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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6122669" data-attributes="member: 6681948">Once again, we seem to come down to very to semantics.  I read your comments with the are emphasis above - you don't care about the encounters.  You are not interested in any encounter that do not directly related to your goals.  However, what I sad was not that you assume the encounters will  be uninteresting, but that they will be irrelevant - that is, they will have nothing to do with your players' goals.We've also beaten the "can be skipped so long as the in-game resources exist to do so".  For me, good scenario design includes assessing the in-game resources the plaers have.  They can Teleport into the city?  Then any encounters along the way t the city will logically be skipped.  Either some indication there is something important out there needs to be available to the players and characters , or they should be able to succeed without whatever is out there.  If they lack those resources, then it is reasonable to place relevant encounters out there.We here see yet another binary view - if it is possible to skip it, it cannot be relevant.  I disagree.  You bhave ranted about "railroads" throughout most of this thread.  One of the biggest indicator of a railroad, IMO, is that there is only one way to accmplish a goal.  If there are multiple ways to accomplish a goal, any single means of accomplishing the goal can be skipped with impunity, as the goal can still be acheived.  By your logic, that makes every encounter, bar none, irrelevant.  We could perhaps manipulate the besieging force into ripping down the city, leaving not one stone upon another, and use that chaos as cover to take the Whatever It Was from the Wherever It Is unnoticed.  Or we could completely ignore the social encounters of the besieging force's leadership, and instead use our own stealth and combat skills to infiltrate the  Wherever It Is, take the Whatever It Was and teleport out, completely ignoring the siege encounters.  Or perhaps we can negotiate with the occupants of the Wherever It Is and persuade them to hand over the Whatever It Was with no need to persuade the siege force or infiltrate the Wherever It Is.We're going to pick one of those three approaches and, assuming its success, we will not attempt either of the other two.  Since any two of the three encounter sets can be skipped with impunity, does it follow that all three are irrelevant?  I do not believe it does.  I do not believe making the occupants of the  Wherever It Is 100% resistant to any form of negotiation and the leaders of the siege force completely opposed to anything we might attempt to have them, knowingly or otherwise, assist us in achieving our goal makes for better gaming.   But it would mean we have no choice but to infiltrate the Wherever It Is, since all other approaches are foredoomed to failure, so since those encounters can no longer be skipped with impunity, NOW they are relevant?  I don't think so.  I think this approach simply forces players to play out the One True Approach that the GM has in mind, something that we seem to agree is not good.Every member of BobPC's group can have a vested interest in BobPC.  The other three characters can be BobPC's war buddy, BobPC's sibling and BobPC's passionate lover.  And all three of them can be blissfully unaware that BobPC is hunted by the evil cult.  For that matter, so can BobPC.  In your world, it seems that the plaers, if not the characters, must know why this cult has targete one or more of them for any encounter with the cult to be meaningful.  However, I suggest that, whether BobPC is targeted by the cult for reasons unknown to any of the players, whether only Bob knows why, or whether everyone knows why, the PC's have a vested interest in dealing with this cult which is trying to harm one or more of their teammates.I further suggest that, even if al the PC's and all the players know that BobPC is hunted by this evil cult, it is entirely possible that they come to a point where they say "You know what, I am tired and bored of this cult hunting BobPC - I want to do something else."  Just because they write something up and agree to it in principal, this does not mean that it will remain exciting and engaging indefinitely.  One of them might even say "Hey, I know - how about we go explore that desert.  The Cultists don't have a power base there, so maybe they will stay off our backs for a while and, if there is something in the desert, it has GOT TO BE more interesting than yet another round of those cultists!"In my view, they quickly become aware of evil cultist attacks.  Why is the evil cult targeting us?  We can investigate that.  No one seems to know?  Well, let's try to find out where this evil cult is located - even if we never know why they targete us, maybe we can eliminate them and get rid of the problem.  This leaves out, of course, any prospect that BobPC might actually be role played into sharing some or all information, or that investigative efforts might provide some information.  All three of these would be reasonable possibilities, at least in any good game.  Finaly, I like to hope that, regardless of whether it is instigated by Bob's background, with or without full player buyin, or it is instigated by the GM (the city where the Whatever It Is awaits in the Whereever It Is is controlled by a secet, evil cult who wants to prevent the PC's gaining access to the Whatever It Is - their influence permeates the city as much or more than a seige would, and we didn't need player unanimity to have a siege), it should be resolved at some point.Maybe that means Bob makes peace with the cult.  Maybe it means the cult succeeds, BobPC is dead and we need a new character (although this might invest the remaining PC's - they may want vengeance for their fallen comrade).  Or maybe it means the cult is destroyed.  And any of these resolutions could mean the cult is gone forwever, or perhaps they will rear their heads in some future scenario, but at least for the near to medium term, that plot is resolved.If the PLAYERS are complaining, we have a problem.  In my games, I expect I'd see some PC's complaining, while the players enjoy the scenario.  I've certainly seen players indicate that, as a player, I'd like to take this fork in the road, but my character would not take that approach, so my character wishes to turn left - but I, the player, would love a reason to turn right.Much of the disconnect, again, comes to this binary thinking of there being two possible types of scenes:  "the perfect scene, the only one I wish to play next" and "every other possible scene, all of which are unacceptable".  You've praised consensus a lot in recent pages.  Look up consensus decision making.  It is widely accepted that the usual result will be a decision which everyone can live with,  but which is sub-optimal for everybody.  That sounds a lot like a game where everyone deals with having their favourite aspects come up sometimes, and playing through other players' favorite aspects, even if they aren't that player's preference, other times.Emphasis added.  That's just scary...I can clarify a lot with Bob - and without involving the other players.  I can clarify whether Bob expects this whole cult thing to remain behind the scenes throughout the campaign, or is hoping it will rear its head at some point, takes come focus and be resolved, or that it will recur on occasion throughout the whole campaign.  Maybe Bob will think it should permeate the entire campaign.  If so, he needs to be told that this is not the case - other story arcs, some likely stemming from other PC's backstories, public or secret, will also take place in the campaign.  However, I have never had a player wish to (or at least vocalize that wish) hog the spotlight in this manner.  I have much more often had a player indicate his character background has no specific adventure hooks this time, just some general reasons for adventure, and he's happy going along with the plots suggested by other characters' backgrounds and/or having his background filled in a little as we go to keep the game moving in an interesting direction.</blockquote>

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