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Message: <blockquote data-quote="3catcircus" data-source="post: 1681335" data-attributes="member: 16077">Wow - so many awesome suggestions.To clarify some things:1.  While I can certainly go with them telling me *exactly* what they want, in this case - "swashbuckling adventures" - they specifically said "pirates and stuff."  My point is "Ok - we're in Thesk - on our way to Telflamm.  The whole Inner Sea is one big piratey swashbuckling adventure waiting to happen."  Sure - I can have them set off through the steppes, but then they'll complain about no swashbuckling - in order for them to *get* to Kara-Tur to possibly then fight against Wako in a swashbuckling style.  Yes - I can do that - but doesn't it make sense to go for the obvious?2.  Two of the players are apathetic about realmslore and another trashes it as "too real-world."  As a specific example of this - we all decided (when I was playing, not DMing) that we wanted to by a Cormyrean military unit escorting a caravan along The Golden Way (cover story) while infiltrating and surveilling a Thayan warehouse in Thesk.  So - I went to great lengths to gather Jerry Davis' (quite awesome, BTW) Military Forces of Cormyr article and derive an ORBAT from it, and present it to the rest of the group.  Immediately, I get "that ORBAT makes no sense - it is too much like the real world."  Ok - so who the heck are you to argue with canon?  Likewise - every time I DM (me and another guy trade-off every so often), they've got some obnoxious comment on the realmslore.  If they don't like the realmslore, I'm thinking of simply saying "Fine - come up with your own campaign world, then, if you don't like this."3.  A few of them pretend to want roleplaying and tactical combat, but the moment the DM (me or anyone else) uses tactics to counter the PC's, one specific player whines like a little girl.  They really want a hackfest - but not even that - they just want carboard enemies so they can rack up xp and loot.4.  I am a bit too self-centered about the idea of "adapting the campaign so that the PCs fit into it, interacting and/or meddling with NPC people and activities" rather than their "adapt the campaign so that the world revolves around me" that they want.5.  While I can understand (and even agree with) the idea of not using my PC as an NPC, I know that the only thing that'll do is allow me more time to get into the heads of the other NPCs and play them more intelligently (see #3, above.)  The issue with this is the *fact* that we chose to model our party as a Cormyrean military unit involved in commando-style missions, so even if I don't play my PC as an NPC, the party is left without the "Scout/Security" guy.I guess the hardest part of this for me is trying to deal with the fact that I can't bring myself to "dumb down" an encounter (monster, trap, NPC interaction) to spoon-feed them an easy solution with a massive award.  You shoulda seen the commotion when the other guy who DMs revealed that the party was advancing too quickly so he simply reduced the xp awarded to roughly 2/3 of what was listed in the book...Thanks for all the great suggestions - look forward to seeing more.</blockquote>

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