It?s Not Your Story

[Stone Cold Monkey]

Good article, I'm on the story side of the coin, but emergent method is a perfectly fine way to run game. I agree with the post that emergent games can feel a little flat. However, I been in the nightmare world of the railroaded game down to having the character choice of a dirty private eye or a dirty cop. Being pushed from one scene to next with the PCs being more akin to set pieces than protagonists given the occasional puzzle or fight.

The reason I agree with emergent style games feeling flat is the rules are always very present ruining suspension of disbelief. I was always aware mechanical setup of every encounter and very generic feel. Because of random night time encounters we set up 1 watch (1 watch = 1 encounter roll) until the mage/wizard learn rope trick. Every random encounter felt more like a hassle than a thrilling fight when it always seem like 2d8 area type monsters. They always reminded me of Dragon Warrior just being in the way of where you're going.

I do think an article on player character motivation or the GM's role in character creation would be a good read. I know all too well the White Wolf loner/personal world problem. My solution of having the players get to together before the games starts to flesh out why their characters would have lives merge together and pick what each character brings to the game as to define everyone's role always felt like a cop out me. More of an issue of Agency vs. Story is unruly character designs and the players run amok in games. I usually have to deal with power gamers.

A piece of advice I would give any GM regardless of gaming philosophy is be prepared to design a person, place, encounter, or story arc and have it go unused. Players have the uncanny ability to avoid carefully planned work by going in the opposite direction of the game never encountering it. Just let it go or find a non-intrusive way to being it to the player character's attention again.

 

[jrhop364]

I'm reading over this because I do a group of odd-ball scatter brained teens who do a Table top Zombie Survivalist RPG, but we base it on heavy stories. We each take turns Game Mastering, and we've only had one totally shit guy.

This is gonna help immensly, we've been getting these rules down to a science.

 

[Wolfrug]

I only have one problem with this mode of gaming, and that is the greatest thief of them all: time. How do you get the time to plan out every encounter, every NPC, every possible (emergent) plotline, without it becoming generic and boring to the players? First, a quick run-down of how my current game (contemporary zombie apocalypse in World of Darkness setting sans the supernatural [aside from the zombies that is]) runs:

There is a map (Chicago in this case), which is overrun by zombies. The players started in a hospital on the eve of the outbreak, and are now wandering around Chicago looking for their lost families and loved ones, as well as trying to survive. For each session, I plan a number of possible locations where they can go, and then try to give them enough hints to make them go to at least one of these. I then have a contingency plan for if they go totally off road (e.g. instead of going to the university or the rallying point marked on the map, they head off into the great unknown as fast as they can) - now I might have them encounter A or B which will hopefully take up the rest of the session, so that I have time to plan the next session in more detail.

Doesn't anyone else have this problem? It's not good enough that I write down half a paragraph of description of a place, and a completely useless addendum of "a unicorn is guarding it". What about the unicorn? Whats its agenda? Personality? What can the players do with the unicorn? Fight it? Talk to it? What does it know? What will it tell them without coercion? What kind of coercion might work on it? This is necessary, since in my group discussions (although aided by) do not happen by dice rolling - I will need to voice this NPC, which is clearly an important NPC, guarding an important place. In WoD, there aren't any clear cut moral guidelines for how an orc or an elf or a mage or a warrior is supposed to work, there're no stereotypes to lean back on. Every character I introduce that truly "appear" before the players needs to have a name, a personality and an agenda. When I say "appear" I mean appear in the sense of being important, unlike for instance "you bump into a random NPC in the refugee camp who mutters profanities at you" or "the random soldier points his gun at you and tells you to back away from the barbed wire" - these are obviously just unimportant side characters. But when you design a set of locations in your web, every single point of interest will almost by necessity have at least one fleshed out character with which the players can interact, either peacefully or not.

