You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[Nagol]

The PCs' goal is in the city.

The players' goal is to have a fun game - which includes complications - while pursing their PCs' goals.

For the PCs, a siege of the city is (perhaps, even probably) a pain in the arse - it's another obstacle.

But for the players, the siege is not a pain in the arse - it's part of the situation they are hoping to engage, a resource they can leverage, and in short promises an interesting session of trying to realise their PCs' goal.

*************

Let me come at it in a slightly different way.

Suppose a PC's goal is to recover an ancient heirloom. Having heard that it might be buried in an ancient cache at place X, the PC travels to X and starts digging.

There are at least three ways this story can unfold. (1) The rumours were false, and digging reveals nothing. (2) The rumours were true, and digging reveals the heirloom. The PC acquires it, his/her quest successful. (3) The rumours were true, but they didn't mention that this ancient cache is also Vecna's burial place - now the PC can only recover the heirloom by entering into conflict with the ancient lichking.

From the point of view of the PC, it seems to me that (2) is the most prefereable option. After that it is hard to rank - if the PC is very strong, perhaps (3) > (1), because the PC can beat Vecna. If the PC is weaker, perhaps (1) > (3), because the PC has a better chance of finding the heirloom elsewhere than of taking it from Vecna.l

From the point of view of the player, however, it seems to me that in most cases (3) > (2) > (1). The player wants to play an interesting game, and conflict and compliation in pursuit of your goals is more interesting than unhindered success.

But the player (or, at least, my players, and it seems [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]) want conflicts and complications that address or pertain to their goals. Struggling with Vecna to recover my heirloom seems like a fine heirloom quest campaign; whereas, a version of (2) in which getting to X is preceded by an aduous sea voyage or desert crossing wouldn't really be an heirloom quest campaign at all - it's a voyaging campaign which Hussar has indicated he's happy to play, but doesn't want to do when he's revved up for the heirloom quest campaign.

This is also why I had a strong (if brief) response to your post upthread about teleporting past the siege into the central town square and recovering the MacGuffin. If that's all that's happening in the city - if it's just a procedural puzzle which I can solve with one or two teleport spells plus a charm spell, to cross the desert, enter the city and inveigle some NPC out of the MacGuffin - then for me at least the desert crossing is the least of my complaints. The whole game seems to have no point, no dynamism, nothing happening. It's starting to looke like nothing more than joining the dots.

I've been taking it for granted that doing whatever has to be done in the city will itself be an interesting episode of play, with choices to be made, complications to be dealt with, and player resources (including perhaps the siege or the sandstorm) being leveraged.

Considering Hussar's stated preference way back on page 20:

Well, I've been playing a few years now. It's generally not too difficult to tell when something is going to matter and when it's not. We're at point A. We need to be at point B. In between these two points are nothing that has anything to do with what we need to do at B. It's not really a big thing to realize that there really isn't a whole lot there.

-----------------

Look, let me jump over the GM screen for a second and show what I would do as the DM in both situations. For me, the primary, single most important criteria is:

What is the goal?

What are the players and their characters doing right now and why are they doing it? That is the primary concern. If the goal was "hunting bandits in the desert" then fine, wander the sands. If the goal was, "Find the lost temple of Ix", then fine, let's go wandering. But the goal here is, "Let's get to Point B where we have to be in order to move the game forward."

There is no indication he would consider a side-trek here to be interesting.

 

[LostSoul]

I haven't been following the desert-city stuff in this thread, but I wonder: how much of the desert Hussar would be willing to skip/hand-wave if he was playing with a different system vs. 3E D&D.

If I was playing Burning Wheel and we did some kind of magic to plane shift near the city but failure meant that we ended up in the desert instead, I think I'd be okay with that. I wonder if Hussar would be as well. It seems like it'd engage my Belief of "I must enter the city and get the MacGuffin." (To which I'd add "Anyone who stands in my way will be killed without mercy." But that's me.)

