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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5015506" data-attributes="member: 80487">Well, if something is not fun, then we can choose not to spend our time at it. When the D&D game is a Hobson's choice, either the DM's prepared "adventure" or nothing, then we can still choose to spend time at the table on stuff other than the D&D game.Certainly the most fundamental problem is one of getting everyone on the same page: communication, "social contract", all that good stuff. It may take a while -- yea, even more than a couple of sessions -- for people to digest the dynamics and come up with a good way to broach the subject. It may take longer to sort out and set up a more satisfactory arrangement.The next most basic problem in that drain case seems to me (based on memory) not just passive but passive-aggressive reliance on the DM, counting on an entitlement that makes a mockery of the game. It might in the event have been for the best for the DM to entertain the fools by entertaining himself, even if it meant killing a few. But I suspect they would have complained about such "interesting times" as well.That ties into the concept that "an entire session is wasted" when the players spend it actually playing the game, that only the delivery by the DM of something from a particular limited set of outcomes is worthwhile -- regardless of what course of action the players choose to pursue.The DM's job, one might fairly say, is to entertain his players. There is this caveat: That need not mean just any players! And this: The DM is entitled to be entertained, too. If, as a player, I am not satisfied, then I am entitled to a refund of the full price of admission!If I cannot get back my time and energy, neither can the DM -- and who has invested more?DMs need players, and players need DMs, but it does not follow that you must be my DM or that I must play in your campaign.It's based on the assumption that what you wrote is accurate: that the kind of foreshadowing you had in mind is impossible in Raven Crowking's game.That looks to me like the old "floating encounter" (sometimes a.k.a. "flying nun") routine in drag. Go north, south, east, west ... it doesn't matter! You're still going to encounter the Sole Survivor of the Sacked Nunnery, only it'll be a Sacked Monastery, Manor or Mine instead. Or the Ambush by Orcs/ Leathery Winged Avians/ Apelike Cannibals/ Mutant Nasties. Or even the [fill in blank with entry from TV Tropes].Now, that is a great labor-saving device! In a weaker form, one might file away an encounter to draw upon whenever meeting it would be appropriate -- as the DMG suggests for parties of NPC adventurers, which could slow play considerably were one to generate them on the spot when tables consulted in play indicate them.</blockquote>

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