And, to be frank, I haven't the time to plan tens of fleshed out characters, half of which the players are liable never to meet! In a computer game, this is fine: even if you were dreadfully slow in Fallout the first time through and half the settlements were destroyed before you even got there, in your second playthrough you might just find and talk to all of those nicely fleshed out characters. But in a tabletop RPG, there's no rewind or restart button, and effort WILL in fact be lost completely if you design your game like a web. Effort and time which many of us do not have, no matter how dedicated and enthusiastic we are about our hobby.

I think my solution works fine enough, even if it does "fudge" encounters: Plan a web, as large as you want, which the players will hopefully get caught in. Have a contingency plan (or five) in case they escape the web, and then re-plan the next session based on where they ended up (potentially re-using parts of the old web if well planned and still pertinent to their current course of action). This does mean that the GM can be shafted if the players really try to escape, but you can't claim that even your web-based approach is safe from that. I doubt you'd be pleased if your whole little playing zone, which you've spent hours meticulously crafting to be interconnected and lore-perfect, was suddenly abandoned because the players wanted to go to the neighbouring kingdom which you've spent absolutely no time planning whatsoever - the only thing coming out of that is either a piece of absolutely stunningly super-creative DM'ing in which new adventures and exciting characters spring out of the air to meet the players (in which case I wonder why you bother planning at all, if you're so good at ad-libbing), OR the more realistic and terribly boring alternative of "well, this kingdom really is kind of at peace and kind of happy and healthy with no particular problems?" which I don't think is conducive to very exciting adventing. In any which case, you'd probably have to spend at least as much time AGAIN to recreate a web for their new chosen zone -- time which, I think, one does not always have.

But I have to say that I think the method is great, and an ideal to follow - if I had endless time and inspiration it'd be fun to create a huge interconnected adventure in this style where there is a story hiding under all the encounters, NPCs and locations, a story which might go one way or another, but which depends entirely on the PCs to uncover or change dynamically. I'm a bit of a pragmatic though, so I'll be happy to consider open-endedness an ideal, while I secretly railroad people anyway. I do have a thing or two to say about your ideas on agency and the fallacy of believing the DM had nothing to do with it, but that might be for another giant rant. If nothing else, you're good at sparking debate!

 

[Altorin]

I don't see archon's way as an absolute rule.. just more of a new (old) way of looking at gaming.

He's not trying to tell you to only use emergent gaming, he's seeing (quite rightly I think as well), that emergent gameplay is disappearing in tabletop gaming, being replaced by streamlined, lead your players by the nose, storylines. He doesn't like this, and as CEO of a company that produces a gaming magazine (along with other things I'm sure), he's well within his power to release a different view on the subject matter.

That's all it is, is a point of view. It's for the DMs that are not good at epic story design (there are many that are, and that can do it seamlessly, but it's a learned craft), telling them that there is another way, that's closer to what the creators of dungeons and dragons had in mind when they made the game.

If they try it, and find that they don't like it, then at least they tried it.. maybe they'll find a piece of this process that DOES work for them, and even if they have to scrap most of it, having any bit of help when you've decided to undertake game mastering is a big help.

EDIT: and don't worry wolfrug, I think you're doing exactly what he's doing, but on a slightly smaller scale. He's basically saying "Make a map, give your players choices where to go, and don't tell them no if they don't go where you don't want them to go".

That's the jist of the whole article. Anyone who's reading more into that isn't getting it.

 

[aegios187]

At the root of it all is GM/Player collaboration. I don't believe the campaign or adventure style is the GMs alone to decide. Some groups want the complete sandbox, freedom of choice where they feel they can do anything at any point. In fact, there's some players whose whole meta-game motivation is to see if they can be the proverbial "monkey-wrench". Other groups, want to the world to make sense, want clear, defined goals and motivations,then work towards them within the context of a rich story on the proverbial "heroes journey". Then there's a mixture of the two as the mode of a campaign can be a swinging pendulum between the two.

I've played and GMed in all these facets and they each offer different benefits/challenges. It's really more about finding the square peg for the square hole.

 

[Rokar333]

What I find funny about this whole article is that while the DMG2 for 3.5 encouraged railroading, the 4th edition DMGs seem against it; encouraging more of the story webbing, and working with your players to make fun worlds.

