Of course nothing should be inflexible, but I'm just saying there's no reason for every campaign to be derailed completely. If your players are actively going against the scenario something's gone wrong. And yeah, if you give them the opportunity to do something, be prepared for it to happen and roll with the consequences. Unless you play low level John Does every time, characters should know stuff about the world they've lived in their whole lives. And if none of that ties into the scenario are you playing a campaign or in a sandbox?

Don't worry, we will

> Like utterly evil but I will go to the ends of the earth to ensure a child has a teddy bear. Shit that gives me a great campaign idea whenever I get to DM again. Starts out as a silly fetch quest, important protagonist wants you to go get his kid"s teddy bear that was left in the market, then it turns into an epic power struggle as you learn that multiple factions are fighting over ownership of this powerful talisman then after all is said and done it turns out to just be a teddy bear that multiple factions have faught wars over and in the end you bring it back to the kid

I did a one-shot once with a Bethesda start (locked in a prison with a bunch of stranger) pickpocketed the keys off the guard, got caught, convinced the guard to gift me the keys, then when the guard saw me giving the keys to another player I convinced the guard I was just passing on the kindness. I then snuck into the office of the warden (boss) stole some magical items (including an immovable rod). Later after the inevitable fight where the other players who actually had the stats to fight wasted a few guards, I did successfully convince a couple of guards to just go home for the day before I snuck out. Later attempting to escape through the city, we're stopped by some guards who'd heard about the prison escape and see a rag-tag group covered in blood and in a hurry so they assume we're the escaped prisoners. I told them we were midwives leaving a very messy birth and heading to another emergency (advantage on that roll was all that caused it to land) then ultimately met up with the warden at the town gate who I simply trapped with my immovable rod

I've been working my way through NADDPOD, and there was a great session where ::: spoiler NADDPOD the party is in an airship being chased by Knights of Hell riding Nightmares. Axford polymorphed the Duke of Hell's steed into a dolphin and they fall out of the sky. The GM is laughing, but musing that this was supposed to be a big fight and Emily just dinked it. Another player comforts him with, you forgot wizards are bullshit. ::: It was such a great session. It really emblemizes how I try to approach being a GM. Have a prepared roadmap, but have space around the road for the characters to take a roadrally off-road.

As someone that loves playing magic users, and especially wizards. Yeah, wizards are bullshit. I can generally be carrying around enough water to achieve any sort of necessary destruction by level 3 with a bag of holding and a damn cantrip.

Yeah, I think there's a big difference between "I thought they were going to investigate the smith, but they're really suspicious of the wizard now and want to check her out first" and "they decided to forget about the whole civil war for the throne thing and open a BBQ joint for the local goblins" Nowadays I'd probably just explicitly be like "Hey, so, when we started this game we agreed on a certain tone and direction. Specifically, it was going to be about a power struggle for the throne. Running a restaurant business in D&D sounds wild, but that is really a different kind of story and a different game. If you want to do that, let's talk about it. Otherwise, I'm asking you to stay more on theme." Though I say that and my best game had plenty of "beach episodes". One time literally, after they saved some sahaugin from being subjugated by a siren.

Congratulations. Having high level characters and well rounded players does make everything smoother. If you've had those, I envy you. But not much. I've managed a couple of games but I always made my plots to willfully accomodate chaos. I like to reward stupidity and recklessness. After a couple of disastrous events, the table tends to settle down and the mood tends to loosen up. I'm fairly comfortable saying we have different approaches to playing and play directing. Which is good.

Exactly! My prep is pretty robust towards different means of achieving an objective. Usually plan for two to three different courses of action and can improf everything in between. My comment was directed exclusively at the "Yeah, that dungeon looks interesting, but I'm gonna troll the king instead" type of shennanigans.

Unpopular opinion maybe, but the take on being "I made a thing" narrator and a "I'll break your thing" player feels like missing the point to me. I mean, you can build that dynamic and have fun if that's what you're into, but it is still collaborative, just that the narrator pretends to be challenged. In most ttrpgs, the narrator has almost complete control over the game. You can try to "compete" but it is never a real match, as the narrator can make your character/s disappear in an instant if she/he/they want. Which shows that this was never the point. What to me really makes it work is setting up scenarios with a lot of input from the players and seeing the game unfold wherever they might take it. The narrator is given that power precisely because it should try to avoid controlling the story as much as it can, and instead interpret the world around the players (as if the world is the character the narrator controls) to develop surprising and captivating situations and events that play off of everyone at the table. Also related, "Dungeon master" sounds outdated, as it points to a person that controls a 1 vs many boardgames like Descent, Mansions of Madness or Imperial Assault. Which is why the collaborative storytelling is, to me, what sets it apart from other games. One can definitely have competitive storytelling ([Everyone is John](https://rtwolf.github.io/Everyone-is-John/)), but lets not kid ourselves thinking that's what goes on in most ttrpg games being played.