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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nagol" data-source="post: 5195453" data-attributes="member: 23935">First, I try to choose a game where smart play fits the genre and conventions for the campaign I want to run or at least doesn't support the opposite play well.Second, I try to set up the initial game circumstance to reinforce the genre and conventions -- particularly if the players are new to me or unused to the game system.Lastly, I try to communicate the campaign expectations as best I can as part of the initial player package and during the pre-play campaign negotiation phase.Of course, it still happens.  The players take the it in their teeth and head off at their whim.So what happens?  I run with it.  The group usually ends up in a more challenging / less optimal situation (loss of campaign resources, prestige, allies, whatever) because their actions take those resources from them.  The group ends up making hard decisions and discovering the consequences.  The consequences usually lead to further challenges and adventures -- either an effort to reverse a previous course or to pursue their current course successfully.One example that sticks out to me was an Ars Magica campaign set just prior to the Danish invasion of England.  The players had started to get intimations of the invasion (one companion was a precognitive and had received a couple of visions; the local lords had rumours of Danish mercenaries and raiders, some early scouts had cut through the covenant area looking for defences, etc.)  About a week before the invasion force strikes, the players are discussing recent activities in the covenant and were determining their actions for the next season.  So what did the players decide to do?  Why every mage decided to travel to Wales to seek out a lost magical item that had been mentioned once in passing a few session before as colour!  At no other time had more than two magi of the six left the covenant at a time.By the time the magi got to Wales and back, the invasion was complete, the covenant had been overrun, and the survivors were refugees spread over the countryside.  It was interesting to run the mages for a few sessions, tell the players that this session, we're running the companions and grogs at the covenant to catch up on activity at the covenant and see their reactions to the attack by forces expecting substantial magical defence.</blockquote>

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