 

[Coldman42]

I really have to thank you for writing all of these articles. I am currently doing a DnD campaign and your advice has been very well received by me. While i wouldn't agree with you that the story is the least important thing to a campaign, i don't think it is the most either. I think the best thing to do is get a balance between open world sand-box and linear plot. A technique i'm trying out is making sort of "game levels" where i'll mark out different points of interest for the group, about 2-4 different seemingly small "levels" for them to do that will turn into rather large plots with options on how to deal with them. Some of these different quest levels may be connected leading one to the next depending on what order you go in.

I find that having a good story in your setting is a great way to immerse your players more so long as you don't over-do it and just keep the ball rolling with whatever they choose to do. That's why i only write a skeleton story out so i can change it as need be for whatever the players do.

And like i tell my players, you can never fail. Even if you don't save the princess in the tower the story will go on, just in a new direction. Telling them that does comfort them so they aren't completely brought down from failing at some critical moment, which is the main reason i don't feel story should be at the bottom of the barrel. But in the end, to each their own and thanks again for the good advice.

 

[Altorin]

What I find funny about this whole article is that while the DMG2 for 3.5 encouraged railroading, the 4th edition DMGs seem against it; encouraging more of the story webbing, and working with your players to make fun worlds.

that's because 3.5 was harder to build encounters on the fly for.. and 4th edition makes it very easy.

at least I think that has a lot to do with it. In 3.5 it was a lot better to plan almost every encounter in advance.. that was the best and easiest way to ensure the encounter was balanced.

In 4th, the enemies have roles too, and it's a lot easier to mix and match different enemies to create interesting encounters without unbalancing the encounter, and it's also the stat blocks are a LOT easier to read in 4th.

 

[Altorin]

I really have to thank you for writing all of these articles. I am currently doing a DnD campaign and your advice has been very well received by me. While i wouldn't agree with you that the story is the least important thing to a campaign, i don't think it is the most either. I think the best thing to do is get a balance between open world sand-box and linear plot. A technique i'm trying out is making sort of "game levels" where i'll mark out different points of interest for the group, about 2-4 different seemingly small "levels" for them to do that will turn into rather large plots with options on how to deal with them. Some of these different quest levels may be connected leading one to the next depending on what order you go in.

I find that having a good story in your setting is a great way to immerse your players more so long as you don't over-do it and just keep the ball rolling with whatever they choose to do. That's why i only write a skeleton story out so i can change it as need be for whatever the players do.

And like i tell my players, you can never fail. Even if you don't save the princess in the tower the story will go on, just in a new direction. Telling them that does comfort them so they aren't completely brought down from failing at some critical moment, which is the main reason i don't feel story should be at the bottom of the barrel. But in the end, to each their own and thanks again for the good advice.

A lot of people are reading this article as him saying "Story is worthless", which isn't the truth.. what he's saying, is that there is a way of having a story in your game that doesn't involve you frontloading an epic storyline onto the players. You can just make a good world, give the players several different choices, and they'll make the stories for themselves.

Like earlier I mentioned a game I played where my party and I ended up becoming evil and siding with the lizardfolk slaughtering the village that we were protecting.. the DM did not anticipate that, but was able to facilitate it for us, and it was one of my most memorable D&D stories ever.. much more fun and memorable than ANY story pre-crafted by the DM and imposed on me.

There was a palpable sense of fear when we first entered the lizardfolk village to try and join them. We had spent several sessions killing them, and we were all trying to hide our human natures as much as possible, because we figured that if they discovered it was us, they'd probably attack, and we'd have a whole village of lizardfolk attacking us.

Which ties in to another of Archon's concepts he has been pushing in this column, Agency.. Basically, creating that sense that the players might die, and have actual choice in decisions is important for players to enjoy the game (most of the time). It helps combat meta-game thinking if players believe that the monsters and encounters play by the same rules as they do, and as such, they can die.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

What I find funny about this whole article is that while the DMG2 for 3.5 encouraged railroading, the 4th edition DMGs seem against it; encouraging more of the story webbing, and working with your players to make fun worlds.