However, if I really wanted to get to the city and the MacGuffin, I'd probably be a little bored of 3E play through the desert - again, playing Story Now type play. (It took me forever - in real time - to achieve my D&D 3.5E PC's goal to return from the Plane of Faerie to Faerun, but that was fine since we weren't playing Story Now.) In 3E a fight can easily last an hour or more, and you could have many such instances, and just negotiating how you're travelling through the desert can take a while - since 3E's currency makes such travel important to the game.

Unless the DM is willing to stop the game and say, "Hey guys, do you want to deal with the desert, or just hand-wave it?" I think it puts the DM in a difficult position. The players might be bored if you go through the dozens? of wandering monster checks, XP gains, the rations used, the spells used, the HP lost, the wand/staff charges lost, the potions used, the scrolls used, the days passing, magic item creation times, etc. (I may be missing some currency here.) Or they might want the XP gain and whatever else might happen. You have to stop the game to ask, I think.

Whereas in Burning Wheel (for example) a player can state directly to the DM, "My intent is to get to the city, and I want to do it by summoning a centipede for all of us to ride." Since you're going to get your intent with a successful roll - as long as the DM thinks it's a valid intent, and if he doesn't there's going to be dialogue - you're engaging with the player's goals and still staying right in there with the system's currency. (The BW players might think this desert trek is a good chance to gather Fate and Tests of Desert-wise, Oasis-wise, Nomad-wise, Orienteering, Persuasion, combat skills, etc., so they may still decide to "montage" through the desert through smaller intents. But that's up to them.)

Anyway. I guess what I'm saying is that system matters here.

 

[pemerton]

I guess what I'm saying is that system matters here.

Agreed.

 

[N'raac]

It’s déjà vu all over again!

PC goals? No. Player goals? 80 minutes of great, in-character role playing action that furthered the goal of obtaining the mercenary support, developed more ties with that weapon supplier, established connections within the city watch and possibly set up a future adventure related to that criminal. What a great break between the grind of a dungeon crawl with nothing but constant, repetitive tactical combat scenes. Eighty minutes well spent, and bonus xp to all the PC’s for great role playing and developing their characters. On to the Grell!

While I don’t need the “special label”, I agree that he PLAYER’s reaction to CHARACTER adversity should not be universally negative. The PC is not thrilled with a lame horse. The player faces some form of challenge as a consequence which may make the game enjoyable. The PC would probably prefer all his goals achieved with limited or no danger, adversity, difficulty, delay or negative consequence. The player would likely find that game pretty dull.

A GM placing complications in the way is not, as a consequence, “the enemy” of the players. Assuming an adversary is one of the issues this thread seems to keep coming back to – treating complications as “punishing” the players is one example of this.

And now, some 50+ pages later...

The PCs' goal is in the city.

The players' goal is to have a fun game - which includes complications - while pursing their PCs' goals.

Which is precisely what was said, repeatedly, many pages ago. In those posts, it was indicating that, while having a desert between them and the city, for the PC’s, is (perhaps, even probably) a pain in the arse - it's another obstacle.

But for the players, the desert is not a pain in the arse - it's part of the situation they are hoping to engage, a complication they must overcome to achieve their goals, and in short promises an interesting session of trying to realise their PCs' goal.

Even if the city is the goal, achieving the goal requires crossing the desert. If getting past the choke point of the dungeon requires defeating the Grell, I don’t expect the Grell to just step out of the way – I expect that the players will deal with the Grell. If the city is the goal, then crossing the desert is a challenge that must be met to get to the city.

Let me come at it in a slightly different way.

Suppose a PC's goal is to recover an ancient heirloom. Having heard that it might be buried in an ancient cache at place X, the PC travels to X and starts digging.

There are at least three ways this story can unfold. (1) The rumours were false, and digging reveals nothing. (2) The rumours were true, and digging reveals the heirloom. The PC acquires it, his/her quest successful. (3) The rumours were true, but they didn't mention that this ancient cache is also Vecna's burial place - now the PC can only recover the heirloom by entering into conflict with the ancient lichking.

