the choices actually made by the players.  Once again, I assume that if anyone in this thread is offering anything novel at all, it isn't merely "Don't railroad the players."  If all that's being said is, "Don't railroad the players.", I've wasted my time responding to it.Actually, if you'll read the beginning again, I think you'll see that the question is actually what role the DM has in determining the action and content of the game.  Player choices are assumed to play a large role in the determining the course of the game.  The question was, should (or even can) the DM's role in story crafting be relegated to merely responding to player desires to grant them the story that the players suggest that they want?  My answer to this is basically, "Sure, it could be done, but it will necessarily be an inferior game to one in which the DM creates a world and allows them the PC's to play in it."  That sort of 'wish fulfillment' gaming becomes very unsatisfying to most people about the time that they turn 12 (at the latest), and interestingly, before they are age 12 most people are least equipped to take the initiative in story creation without prompting.  If I was running a game for 7 year olds, then I might work more along those lines since your average 7 year old is not well equipped (emotionally at least) for challenges with real possibilities of failure.  The stories would probably resemble something more like 'Dragontales' or 'Dora the Explorer' in the setting of the players choice, and they'd probably be very rules light.  But those are more imagintive toys than actual games, which is what I feel with regard to Will Wright's games as well.</blockquote>

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