Well the DMG2 for 3.5 was added several YEARS after the debut of the system and it provided the advice it thought was lacking in the initial DMG, whereas the 4th Ed products are structured more carefully, with each DMG intended to draw the DM deeper into the web of the craft. The 1st is about the Heroic Tier, second is about the Paragon Tier, third will be about the Epic Tier. Similarly each throws in more advanced "DM Tricks" for DM's who are growing with the game.

 

[Coldman42]

A lot of people are reading this article as him saying "Story is worthless", which isn't the truth.. what he's saying, is that there is a way of having a story in your game that doesn't involve you frontloading an epic storyline onto the players. You can just make a good world, give the players several different choices, and they'll make the stories for themselves.

Like earlier I mentioned a game I played where my party and I ended up becoming evil and siding with the lizardfolk slaughtering the village that we were protecting.. the DM did not anticipate that, but was able to facilitate it for us, and it was one of my most memorable D&D stories ever.. much more fun and memorable than ANY story pre-crafted by the DM and imposed on me.

There was a palpable sense of fear when we first entered the lizardfolk village to try and join them. We had spent several sessions killing them, and we were all trying to hide our human natures as much as possible, because we figured that if they discovered it was us, they'd probably attack, and we'd have a whole village of lizardfolk attacking us.

Which ties in to another of Archon's concepts he has been pushing in this column, Agency.. Basically, creating that sense that the players might die, and have actual choice in decisions is important for players to enjoy the game (most of the time). It helps combat meta-game thinking if players believe that the monsters and encounters play by the same rules as they do, and as such, they can die.

If i made it sound like i felt that he was saying the story was worthless, that was not my intention. I was saying that i disagreed that the story is the least important part of a DnD game. If i implied otherwise that was not my intention.

Also, how did your group get to join the lizardfolk? That sounds like a decision that came from way out of left field.

 

[Helmutye]

An interesting article that I think would be a must read for a particular species of gamemaster (the railroad conductors), but I think it presents one way of GMing as innately superior to all others, and the assumptions it is built on are rather shaky.

I would say the single biggest problem with a web-like story design is that the players will never have to do anything they don't want to, and that cuts out a HUGE area of fun and dramatic possibility. Generally the way it works is that the party ends up only doing something as long as they're getting paid to do it. The second the money dries up or it gets too tough for the pay, they quit and go somewhere else. I have GMed games where this has happened, and I have played in games where this has happened, and as both a GM and a player I hated it. It made the party slave to the most materialistic members, and I got sick of questing for money and money alone after my first year of gaming. The games where the story was about things other than money have always been my favorite. If money is all some groups care about, then that is perfectly fine for them, but the web-based structure does tend towards that kind of motivation. It also makes true horror virtually impossible to do, because there is only so scary something can get when you know that if you want you can just turn around and leave it all behind.

This sort of structure also makes it hard to keep the party together, unless they are designed to be very cohesive from the beginning. If one person decides to leave and go somewhere else, you have to split your time, which massively slows things down. If you have three or more groups of PCs wandering around independently, you might as well just split the game into 3 separate campaigns. I know there are plenty of people who like gaming with just one player and the GM, but for me the whole fun of gaming is the cooperation and collective action, the interesting things that happen when a group of people interact. I played in a web-like campaign last year, and early in the game there was a bit of a split between some of the characters, and from that point forward we were never all in the same place at the same time. It slowed the game to a snails pace and I really didn't have a very good time--every time we began to approach a dramatic moment, someone would pull out and the story would just sort of fizzle for a little while.

Finally, there is a lot of wasted effort in this kind of structure. If the GM prepares a large and detailed sandbox world for the party and they only choose to explore one small corner of it, then all the rest goes to waste. If you want to make the world dynamic and responsive to party actions, you have to continually update the rest of the world and have it ready at a moment's notice, but never knowing if it will ever be of any use. I much prefer to stay maybe a session or two ahead of the PCs in games I run, and at the end of each session simply ask them what directions they are planning to go in--this allows me to be responsive to their choices and grant them a great deal of freedom, and it also allows me to throw my full effort into making the areas they go to as interesting as possible. Plus, it saves a TON of prep time for me!