From the point of view of the PC, it seems to me that (2) is the most prefereable option. After that it is hard to rank - if the PC is very strong, perhaps (3) > (1), because the PC can beat Vecna. If the PC is weaker, perhaps (1) > (3), because the PC has a better chance of finding the heirloom elsewhere than of taking it from Vecna.l

From the point of view of the player, however, it seems to me that in most cases (3) > (2) > (1). The player wants to play an interesting game, and conflict and compliation in pursuit of your goals is more interesting than unhindered success.

But the player (or, at least, my players, and it seems @Hussar) want conflicts and complications that address or pertain to their goals. Struggling with Vecna to recover my heirloom seems like a fine heirloom quest campaign; whereas, a version of (2) in which getting to X is preceded by an aduous sea voyage or desert crossing wouldn't really be an heirloom quest campaign at all - it's a voyaging campaign which Hussar has indicated he's happy to play, but doesn't want to do when he's revved up for the heirloom quest campaign.

Dismissing the desert outright strikes me as much more similar to “you start digging at the rumoured location of the heirloom. After some time, your shovels strike something solid. Clearing away some of the dirt reveals a slab of rock, adorned with runes rendered nigh-unreadable by the passage of time. It seems like it may be the entry to an ancient tomb”, to have the player respond “Which part of ‘my goal is to find the heirloom’ did you interpret as ‘I want to engage in an irrelevant dungeon crawling slog? I didn’t WANT a ‘tomb robber’ campaign – fast forward to the heirloom – STORY NOW – SAY YES OR ROLL THE DICE!”

You/@Hussar pre-classify the campaign. If I’m revv’ed up for “Heirloom Quest”, why are we playing “Dungeon Crawl”?

I've been taking it for granted that doing whatever has to be done in the city will itself be an interesting episode of play, with choices to be made, complications to be dealt with, and player resources (including perhaps the siege or the sandstorm) being leveraged.

Yes, you have been taking for granted that the city and the siege will be fun, and the desert trip will be a dull, boring slog. So my very simple question is why you assume the GM in question has prepared a fantastic, well developed siege scenario beyond which lies a vibrant, living city filled to bursting with entertaining and intriguing encounters, then slapped a desert full of dull, boring, meaningless encounters he wants us to slog through in order to get to the stuff he designed to actually be fun?

It seems, to me, no more appropriate to classify the desert as “boring roadblock” and the siege and/or city as “source of wondrous entertainment” than to randomly select one of the other two items as the slog – none of the three have had any opportunity to show their worth.


Well, if we assume that playing out a trip through the desert (on centipedeback or otherwise) will be no fun but playing out interaction with the siege and interaction within the city will be enormously fun, then we logically want to skip the desert and get to the fun stuff. But what makes those assumptions more valid than that playing out a trip through the desert (on centipedeback or otherwise) will be great fun but playing out interaction with the siege and interaction within the city will be another improv acting fest as the GM shows off his Mary Sue and Marty Stu NPC’s and his impov skills while we sit and listen, a boring prospect at best, so we should play out the desert and skip past the siege and the city.

Asking to skip the desert to the city (we don’t know about the siege yet) makes the assumption that the GM has designed a series of dull, boring, irrelevant desert encounters. Why do we jump, sight unseen, to that assumption? Does the GM have a history of running dull, boring sessions? If so, why do we think the city will be better?

 

[Hussar]

Yes.

So proximity is what matters? Because, again, the city isn't the goal of the player or PC, it's what's in the city.

This doesn't surprise me, since I'm still puzzled by a lot of logic on your side. However, I'm surprised we can't even understand one another. I don't know if we've had this problem to this extent before. Disagree, sure, but basic incomprehension on both sides? This is a new one.

That's all he knew of at the time. But, he had no idea if there was going to be nomads with refugees, or a sandstorm. He had no idea what was to be encountered in the desert, and he wanted to skip all of it, because it wasn't relevant. I'm asserting that he can't know that until he encounters it, since he has no idea the context of the encounters until that point (or unless the GM tells him, which didn't seem to be the case).

Yet, the siege isn't described, foreshadowed, or introduced yet, either, but it's "relevant" right away when it's introduced. Hussar cannot interact with the siege until it interrupts his journey to his goal, just like the nomads leading refugees or a sandstorm. Hussar did not know if any of these would pop up, but proclaimed the desert "irrelevant" nonetheless, even without context. Again, this is what I'm disputing.

