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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bastoche" data-source="post: 2752950" data-attributes="member: 306">Ok I'm finished. A few sidenotes but I get the feeling we're arguing now over semantics rather than substance.First I accept your admission and pretty much was the only thing I wanted out of this discussion. Thanks <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" /> Second, on the semantics issues. What I consider as "closed ended" is a case in which what the NPC plans to do is sorta independant of the NPC's relationship with the PCs themselves and/or how the players-via-their-PC are emotionnally (or maybe rationnally) involved with what the NPCs is planning. That's what I was saying by "making the enounters matter. The conflict must be active on both side of the coin rather than active one side and passive the other (picking the hook or not) or passive bothways (heavy railroad).I like that example because that's exactly what we are doing. It's not really related to the open vs close ended spectrum but rather in the boring pseudo open vs fun pseudo open (what you run and don't want to call closed and that I don't want to call open <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=";)" /> ). If I choose to speak with the wrong NPC (poor tactic) I should not investigate for 2 gameplay hours rolling numerous successful checks to end up in a dead end. The DM should just say in a few minutes (maybe after a few rolls): "You successfully find out this option to be a dead end" and then let's move on. It might be problematic when the rolls fails. But all in all, in the end it's a failure anyway.Now for the open vs close. In a political/urban mystery intrigue, in which players assume the open end-ness is well defined one way or another, false starts may very well be everything you'll face especially is failure on a false start reduce the probabilty of success for further tryouts. Like compromising the PCs reputation voiding them of any future success.As for my DM, I wouldn't say is crappy. One who doesn't run the types of games I'd like to play with regards to player's lattitude. He has a metaplot going on and if we don't follow the metaplot (which is hidden among false starts put there for sake of "credibility/canon value" (FRCS) ) we pretty much run around in circle. There was some problems we ran into that are well recognized (it was a bit an experimental campaign after all) like throwing "optionnal" side quests. We also faced a HUGE wealth/level issue where basically the challenges were so challenging we didn't liked the rewards (there were to small to respect the wealth/level RAW motion). But the REAL problem IMO, is that the DM tries to run 3 different "styles" of play at the same time that are incompatible. The game themselves aren't boring and in retrospect most are OK. It's just the way it's going. It feels like a struggle. All the ingredients should be there: the players agrees to face a challenge, we like our characters and the setting. We also like the metaplot. It's just how it's going that I dislike. We face WAY too many dead ends and I highly doubt it's only a matter of tactics. It has to be a matter of gaming philosophy. And I think it's the DM struggling with himself over what he wants to do.The main problem is running a metaplot while leaving complete lattitude to the PCs. I have a feeling it doesn't work unless the DM uses illusionism (put the plot "in our way" as we evolve in the game world). There's related issues with the FRCS with the type of campaign we're running. I feel my PC, his actions and his acheivements are overshadowed by all the numerous canon NPCs that are "just there". I think the world is just too much. Wow. It's turning into a personnal rant <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" /> I'll stop now and just say that I wish my insights allow the OP to avoid the pitfalls in which we fell.What I want out of gaming is that the actions of my PC to be significant vs the story, vs the challenges and vs the imagined universe. And I think this can only be acheived is the plot is written by the DM "one session" at a time. I don't want to feel there's a "hidden agenda" the we uncover slowly as we play.</blockquote>

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