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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fenris-77" data-source="post: 7908889" data-attributes="member: 6993955">Generally I mean the active management of events to try and best realize the story and the actions of the players on that story. Most of what I mean isn't controversial, anything from tailoring random or improv'd encounters to best fit the moment they occur to attempting to incorporate player backstory into a larger narrative. In short, to best accomplish the task the DM agreed to take on when the campaign started, which is to facilitate the best story possible. Where opinions start to differ is specifically on the movement of encounters, items, NPCs and the like, all of which could be in service of the above agreement with the players (when it's not its something else, obviously).My my game, I don't move things willy-nilly. I also don't move things at the last minute. What I might do, and only if necessary, is move a clue, or hook, or an NPC to somewhere more out in front of where the PCs are headed, or seem to be headed. I'm not dropping the letter in the drawer the moment before they open it mind you, I'd make that call once I realized the plan was to infiltrate the Duke's house instead of his Chamberlain's. The players still have to find it, still have to search the right room and I'm not just giving it to them, I'm just dropping it off some ways in front in a way that's consistent with the where I originally had it. What I'm avoiding is spending several sessions infiltrating house after house looking for the silly thing, which would be a waste. In a case where the players missed that letter it stays where I put it, it's not moving again magically, I have to find another way to get the players the information they need to succeed. As mentioned upstream I also might or might not have dropped other clues or hints once things got off track, and there would have been more than one. It's impossible to say exactly how that would work outside an actual table at play. All of the above supposes a narrative heavy game where the story, following the clues, is actively what the players want, not just what I want. The goal is to facilitate player agency, not constrict it. Players are always making decisions based on enormously incomplete information. Sometimes they go left when you expect them to go right, and when that was a reasoned and thought out decision, when that left hand turn looks like a cool story, probably even better than the one I had in mind, I'll accommodate the player's input to the fiction. You can allow the players to fail, and I do, regularly, but when they succeed unexpectedly in telling a great story, that needs to be acknowledged, even if it isn't the one I had planned.</blockquote>

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