I think you're shifting things back to "the city" rather than "the goal in the city." But I've said that before. And, as far as your confusion goes, see my reply, above. As always, play what you like

But, you cannot get to the goal without entering the city. The city is part of the goal. It's not a terrible stretch to think that there just must be a few things that the players can pro-actively interact with in a city. You keep trying to paint the city like the desert - but that's not really a fair comparison. The desert has absolutely NOTHING the players can pro-actively interact with. Until you add in things like nomads or desert storms, the desert has nothing for the players.

A city, OTOH, does have tons of elements inherent to it for the players and their PC's. So, can we at least agree that the city where the goal is is relevant to the players?

Now, if the city is relevant to the players because the goal is located within the city, isn't the fact that the city is under siege ALSO relevant to the players, by simple fact that the player's goals lie within the city?

Even if we skip the siege through teleport, we can still interact with it from within the city. Granted, if I'm playing N'raac's game and we go to talk to the siege leaders, we will be automatically killed (kinda how I've been pointing out throughout this thread that some DM's will automatically choose the worst possible interpretation), but, even without that, there's things like disease and whatnot inside the city, caused by the siege.

 

[Hussar]

It’s déjà vu all over again!





And now, some 50+ pages later...



Which is precisely what was said, repeatedly, many pages ago. In those posts, it was indicating that, while having a desert between them and the city, for the PC’s, is (perhaps, even probably) a pain in the arse - it's another obstacle.

But for the players, the desert is not a pain in the arse - it's part of the situation they are hoping to engage, a complication they must overcome to achieve their goals, and in short promises an interesting session of trying to realise their PCs' goal.

But at least one of the players has emphatically stated that the desert absolutely IS a pain in the arse. It is not a situation I was hoping to engage, nor was it an interesting complication. It did not promise anything resembling an interesting session. Or, at least an interesting session to me.

Dismissing the desert outright strikes me as much more similar to “you start digging at the rumoured location of the heirloom. After some time, your shovels strike something solid. Clearing away some of the dirt reveals a slab of rock, adorned with runes rendered nigh-unreadable by the passage of time. It seems like it may be the entry to an ancient tomb”, to have the player respond “Which part of ‘my goal is to find the heirloom’ did you interpret as ‘I want to engage in an irrelevant dungeon crawling slog? I didn’t WANT a ‘tomb robber’ campaign – fast forward to the heirloom – STORY NOW – SAY YES OR ROLL THE DICE!”

You/@Hussar pre-classify the campaign. If I’m revv’ed up for “Heirloom Quest”, why are we playing “Dungeon Crawl”?
[/quote]

I'm not sure if there's enough to go on here, but, I do agree with the basic point. Say the Heirloom Quest campaign is all about this heirloom and the hijinks surrounding it. Getting the heirloom doesn't really matter, since the campaign is about who has the heirloom and what do they do with it. At least, that's how the campaign was pitched. Now we get to spend the next four sessions in a dungeon crawl. It's a bait and switch. The campaign that I signed up for was not Dungeon Crawling, it was With This Heirloom I Rule (or something to that effect) The Kingdom and all that that entails.

So, yeah, I do think it is very bad DMing to bait and switch campaigns.

Yes, you have been taking for granted that the city and the siege will be fun, and the desert trip will be a dull, boring slog. So my very simple question is why you assume the GM in question has prepared a fantastic, well developed siege scenario beyond which lies a vibrant, living city filled to bursting with entertaining and intriguing encounters, then slapped a desert full of dull, boring, meaningless encounters he wants us to slog through in order to get to the stuff he designed to actually be fun?

It seems, to me, no more appropriate to classify the desert as “boring roadblock” and the siege and/or city as “source of wondrous entertainment” than to randomly select one of the other two items as the slog – none of the three have had any opportunity to show their worth.

But, throughout all this, it's the DM doing everything. It's the DM providing fantastic scenarios. It's the DM designing the fun. Some people don't play games where the DM runs things to that degree.