The author of this article seems to place a great deal of importance on unlimited player freedom within the rules, but in many ways unlimited freedom can feel very restricting. You are playing a game, which means there will always be at least some limits on your freedom--the GM cannot fully flesh out every last corner of the multiverse, and by emphasizing this kind of freedom it almost draws attention to any places where that freedom is less than absolute. As strange as it sounds, sometimes the less freedom you have the more you feel like you have. My goal as a GM is to create a situation where the PCs have to make a tough choice, but the actual choice they make is up to them. A perfectly free world allows the PCs to avoid having to make tough choices, because as soon as it gets tough they just leave. But if they have to make that choice, it really lets them figure out who their characters are, and lets them reflect on how they themselves would do in such a situation. Say the players are in a situation where they have to rule on whether or not a criminal should be executed. If you force them to make that choice, it can lead them into fascinating in-character debates with each other, it can prompt them to explore the area and investigate the crime and gather evidence, and it can lead to some real Drama in your game. But if they can just leave without rendering judgement, then they won't be able to have those interesting discussions or adventures. Ultimately, they will find more freedom if, for some reason, they are not allowed to pass on that decision.

 

[mattag08]

Absolutely sublime! I used this method because my own logic lead me to it when trying to figure out how to reconcile story arcs and not railroading the players. I'm glad to see someone else clarify and quantify this for me, there are some great suggestions and it really is pushing me to revisit my old campaign world.

 

[Altorin]

Also, how did your group get to join the lizardfolk? That sounds like a decision that came from way out of left field.

I told the story earlier but I'll give the abridged version. There was a small village of refugees that escaped from the lizardfolk that we were helping.. but they didn't want to do any of the work of helping themselves.. they wanted to be rescued.. After a couple sessions of helping them with no real ambition from them to lift themselves out of their situation, we decided to join with the Lizardfolk instead, mostly just to see what would happen.. We encountered their Ogre Leader, told him where the villagers were hiding, disclosed that it was us that had been killing his lizardfolk, and that the village was otherwise unprotected.

Then we went with the lizardfolk and slaughtered everyone in the village.

And that's basically where the campaign ended, but it was a great ending

 

[Archon]

I would say the single biggest problem with a web-like story design is that the players will never have to do anything they don't want to, and that cuts out a HUGE area of fun and dramatic possibility.

Players will never be forced to do something by the gamemaster, but nothing prevents players from having to make tough decisions. For instance, in one sandbox session, the players accidentally woke up a sleeping red dragon. When they got back to town, they had to choose betwee defending the town against the dragon, or letting it burn. The town was their HQ and the townsfolk looked on them as heroes; but they were only 4th level, so a red dragon was way outside their capabilities. They didn't *want* to fight the dragon, but they chose to do so.

Interesting choice develops when the party has incentives that lead them in two directions at once - risk v. reward, reputation v. safety, etc.

Generally the way it works is that the party ends up only doing something as long as they're getting paid to do it. The second the money dries up or it gets too tough for the pay, they quit and go somewhere else.... It also makes true horror virtually impossible to do, because there is only so scary something can get when you know that if you want you can just turn around and leave it all behind.

Human beings respond to incentives. This is the lesson of economics. If you have a level-up system and give xp for gold, then players will pursue gold, sure. On the other hand, you could equally well imagine a zombie apocalypse sandbox where the players got XP on some formula of time survived x number of NPC survivors kept alive. That would create a horror simulation. This would make an interesting dynamic in that going someplace dangerous to get, e.g., better weapons would be actually be a contrast between different motivations.

In short, I disagree that there's anything inherently limiting about player agency. What is genuinely limiting is when GM fiat overrides the decisions the players have made based on the incentives presented to them. It doesn't seem like you do that, though.

