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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 2854213" data-attributes="member: 18280">Well, that's the differnce, isn't it?If by "story" you mean "What is going on in the world beyond the PCs, what the NPCs have done and what they wish to do (and how they intend to do it) and what the results of the PCs interactions have on the aforementioned" then I am definitely in the story camp.  I love to set up an area & let the PCs go wild.If by "story" you mean a sequence of events that must happen regardless of PC choices, then I am not in that camp.  I do dangle a lot of hooks that can lead into sequences of events, but those events are always in a semi-fluid state, ready to be changed on the basis of PC action.As an easy example, if I set up a murder mystery and the PCs figured out who the murderer was in the first act, the story would shift to them figuring out how to prove it, how to prevent the murderer from escaping, or whatever.  The PCs make the decisions that determine the direction in which the story flows.In my story hour, there is a sequence of events where the PCs travelled down a river from one town to another.  (The players informed me that this is what they wished to do in an earlier session.)  There were a number of pre-planned encounters along the river journey, which they could react to or ignore as they wished.  They also could have abandoned the ship and done something else.  The biggest event during that sequence was entirely in the PC's hands, and very much unplanned.In a later sequence, the PCs aided a group of Lakashi pilgrims to reach the Serpent Stone.  Of course, the pilgrims didn't want outsiders to actually see this holy place, and intended that they be killed by the Guardian of the valley where the Serpent Stone was.  Again, there were a number of pre-planned encounters along the way, some of which were hooks to other potential adventures.  The PCs proved too canny to fall into the pilgrim's ambush, but they could also have said "No" at the outset, left the group to pursue another hook, etc.The DM's job, IMHO, is to present and play the world.  Part of this is to offer possible directions in which the PCs can go (i.e., hooks to potential adventures).  The PCs then decide what they wish to do.  Some events in the world may be foreordained (a comet on the 15th of Greenleaf heralds the birth of the new prince of the Cloven Isles).  PC actions should not be foreordained.As always, YMMV.RC</blockquote>

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