Well, if we assume that playing out a trip through the desert (on centipedeback or otherwise) will be no fun but playing out interaction with the siege and interaction within the city will be enormously fun, then we logically want to skip the desert and get to the fun stuff. But what makes those assumptions more valid than that playing out a trip through the desert (on centipedeback or otherwise) will be great fun but playing out interaction with the siege and interaction within the city will be another improv acting fest as the GM shows off his Mary Sue and Marty Stu NPC’s and his impov skills while we sit and listen, a boring prospect at best, so we should play out the desert and skip past the siege and the city.

Asking to skip the desert to the city (we don’t know about the siege yet) makes the assumption that the GM has designed a series of dull, boring, irrelevant desert encounters. Why do we jump, sight unseen, to that assumption? Does the GM have a history of running dull, boring sessions? If so, why do we think the city will be better?

Because, for some of us, the DM is not the sole provider of entertainment at the table. But, in the desert, there is absolutely nothing for anyone to do until such time as the DM provides it. In the city, there's lots to do. As an added bonus, there's a siege at the city as well.

 

[Hussar]

One last thought. How about a compromise?

I'm playing at your table. Whatever the scenario is, I'm not interested in it for whatever reason. The rest of the group is interested however, and they have over ruled me skipping over it. Ok, fair enough. Can I take a break from the table for a while?

Would it be possible for me to say something like, "Ok, look, I have no interest in that tower. I just don't. My fighter wants to go back home to deal with the stuff that we've been talking about and this bit is not hooking me at all. Can we just NPC my fighter for the duration, I'll go do some other stuff, and give me a call when you're ready to take the party home"?

Is it acceptable for a player to choose to not play, not for the whole campaign, but, just in the part that he or she has flat out said they don't want to do?

The last time I brought this up, several posters flat out told me that such a player would be ejected from the game. I'm wondering if the obligation to play through whatever the DM has brought to the table really extends that far.

 

[Nagol]

One last thought. How about a compromise?

I'm playing at your table. Whatever the scenario is, I'm not interested in it for whatever reason. The rest of the group is interested however, and they have over ruled me skipping over it. Ok, fair enough. Can I take a break from the table for a while?

Would it be possible for me to say something like, "Ok, look, I have no interest in that tower. I just don't. My fighter wants to go back home to deal with the stuff that we've been talking about and this bit is not hooking me at all. Can we just NPC my fighter for the duration, I'll go do some other stuff, and give me a call when you're ready to take the party home"?

Is it acceptable for a player to choose to not play, not for the whole campaign, but, just in the part that he or she has flat out said they don't want to do?

The last time I brought this up, several posters flat out told me that such a player would be ejected from the game. I'm wondering if the obligation to play through whatever the DM has brought to the table really extends that far.

That's be fine at my table. Players can't make it for all sorts of reasons and their PCs revert to NPC status. If they're in the middle of a situation, they remain active as part of the group and the player has to accept the result for good or ill. If they are in a "safe" location, the character finds something to do away from the group for a while and goes quiet.

It only becomes a problem if the absenteeism rises above about 50% of the sessions missed. At that point, regardless of the reasons for absences, I talk to the player about swapping him out for a person on the waiting list.

 

[Abraxas]

One last thought. How about a compromise?

I'm playing at your table. Whatever the scenario is, I'm not interested in it for whatever reason. The rest of the group is interested however, and they have over ruled me skipping over it. Ok, fair enough. Can I take a break from the table for a while?

Would it be possible for me to say something like, "Ok, look, I have no interest in that tower. I just don't. My fighter wants to go back home to deal with the stuff that we've been talking about and this bit is not hooking me at all. Can we just NPC my fighter for the duration, I'll go do some other stuff, and give me a call when you're ready to take the party home"?

Is it acceptable for a player to choose to not play, not for the whole campaign, but, just in the part that he or she has flat out said they don't want to do?

The last time I brought this up, several posters flat out told me that such a player would be ejected from the game. I'm wondering if the obligation to play through whatever the DM has brought to the table really extends that far.

