So, whos game is it anyway?

[likuidice]

ask your players what they want to do next session, whether it be visit the caves of no return, or the bog of eternal stench, you'll know in advance. if you're clever about it, you can drop in stuff that relates to your main plot.
for example, the bbeg necromancers rituals are creating a butterfly effect, wild magic storms appear in distant locations, one of which is the area the pcs are visiting, this could lead to curious pcs attempting to find out why this has happened, yadda yadda. or the assassination of the king has affected trade routes, the pcs cant buy the goods that they wanted because of it. make sure they know about these events in advance, so that they recognise there is a reason for them, not just the "mean dm" trying to stop them creating the "sword of slaying everything except squid." if the pcs are motivated enough, even if all they want to do is dungeon bash, they'll start to get involved to stop this evil guy interfering with their plans to loot tombs. after all, they arent the only party in the world, maybe have them arrive at thelost tomb of blurgle furgle to find it already empty and looted by minions of the big bad. hell hath no fury like that of an adventurer deprived of "their" loot....

 

[Barak]

Heck there are ways to make "save the world" campaign work well, and make it non-railroading. Here's my fav.

Ok, so let's assume the PCs start at 1st level.

Now, your BBEG has a plan to destroy/take over/whatever the world. Ususally, such plans are long, and involve many "parts". Figure it out in broad strokes. Does he need funding? Then he probably run contraband, or have minions raid caravans, or whatever. Does he need a specific artifact? Then he tries to get it somehow. Does he need access to a certain "special place"? Then he tries to gain access and control it. Does he need a specific person? Then he kidnaps/enlist the aid of that person. Right there you have many adventure seeds that you can "offer" the PCs. Also prepare a few more (I'd say at least half as many) that have nothing to do with your big plot.

Now, don't make it so your PCs have to foil every single plan of the BBEG to succeed. But, of course, if they foil a couple, he'll have contingencies. And in some occasions, even if your PCs don't do crap about a particular plot point, the BBEG will still -fail- that one. There are other heroes in the world, I'm sure, and heck, a random monster could very well chomp a few of the BBEG's minions too, you know.

But, eventually, they will do a few of the seeds that have to do with the main story arc. It's the law of average. The BBEG will learn about them, and will get mad at them. Some of his "new" plans will involve kicking them around some. And usually, PCs get upset at that. This should be around level 8-9. At that point, you can stop making as many non-main arc plot seeds. The PCs will, most likely then not, try and pursue those that have to do with the BBEG all of their own. Of course, still offer -some- seeds that have nothing to do with him. But I bet they'll ignore most of them, and concentrate on the BBEG of their own.

 

[WayneLigon]

Or, rather, how much responsiblitity do I have to DM a game that my players want to play, vs DMing the game I'd like to run? Or, maybe, smiply can a story based game work?

That's really two different questions

I run what I think will interest my players over what will interest me most of the time, since my idea of what is interesting is often very much opposed to what everyone else wants. Yes, this makes for some frustration on my part and leads to short campaigns sometimes. But it comes down to this: there are only two people in the current group who have the time or inclination to GM and I'm one of them. The other GM works retail and always needs a break around Xmas season. So I have to run now if I want a game that week, which I do.

Me, myself, I'd rather be running Mutants and Masterminds. I love the superhero genre above almost anything else, and that love has not waned over the years. However, finding people to play in a superhero genre is not a very easy thing at all. There is only one other person in the current group who in enthusiastic about the genre (I normally run a very four-color Silver-Ageish campaign when I do one; if you're not a comics fan, you're simply not going to 'get' most of the genre conventions).

So, I'm running Arcana Unearthed. I like it well enough, and surprisingly everyone else seems to as well. To the point that ALL of them went and bought the book. That's amazing.

'Does running a story-based game work?' is another question

I'm assuming by this you mean 'I have a beginning, middle and end plotted out right at the start'.

Yes, it can, if there is buy-in from the very beginning. You need to sit everyone down and tell them what is expected of them, and go over the various themes you'll be using. If anyone has a problem with it, back up and rethink.

Be prepared to adjust. Be like JMS doing Bab 5; have the general idea out there. Know where you are starting and know where you want to go. Sometimes do a game that works towards that goal, sometimes not. Be prepared for the worst and have alternate plans - but make them really alternate plans, and not just sidetracks that put everything back on track later. Be prepared for the story to end badly, too. Don't make everything depend on X (especially as you near the goal), because as we all know, X will then not happen. Be prepared for what happens when X does not happen.

 

[Arnwyn]

So, what do you do when, after clearly stating what sort of game is being run, you have players who aren't cooperative?
And as far as not playing if it's not fun, well that's why I'm not playing anymore.

At that point, I would find out what they do like. For myself, I do like a fairly large number of things in the fantasy genre, so I'm relatively safe in that my players will want to do something that I'm interested in DMing.

Now, if the players insist on doing something that I mentioned previously (for example, an all-evil campaign), then I just have to graciously decline to DM, and send them on their way... and finally catch up on all the other things I'm behind on! (Reading, improving my pool game, watching all my DVDs that I haven't yet watched, spending time with my SO, etc.) I game only to have fun, and if the group insists on wanting to do things that I won't have fun DMing, I'll drop the game like a bad habit - I'm clearly not compatible with those particular players. (Or, if I'm lucky, someone else would volunteer to DM, and I'd actually get to be a player!)

 

[barsoomcore]

Here was my plan:

blah blah blah

Okay, here was what happened:

- Party never even searches dining hall, but instead spends ten minutes talking about the chairs, which I described as trapezoidal, made of an unknown polymer, and amazingly comfortable

You've just described virtually every game I've ever run. Party spends half the night talking about the chairs.

Dude, that is my pain made text.

"Thwart evil? Coudln't I just sit in a tavern forever? Evil should come to me."
For me, the rub is when I ask for specific aspects of what the good guys are like, or will do, and the "yeah, sure" is just a "yeah, sure" until the situation comes up. I don't know how to engage them in the game.

Here's the secret for your situation, TB: Have the evil come to them. The Bad Guys are OUT TO GET THEM.

Why? Who cares. Figure out later.

Remember Raymond Chandler's immortal advice: When in doubt, have a couple of guys come through the door with guns in their hands.

The Bad Guys are coming for them, to kill them, to wipe them out, for really complicated reasons it would just take too long to explain. They'll start out sending cheap flunkies to do the job, but they'll get more and more serious and eventually BBEG will show up to finish the job.

There's a campaign that will move. It might be a Chevy Nova instead of an Aston Martin, but it'll still get you from A to Z.

 

[Desdichado]

That aptly describes the situation unfortunately. The dynamics within the group aren't very dynamic. I could go on and on asking questions on how to deal with it. But straight to say, most everyone I've talked to states that it was a bad group to begin with. And boy, I could complain about that for hours. So the first step is to locate people that will have fun with the game that I'm proposing.

Yeah, I've been there in the past a few times (luckily not very often.) For such groups, you have to give them very obvious, big sweeping hooks that they can follow. Subtlety doesn't really work on groups like that, as they wonder where they are supposed to go and do and end up sitting around frustrated. Teflon Billy's endorsement aside, I'd say if you want to take away a single quote of mine from this thread, it's to know your group and what makes them click. At the end of the day, it is there game, in my opinion.