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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 7452069" data-attributes="member: 2629">Of course we do. The DMG repeatedly discusses the story we craft with our players...  We're all storytellers... WTF?  I don't see a lot of people on this thread telling their players to dance like puppets.  I see DMs, as SUGGESTED REPEATEDLY IN THE DMG - OF THIS EDITION AND EVERY OTHER EDITION, talking about crafting a storyline with the players that their characters can encounter, advance and resolve.Read Creating a Campaign in the DMG: It has four subheadings. Start Small, Set the Stage, Involve the Characters and Create Backgrounds.  Focus on Set the Stage and Involving the Characters.  They're all about working with the players to build your world, your story, and your game.  Those of us talking about story are referencing these ideas.A Good DM, following the advice of the DMG, will start a campaign by locating players and asking them what they want in a game.  Then, they'll shape those ideas into a storyline idea.  Then he'll take the framework to the players and tell them what he has planned - not the twists and turns, but what the PCs would know as new characters, and perhaps the style of game they can expect (mega dungeon, political thriller, whatever).  Then they'll work with the players to build characters and craft the first adventure.  I see DMs saying that they craft storylines that are more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.  The DM puts a story before the party and they decide what to do with it.  The Mighty Nein on Critical Role are an excellent example (if you don't listen, go buy a compass, because I'm about to lose you) - They arrived in Zadash and have some adventures that give them time to decide what they want to do - Join the military?  Work for a crime boss? Head off to address something from one of their backstories?  Corner the market in Educational Smut?  Mercer, the DM, had ideas of what to do regardless of which direction they headed.  He was ready for whatever they decided to do and they clearly didn't feel constrained by his story demands... but he had story elements ready to develop and unleash on them.  And, I'd put a lot of money down that he has long term storylines that are unfolding week by week, session by session - storylines that evolve as the party interacts with them.  The PCs have a lot of free and open opportunities to craft a path, but they also have story elements that happen to them that force them to decide how to respond.This is that target middle ground that exists perfectly between an aimless Sandbox and a constricting Railroad.  It allows the DM and players to work together to JOINTLY craft a great story, where players get a mix of the unexpected, the desired, and ... perhaps ... educational smut.  So, to pull this back to the original topic: When a DM drops powerful monsters into a game that have no story reason to be there, but can easily kill the PCs, just so that the PCs can be intimidated by the dangers of the world - he is doing something just as bad as the DM that railroads players with a choiceless storyline.  He is forcing a story on the players where they have only one reasonable choice: Flee, because failure to flee is certain death.  The DM is better served to only put these types of monsters in a game when there is a story reason for them to be there... and best served doing so when the PCs have a spectrum of options for how to interact with it.</blockquote>

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