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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5594124" data-attributes="member: 2067">If the player doesn't want to do that, then it will be an interesting choice. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> The giants that ended your clan are on the rampage, what do you do? Perhaps he will put aside his own sadness to deal with the problem. Perhaps he will become paralyzed with fear that they will kill him, too. Perhaps he will do nothing, taking an unheroic track, complaining that the fools deserved their fate. What happens with the giants after that? It's up to me. Either way, we have conflict and resolution. I see it as my job as DM to introduce the former, and move on from the latter. The same problem comes up without a narrative focus, though. What if the party decides not to care about the demigod in his temple? What if the party decides to retire from adventuring and become turnip farmers? What if one party member decides to go on a rampage through the village of Hommlet? What if the party chooses to negotiate with the goblin mercenaries rather than kill them? DMs of all types and stripes always have to learn how to deal with the unexpected. The narrative focus at least sticks the hooks right in the character, so that, choose fight or choose flight, something is at least revealed about that character's goals and ideas. If Burin ignores the giants, maybe the thieves' guild manages to dismantle the trade routes, making the Grand Illusionist's challenge all the harder. I don't think it's functionally any different from saying "There is treasure in the dungeon" (assuming characters want treasure) or "There are orcs in the hills" (assuming characters will want to stop orcs) or "There is an evil cult under the city" (assuming characters will want to stop an evil cult). You can't plan for every contingency, so you direct the action by motivating the characters. This is true regardless of how story-heavy or story-light your game is. Presumably, D&D being a game of heroic adventure, PCs will be inclined to heroic adventure. Giants rampaging in the mountains could be any game, but the giants that killed Burin's clanmates is something unique to this game, and Burin's reaction will likewise be unique.Neither situation dictates a character's actions. One just uses a character's goals and motives specifically. The other uses them generally (adventurers presumably want to Stop Evil, so they will want to get involved with this demigod plotline). They have pretty much the same amount of choice, as far as I can see.</blockquote>

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