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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 7452342" data-attributes="member: 2629">I'm not sure what you are arguing here, but I think there is more opportunity for you to enjoy the game.That is a situation, not a story.  Right?  There is no protagonist, no climax... it is a setting.  So far...Don't put a gun in the play if it won't be fired?  Don't put the GIant Hills in the game if we won't see Giants?  Guns can be used as more than a boom stick, and Giants are more than than CR 5 to 9 brutes. Don't get me wrong: There is definitely something to this statement, but there is more to this than you are noting, I think... as well as less.  However, I kind of feel like this is a sidetrack.  Regardless....There is more to it in that the Giant Hills can be the Giant Hills without the PCs seeing Giants.  They can know there are giants there without seeing them, obvously.  Low level PCs would be wise not to venture into the Giant Hills, right?  Does that mean there are no Giants there?  And if the PCs have cause to enter those Hills... can there be an adventure that is all about NOT seeing the Giants?  In avoiding being found by the overwheling threat and sneaking around to find the the McGuffin and escape alive?  There are a lot of movies that tell that story, right?  There are a lot of stories that could be told of he Giant Hills, and they don't all involve fighting giants.And, of course, there is less to this statement in that a label is just a label.  My PCs hang out in the Green Dragon Tavern and have never seen a Green Dragon there.  The Giant Hills may have been the home of giants, once, but no more.    Sometimes a label is not sigificant.And all of that is fine.  The thief escapes into the jungle, foolishly, with the doodad.  There are a lot of stories to be told, there.  The story is at the core.  This is drastically different than having the PCs get off the ship and be told the jungle around them is dangerous, the city they're in is dangerous, and there is no ship to go back to civilization.  It is a dangerous world and they need to run from the big scaries that HAPPEN to find them... As a DM, I might very well have the Giant Hills be located around the town that my low-level PCs begin their campaign within, but I would not likely expect them to be running off to fight a giant at level 1. Instead, I will be providing them with other story opportunities that they could adventure within with the full knowledge that the Giants are out there somewhere in the Hills. There will be several story threads that they could develop, move forward, and resolve before they were ready to venture out and face a giant as part of an unfolding story. As a DM, it is my job to give them a good story that they can engage and enjoy. Now, if the PCs foolishly decide at level one to rush off into the hills and look for the first giant they can find, there is little I can do as a DM (without railroading them away from such a choice) to protect them from themselves. We're telling a story together, and if that is how they want to end it, that is how it will end. Both the DM and the players have a certain amount of control over how the story will resolve. In a really good game, the eventual resolution is one that the players and the DM both fine to be appealing. That takes cooperation between the players and the DM.D&D is an RPG.  A role playing game.  It is all about characters playing a role in a story... and making that story great.  It is not itself a strategy game, although there are subgames within D&D that are strategy games.  No, it is a story game.  Read the DMG.  Very little of it is actual guidance, as opposed to resources, but what is guidance is ripe with discussion of the story of the game.</blockquote>

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