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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7055438" data-attributes="member: 29398">Except the original intention (in my example) was that the war wouldn't see actual play at all, but merely serve as a part of the backstory defining the game world the characters are in.  The players drag the action over to the budding war whether the DM likes it or not; I certainly don't see it as out of line that the DM has happen what was always going to happen anyway.On a broader scale: there's actual plot, and there's red herrings.  Players have every right to chase red herrings to the ends of the world if they want to, but there's no right of expectation that just because they chase a particular red herring it become any more significant than it <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f44e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt="(n)" title="Thumbs down    (n)"  data-smilie="23"data-shortname="(n)" />ever was in the grand scheme of things.  Here, I'm taking [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s Dusk War and framing it as a red herring by way of an example of what I mean.  Not to say a DM can't work what was a red herring into the main plot if she wants to, but there's nothing at all saying she has to.And yes, at some point sooner or later the characters (and by extension the players) are probably going to find out they've been chasing a red herring.  A kind (and by the definition of many here, somewhat railroady) DM might gently try to steer them away from the red herring before they waste too much time on it; others wouldn't.And the existence of red herrings is rarely the DM's fault; as it's almost always the result of the players taking some random off-the-cuff bit of game world info or flavour and latching on to it as being way more important than it really is - in this example, the Dusk War.  Once this happens the DM has a not-always-pretty choice: somehow steer them away from the red herring, or run the red herring knowing that a) it will probably lead to disappointment for the characters/players in the end and b) it might lead - or even force - the DM into running things she's not interested in running.Lanefan</blockquote>

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