My DM'ing has gotten worse over the years, not better

[Kzach]

EDIT: My apologies to pawsplay if he read my previous statement. I was in a bad mood and took it out on the first person that crossed my path, which happened to be him.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Imx, players never have their PCs become turnip farmers. But, if they genuinely did make that choice then, I think, for the GM to truly be respectful of it, he'd have to make the game revolve around turnip farming - village life, bringing up kids, dealing with an outbreak of Turnip Blight. The game's high point would probably be fighting one ankheg. Forget all the end-of-the-world, cities exploding stuff, that's not what the players want.

Otoh, it may be, as pawsplay says, a refusal of the call to adventure, where the PC is at first reluctant, but we all know he's going to take up arms soon and fight the BBEG. If so, then the initial refusal isn't a very meaningful choice. It isn't telling us much about what the player wants.

 

[Starfox]

Imx, players never have their PCs become turnip farmers. But, if they genuinely did make that choice then, I think, for the GM to truly be respectful of it, he'd have to make the game revolve around turnip farming...

This is where premise is so important. If you are setting up a rags-to-riches game where the PCs begin as turnip farmers and are expected to end up as world-saving emperors and demigods, better give some hint. Or the player may really make characters that are content farming turnips and refuses your grand adventure.

On the campaign level, surprise is highly overrated. Bait-and-switch and all that.

Hm... Maybe this was to beat a dead horse. Something similar may have been said upthread.

 

[pawsplay]

I think this campaign premise can work if the players have agreed from the start that they'll be facing this world-ending threat, even if they're not aware that their PCs will be instrumental in releasing it. But it seems like generally poor design to spring it on the players as a 'gotcha'.

First of all, I don't know why you would assume this was a gotcha. If you want to run a twenty level campaign, it's usually good to solicit players directly for some kind of commitment.

Second, it's not bad design. It's my campaign and I can do what I want. If I want to gotcha the players, I will. Now, there is a risk I may lose players, either literally or psychologically (which is still the end of the campaign). That is a reason to cautious. But it's still my right to take those risks with my campaign. As far as I am concerned, the players can only really be certain of the things the PCs know (and only to the extent the PCs know them to be true).

The same goes for the players. I can complain about players, but I really only have two choices: let them be in the game, or not let them be in the game. I could kvetch all I want about turnip farmers but I can't make them not want to farm turnips, and if I try, the result is not likely to be fun.

So, yeah. Not only is "like it or leave it" pretty compatible with a wide, sandboxy campaign, I think it's usually going to be presupposed. The very idea of player choice implies some externalities to have choices about.

 

[pawsplay]

Imx, players never have their PCs become turnip farmers. But, if they genuinely did make that choice then, I think, for the GM to truly be respectful of it, he'd have to make the game revolve around turnip farming - village life, bringing up kids, dealing with an outbreak of Turnip Blight. The game's high point would probably be fighting one ankheg. Forget all the end-of-the-world, cities exploding stuff, that's not what the players want.

No, no, no, no no. If the players want to farm turnips, they can find a new GM. It's really that simple. Not only does the GM deserve to play in a game they find appealing as much as any other player, they do the bulk of the prep, and no GM is obliged to prep and run a game they don't want to.

If "saving the world" is only the players' third favorite choice after farming turnips and starting a human-halfling love commune, that's just too bad. After they've saved the world, they can go back to turnip farming and raising half-halflings. But not before.

Otoh, it may be, as pawsplay says, a refusal of the call to adventure, where the PC is at first reluctant, but we all know he's going to take up arms soon and fight the BBEG. If so, then the initial refusal isn't a very meaningful choice. It isn't telling us much about what the player wants.

I don't choose for people. Adventures happen. The players can be on board, or not. The players should not be overly reluctant to heed the call to adventure, but that's really on them.

In the case of a world-shattering evil, the PCs can try to ignore the problem, but it just won't work. OTOH, if the scenario involves some kind of orc horde, they could probably just move. And that's fine. Of course, orc hordes are one situation where turnip farmers are actually MORE likely to become involved than many other characters...

 

[pawsplay]

EDIT: My apologies to pawsplay if he read my previous statement. I was in a bad mood and took it out on the first person that crossed my path, which happened to be him.

No worries.

 

[S'mon]

Me:
"I think this campaign premise can work if the players have agreed from the start that they'll be facing this world-ending threat, even if they're not aware that their PCs will be instrumental in releasing it. But it seems like generally poor design to spring it on the players as a 'gotcha'."

First of all, I don't know why you would assume this was a gotcha.

I didn't - hence my statement above, I discussed both possibilities.

 

[S'mon]

Second, it's not bad design. It's my campaign and I can do what I want.

That's a non-sequitur.

 

[Barastrondo]

Imx, players never have their PCs become turnip farmers. But, if they genuinely did make that choice then, I think, for the GM to truly be respectful of it, he'd have to make the game revolve around turnip farming - village life, bringing up kids, dealing with an outbreak of Turnip Blight. The game's high point would probably be fighting one ankheg. Forget all the end-of-the-world, cities exploding stuff, that's not what the players want.

Yeah, there's a big swath of area between turnip farming and saving the world. My players tend to be in between: they are interested in community-building and invested in the local portion of the world, but in a more adventurous sense. So it's quite possible that they would not refuse the call to adventure, but they might not have the same level of buy-in for a "save the world" scenario as they would a "become major figures within the nation and play the game of politics" scenario.

Sure, if I turned the game into a 20-level "fight a big evil thing for the fate of the world" thing they might still enjoy themselves. But they might not enjoy it as much as "topple this cabal of rival lords and witches, take over their lands and remold the nation in your image". Doesn't mean they want to farm turnips, necessarily.

That said, I absolutely believe that the DM should also be having fun, and not slave to a campaign model he or she finds uninteresting. I want to keep my players happy, but I am certainly glad they don't find the world-shattering evil campaign model as interesting, because it's not something I'd really want to run. I like the more personalized, community-building campaign model more, too.

 

[ThirdWizard]

So the DM's job is not to create the adventure?
I'm confused
everytime I've DMed I created a hook, a main bad guy (the climax) and encounters in between, what happens in between them and how they get there is not my job, but it is my job to make sure there is content for them to venture into, in all dircetions

unless I am wrong with that statement too

No, you have it right. The thing is, campaign design can be an extremely complex issue, and boiling it down to what you said removes many of the nuances that people can be very very attached to. It's easy to latch onto one aspect of session preparation and get a little blind to rest. But, you've got it right.