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Message: <blockquote data-quote="argo" data-source="post: 1695495" data-attributes="member: 5752">I, of course, have no idea what happens in your game so I cannot tell you what your problem is.  However I can point out one possible pitfall that you may have fallen into without realizing it; that is, perhaps this problem is in fact the result of poor DM-player communication.  How certain are you that they really are "rejecting" these twisting plot threads you have labored so long to construct?  Is it possible that they simply don't see, or don't understand the relevance of, these key elements in your game world?  There is such a thing as being too subtle you know.  I say this because I play with a DM who has this exact problem.  The guy is, at heart, a world builder which means all the NPC's have reasons for what they do and all the plot threads (even the minor stuff) has a place and he works extra hard to make the NPC's react to us in a "realistic" manner.  The problem being that we, players at a game table, only know what the DM describes for us.  When he plays things close to the vest in an effort to make things exciting it often means that his subtle hints simply go unnoticed.  Exchanges like this were common while deconstructing finished adventures:DM "wow, the game really bogged down tonight.  We just spent a couple of hours where nothing happened"me "yeah, we didn't have a clue how to procede so we just wandered around tying random stuff until something worked" DM "you needed to talk to Bob, he had the info you needed to get started"me "come again?  we did talk to bob, he brushed us off"DM "what, you expect the guy to just up and spill his guts to you?  Why would he do that?  You needed to convince him to talk to you"me "we were convincing.  we invoked the authority of the council, had some good diplomacy rolls too"DM "but Bob is an experienced negoitatior (he has levels of noble), he was stonwalling you.  You needed to lean on him"me "we did lean on him"DM "you needed to lean on him harder than that"me "we were afraid anymore leaning and we would step over the line and make a powerfull enemy.  Besides, we didn't actually know Bob knew anything in the first place, talking to him was just a guess so when he shut down on us we figgured it was a dead end and gave up to look somewhere else"DM "hmm, got a point there."After a while we decided it was a communication problem.  Our DM did such a good job of making a vivid, interlocking game world (versimilitude was his catch phrase) that the important details just didn't stand out.  It was all equally mundane on the surface.  To us players it just became so much static, the background noise was too much.  We worked on some ideas of how to fix the problem and the game became much more enjoyable for everybody involved, I can post some of them later if you are interested.So, like I said I don't know if this is your groups problem but maybe it is something to talk over with your players.  Deconstruct a couple of adventures where you ask them why they did what they did (or didn't do) and you explain to them what you had set up and how what they did differed from what you expected.  Find out if they are just missing out on your details or if they really are rejecting them and, if so, why?  In any even it should help you figgure out why they feel your world is so "narrow" when you feel the exact opposite.Hope that helps.</blockquote>

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