I wouldn't have any problem with that. But, given that I only game with friends, I find it almost impossible that anyone of them would ever do that. Of course the group of friends I game with now already divides experience and treasure between all the characters whether or not their player (or even the character) was present. We also let others run our PC when we can't attend (if someone wants to) and it is understood that your PC may die without you there and you don't get to complain about it.

I have in the past gamed with people who were pretty strict about you having to be there to get a share of the treasure (but not XP) and they also were OK with someone not showing up. It was known ahead of time that you wouldn't be getting any treasure unless one (or more) of the players decided to give you part of their share.

Regardless, I would find it pretty strange for someone to stop in the middle of the game and just say I don't want to do this and I'm going home. I just can't imagine, short of having some sort of personal events that are distracting from the game regardless of scenario, any event that would be so boring that I couldn't deal with it for a session. Regardless of what's going on at the table I am still interacting with my friends - and that's the real fun of RPGs to me. I also really don't understand not letting things play out for a at least a little while before telling the DM - hey this just isn't doing it for me today, is there anything we can do to move things along.

As DM I have had players use character abilities to out right short circuit what I thought was going to happen - I'm fine with that. I have also learned my player's preferences for what they find fun in the game and I work very hard to have a mix of things so everyone gets their favorite bits - they are fine with that.

 

[N'raac]

But, you cannot get to the goal without entering the city. The city is part of the goal. It's not a terrible stretch to think that there just must be a few things that the players can pro-actively interact with in a city. You keep trying to paint the city like the desert - but that's not really a fair comparison. The desert has absolutely NOTHING the players can pro-actively interact with. Until you add in things like nomads or desert storms, the desert has nothing for the players.

What does the city have that is inherently interesting for the players with nothing added by the GM? Until the GM adds in locations and NPC's it has nothing. The GM can proceed with:

Excited Players (EP): We go to an inn!!!
Flat Monotone GM (FMG): You find an inn.
EP: What's the name of the inn??? Look on the sign!!!
FMG: The sign is faded with age and just looks like a board.
EP: Go inside!!!
FMG: You are inside the Inn.
EP: Is there an inkeeper???
FMG: Yes. He will rent you rooms for 3 sliver pieces.
EP: Talk to the Innkeeper - ask him if he can direct us to the Church of the Holy McGuffin.
FMG: The innkeeper grunts, and says "three blocks east".

And so on. Just monotones, dull NPC's and boring locations. Pretty much what you expected of the desert.

A city, OTOH, does have tons of elements inherent to it for the players and their PC's. So, can we at least agree that the city where the goal is is relevant to the players?

It is as relevant or irrelevant as we choose to make it. Just like the desert. Just like the siege. I would hope the GM would make the areas we will spend time in relevant and interesting, and fast forward us past any irrelevant or uninteresting areas. I'm not sure why that is so difficult to comprehend.

Now, if the city is relevant to the players because the goal is located within the city, isn't the fact that the city is under siege ALSO relevant to the players, by simple fact that the player's goals lie within the city?

The fact that the city is under siege is ALSO relevant to the players , just as much as the simple fact that the player's goals lie within the city which is under siege lies within a desert renders the desert ALSO relevant to the players.

Even if we skip the siege through teleport, we can still interact with it from within the city. Granted, if I'm playing N'raac's game and we go to talk to the siege leaders, we will be automatically killed (kinda how I've been pointing out throughout this thread that some DM's will automatically choose the worst possible interpretation), but, even without that, there's things like disease and whatnot inside the city, caused by the siege.

In my game, the likelihood you would be automatically killed if you attempt to interact with the siege is equal to the likelihood that I will force you to play out all the bnoring mundane aspects of the trip through the desert. You assume the worst of the desert and the best of the siege and the city. Why? What prevents the assumption that the GM will work to make all encounters interesting and entertaining, rather than the presumption one will be a dull, boring waste of everbody's time?

But at least one of the players has emphatically stated that the desert absolutely IS a pain in the arse. It is not a situation I was hoping to engage, nor was it an interesting complication. It did not promise anything resembling an interesting session. Or, at least an interesting session to me.

