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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 6108871" data-attributes="member: 6668292">That you don't care keeps getting left out? In the very post that you replied to, I said "You don't like that kind of game, which is fine." Am I leaving that out?Then, as I said, I disagree with your opinion, and my experience differs.Do you believe everything every GM says (even if you take it out of context) applies to every table and every poster in this thread? If so, then don't worry; I won't make you interact with the desert just because I think it's cool and I wrote a lot about it. There. Now you can apply that to every GM in this thread.A couple of things, here. First, players don't always get their way. It's part of what makes the game fun. Last night -for the first time this campaign- a PC died. He didn't want to, but he accepted it, as did the player. He went out in an awesome way, but he thought it would be cool to live. However, he also saw how cool it was for his character to die there, and rolled with it. It opens up new possibilities. It changes the landscape of the entire campaign. It's interesting, even if it's not what he wanted. It's like "fail forward" in games; you get closer to your goal, but complications happen along the way. Complications that are hopefully interesting. To my group, they are. So I use them.Secondly, I want to answer your "why are you forcing me into play that I don't want?" question. Basically, it's a very simple answer: because I'm running the game, and this is the way I run it. And, I run it that way because it's fun for me, and my friends seem to have a lot of fun with it.Will I force you to play it if you're at my table? Yes, I will. Will I force you to stay at my table? No, I won't. Will I force you to play at my way at your table? No, of course not. I've already said that there's no problem with you playing your way, and I couldn't even if I wanted to.No, they won't. And it's fairly unbelievable to me that you're telling me that every group that uses complications in their games will eventually end up with everything screwing over their PCs. But you are. So, I don't think we can go anywhere from here. You're so obviously wrong (as far as my table is concerned) that it's not even something I can put effort into debating. It might end up that way at your table, but not mine, and I'm guessing not pemerton's or Celebrim's or at a host of other tables.This is extremely different from what you just told me. This is the old "trap in the dungeon" problem. That, as long as their are traps in the game, you need to treat every place as having traps, or you'll probably eventually get hit by one. Which is true. And yes, the same goes for hirelings that might betray you, or whatever.However, it doesn't necessarily mean that there are no traps as long as you check, and no traitors as long as your talk to people, and the opposite as soon as you stop. Which still isn't what you said in your last small paragraph, but is what you might be implying now. And again, it's not true, from my experience. I've heard stories of that from tables before (only online), and I believe them, but this is not a universal problem.To be fair, some complications are quite open. Like the scene where the party barbarian killed someone who had a wife that he didn't know about over a matter of pride. Very much in the open.As for the group that needs to pixelbitch... why is every complication that arises devastating? I think I can see why it might be for your group. You seem very interesting in your party stuff, but not too much else. So, you value your lives, your gear, your plans, but it doesn't seem like you value other NPCs, cities, in-game philosophy, etc. (though you might, and I could be wrong). So, in your group, complications consist of hurting your party, your lives, your wealth, your gear, or your plans.However, I get to use other complications that don't devastate the party very effectively. The man's wife, friendly NPCs being corrupted / threatened / killed, enemies maneuvering to worsen the social standing of the PCs, bad weather that affects the war effort (on both sides), and a host of other things. And none of it is necessarily devastating to the party. But it's a lot easier to use them, because my party is invested in so many other things.Well, after this particular post of yours, I'm not surprised by this.Depends. You don't want to, because it's not fun for you. It'd be bad for you. What if I found it fun? Would it be bad GMing then? If it is, am I doing "D&D" wrong? My fun is badwrong? That's why I don't like the "is this bad GMing" question.But, you can also use the methods to resolve things that posters have said. Rolling things out works (have a standard "we take 10 to question them" thing going on for all potential problems). And, I doubt anybody who's mentioned a lame horse as a possibility has it being a common option, so it'd be a once/campaign deal, I'm guessing, and even then, you can have your "take 10" thing going.But, I don't think anyone is suggesting that you screw your players over as much as you can as often as you can. And you seem to be saying that they are doing that, and are advocating it. Well, I vehemently disagree. That's just unreasonable, Hussar. It's ludicrous.The "at best its a wash" thing clearly goes against what other posters in this thread have explicitly mentioned (making a friend in the guard captain if you turn him over, or something along those lines), and it does directly affect their goal of "kill the grell" by having one less guy. But okay.Nothing wrong with this approach, but it's hardly universal. I'll get to an example, below.Okay.Okay, let's look at a random encounter in a very popular TV series: Game of Thrones. Tyrion is captured, and on his way to await trail for a murder. Along the road, they are attacked by some hill tribesman. This does a couple of things.One, it gives Tyrion and Bronn a somewhat superficial but real bonding experience afterwards, which might directly lead to him offering to champion Tyrion later. And two, it shows that the hill tribes are dangerous, and in the area, which sets us up for when Tyrion and Bronn meet them on the road later, where they go on to play an important role for Tyrion.As a player, I'd have no problem with this. You might; it's not directly related to your current goal. But, for me, this random encounter might lead to a very different campaign than one where I hadn't played through it. If Bronn never championed, Tyrion, how different would things be in the series?So, that's why I like them. I get why you don't. You've said as much. But I'd only suggest skipping these scenes if they aren't fun for you, or if you don't want the results they can bring. I don't think it's a good idea to skip it as a general rule, because, well, that'd be a bad suggestion for my group. We find that kind of thing interesting.Wait, you mention 50 pages of backstory on the desert at one point... I think we can reliably assume that something in there makes it relevant. But, not, now it's retroactive? And, it's okay to force players to interact with it if it's planned relevance, but not improvised relevance? Why does that make sense?YMMV, and all. As always, play what you like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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