This is wrong. You are misunderstanding what Pemerton is writing. If you have any intent to converse with him in good faith, you should probably read his posts again, figure out what the difference is between a plot and a situation, and go into it with an attitude more like "Hmm, this doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and our games are evidently different, but I should presume he's being truthful."
And maybe, just maybe, you should read my posts again, as well as his game summaries.
The module has a clear plot, I have posted the table of content. It has a number of events, happening in sequence, in which the PCs can interact. It is not "a situation" which gives a free field to the PCs with no interference. The events have to happen in rough order, in particular day after day, otherwise the story does not make sense and it does not give the PCs the clues that they need to solve the mystery and to react properly. There's a meeting with the captain, then an eclipse, then a game in the evening, etc.
It's actually, much more of a plot than a number of sequences in other published modules where the PC can choose what they do. In this case, they can't even go where they want because they are "trapped" aboard that ship.
Then here comes
@pemerton with his "theories" that he wants to impose on everyone as "the truth and the reason for which he is such a great DM and other DMs not conforming to them suck". And in particular "I don't have a plot that has to be roughly followed", this in response to a number of us telling them that having a plot is a very usual (and probably the most usual) way of conducting D&D games, but because he is so self-righteous about his positions on railroading that he of course had to jump on the bandwagon of "if you are not doing a total sandbox, you are railroading your PCs to some extent and therefore are not as good a DM as those who do".
Which I find particularly comical when one sees - by his own account - how he actually runs things in his game and in particular the type of scenario and the summaries. And doubly comical when, instead of answering simply and in good faith (for example, it could be what he strives for, but other types of game are OK too), he dissembles for page after page in the hope of justifying his position.
Although this sort of thing makes me really doubtful that you are interested in a good faith discussion. Physician, heal thyself.
I am interested in good faith discussions, true, but I'd rather that they are on real basis and not on the figment of imagination that his theories are, not to mention the contradictions such as the one above.
Lyxen, I would strongly appreciate it if, before castigating Pemerton again, you compare what you know about the Sea Maiden scenario to what Pemerton has written above about The Crimson Bull, and see if you can perceive any meaningful difference between how these two scenarios work.
Unfortunately, I had per chance a copy of the Maiden Voyage, but not the Crimson Bull, so I can't compare on paper rather than through the impressions of someone who, for the obvious reasons above as well as some encountered on other threads, I am not particularly prone to trust.
Pemerton has offered one as an example which has events on a timeline, to which the PCs can respond in many different ways and come to different outcomes, and the other as an example which has events in a sequence, which will happen no matter what and the GM is specifically instructed to figure out how to have happen no matter what choices the PCs make.
Are these different, at all, to you? Or only trivially?
If that is the difference, then there indeed a difference, which does not change the fact that they both had PLOTS. Neither is a sandbox in which the characters are free to do what they want (especially for the Maiden Voyage, if the characters decide that they don't care about the events and want to become pirates in the south instead, the only alternative is to die at sea). And it is not a static "situation" either, like a murder mystery to which you come only when it's done, and then you only have to solve it. It has events before this (which again @permerton visibly put in place, at least some of them), and events after the murder, including the attack. This is not a situation. It's a plot.
Moreover, even if a plot has different potential outcomes, it does not change the fact that some events will occur and affect the PCs whatever they do. In Maiden Voyage, the PCs WILL be attacked by the undead crew. It is foreseen from the start of the plot. And it happened in
@pemerton's game. So he followed the plot. And note in particular the use of the word "roughly", because it's one of my words, meaning that it also covers plots with various ways through them and various outcomes.
@pemerton indeed did not follow the scenario and its plot to the letter, but he certainly
roughly followed it.
So I am still waiting for @permeton to come and explain how he reconciles is "I don't have a plot that has to be roughly followed" with the way he actually runs his games, simply, clearly, without throwing theories as smokescreens.
Because while I agree that the two scenarios above are different, they are not different in the fact that they are scenarios, they have a plot, and Maiden Voyage is actually fairly constraining on the PCs, who are trapped aboard a haunted ship with no means of escape other than solving the mystery.