Based on WHAT? Again, the character has yet to set foot in the desert, and the player simply dismisses it as dull and uninteresting because, as near as I can tell, it was not what you had in mind. I don't believe you were hoping to engage in the siege, not having known it was there, yet for some reason we assume the same GM who will make the desert a dull, frustrating roadblock will make the siege a dynamic, interesting scene of interaction. Why is that more likely than both being vibrant and entertaining, or both being PITA roadblocks?

I'm not sure if there's enough to go on here, but, I do agree with the basic point. Say the Heirloom Quest campaign is all about this heirloom and the hijinks surrounding it. Getting the heirloom doesn't really matter, since the campaign is about who has the heirloom and what do they do with it. At least, that's how the campaign was pitched. Now we get to spend the next four sessions in a dungeon crawl. It's a bait and switch. The campaign that I signed up for was not Dungeon Crawling, it was With This Heirloom I Rule (or something to that effect) The Kingdom and all that that entails.

There you go, Pemerton. Hussar is not interested in your VecnaCrawl. Fast forward to Hussar standing over Vecna's re-dead body, holding the heirloom to the sky and howling in triumph!

But, throughout all this, it's the DM doing everything. It's the DM providing fantastic scenarios. It's the DM designing the fun. Some people don't play games where the DM runs things to that degree.

So the city and the siege were your design, then? That's the first I have heard of that!

One last thought. How about a compromise?

I'm playing at your table. Whatever the scenario is, I'm not interested in it for whatever reason. The rest of the group is interested however, and they have over ruled me skipping over it. Ok, fair enough. Can I take a break from the table for a while?

Would it be possible for me to say something like, "Ok, look, I have no interest in that tower. I just don't. My fighter wants to go back home to deal with the stuff that we've been talking about and this bit is not hooking me at all. Can we just NPC my fighter for the duration, I'll go do some other stuff, and give me a call when you're ready to take the party home"?

Is it acceptable for a player to choose to not play, not for the whole campaign, but, just in the part that he or she has flat out said they don't want to do?

The last time I brought this up, several posters flat out told me that such a player would be ejected from the game. I'm wondering if the obligation to play through whatever the DM has brought to the table really extends that far.

I'd say this depends largely on frequency. A player might just as easily not show up because he's ill, tired or what have you. Missing a game hardly seems like the end of the world. Hwever, I'm not sure I get the "give me a call" business. If the tomb is searched after an hour, I would not commit to putting the game on hold while you make your way back, or end the game early because you now want to participate again, or stop play when some creature in the Tomb turns out to have the heirloom. I might very well reschedule a game because I know something very relevant to the player/character is likely to arise, but I'm not going to tell ou the Big Reveal is part of the near-term scenario.

I'm not sure whether that's a positive or negative answer from your perspective.

That's be fine at my table. Players can't make it for all sorts of reasons and their PCs revert to NPC status. If they're in the middle of a situation, they remain active as part of the group and the player has to accept the result for good or ill. If they are in a "safe" location, the character finds something to do away from the group for a while and goes quiet.

It only becomes a problem if the absenteeism rises above about 50% of the sessions missed. At that point, regardless of the reasons for absences, I talk to the player about swapping him out for a person on the waiting list.

Same here. Nagol, am I correct that the session continues without the player, or would you be prepared to stop play on reaching the end of whatever the player didn't want to play out so the player can come back and not miss the parts he may have been more interested in?

I wouldn't have any problem with that. But, given that I only game with friends, I find it almost impossible that anyone of them would ever do that. Of course the group of friends I game with now already divides experience and treasure between all the characters whether or not their player (or even the character) was present. We also let others run our PC when we can't attend (if someone wants to) and it is understood that your PC may die without you there and you don't get to complain about it.

Regardless, I would find it pretty strange for someone to stop in the middle of the game and just say I don't want to do this and I'm going home. I just can't imagine, short of having some sort of personal events that are distracting from the game regardless of scenario, any event that would be so boring that I couldn't deal with it for a session. Regardless of what's going on at the table I am still interacting with my friends - and that's the real fun of RPGs to me. I also really don't understand not letting things play out for a at least a little while before telling the DM - hey this just isn't doing it for me today, is there anything we can do to move things along.

Same here, I think, an I pose the same question I pose to Nagol above.