This sort of structure also makes it hard to keep the party together, unless they are designed to be very cohesive from the beginning.

Could be we've had different types of players. I've had more trouble keeping a party together in more "narratively driven" games, because each player tends to want his character to have a unique way of interfacing with the story. In any event, I think the key to keeping the party together is giving all their characters shared incentives. This is the same regardless of the format you're using.

Finally, there is a lot of wasted effort in this kind of structure.

Well, that's a very negative way of looking at it. I would say that there is a lot of effort given towards offering your players choice and agency. Satisfying the need for agency is not a waste unless you don't think choice is a value.

I don't watch all 200 channels on my satellite TV, but I pay money every month to have the opportunity of choosing from 200 channels. I'm willing to pay money for the privilege of not watching 199 channels at any one time. Choice is worth a lot.

I much prefer to stay maybe a session or two ahead of the PCs in games I run, and at the end of each session simply ask them what directions they are planning to go in--this allows me to be responsive to their choices and grant them a great deal of freedom, and it also allows me to throw my full effort into making the areas they go to as interesting as possible. Plus, it saves a TON of prep time for me!

I've used this method myself in some campaigns. It's a great approach for when you don't have a lot of time. It's actually not far different from what I suggested for the story web - where I suggested you initially detail only a few selected locations and then build the rest over time. My only real difference from this is that I think you should sketch out a web of locations and points of interest in advance, as compared to doing everything on a just-in-time basis.

I don't end up thinking you and I are very differently apart on this. You sound like you run a game that's very influenced by player agency.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

This is really interesting food for thought, I must say, and I look forward to another of these columns. I think, however, I would like to outline where I differ from your ideas.

I've found that, sometimes, you do need to fudge dice rolls. Now, since I usually RP over Skype or electronic means, or with a group of friends I can trust to keep things honest, I don't have a problem altering dice rolls here and there to make things better for the players. Like making them hideously injured instead of dying, throwing in a Deus Ex Machina here and there. At one point during a firefight, a player rolled a 'Fumble', the result being that it would hit something behind the enemies - something explosive. I shifted the rules a little to make the stray bullet set off one of the enemy's grenades, killing him and about five others. I did this because, at that point, there was only that player left conscious, and if he had been knocked out or killed the rest of the group would have bled to death, rather ruining the game.


Now, the reason I and my girlfriend (who also GMs) do this is because, unlike most RPGs, we use a reasonably realistic combat system. Close-ranged shooting is brutal, messy and a case of quick-draw reflexes, there is no 'levels system' (you gain attributes based on how your character actually develops - find yourself gunning down a lot of mooks, and you will get better with small or medium guns), and, in general, a player's life can be ended by a stray bullet. And that's just the human enemies. The mutants and other lifeforms can simply rip a human character into small pieces. That's just the way we play - players have to be damn careful and use logic and reasoning to survive. Like real mercs/soldiers/gangers.


Now, onto GM'ing. Personally, I like to view the GM as just another player. Another player with no dedicated character and god-like powers. Instead of roleplaying, the GM gets to play a mix of simulation and strategy. She (or he) should act in a way most fun for her. With my last GM, this involved characters being sexually assaulted, a body turning up in one character's bathroom having been dumped by a local gangster, and then the police knocking on the door shortly thereafter. It involved a lot of interacting with the world around and remarkably little combat.

With me, it will probably involve players experiencing hallucinations, delusions, psychosis, being kidnapped and tortured, being attacked by vastly superior forces, and general cruelty.

 

[mattag08]

Does anyone know where to find some other well written articles like the ones Alex is writing? I really would like to read about the philosophy and psychology of DMing written by/for other intelligent DMs.

Or perhaps you can help me out Mr.Macris?

 

[LazerLuger]

This was a great article. I know personally to never have a plot to an adventure that can't be summarized and executed in more than one sentence. I leave sub-plots and twists to the players to invent through emergent game play.

Suppose I wanted to run a game of Call of Cthulhu. As a mystery game, it hinges heavily on a linear plot (I.E. players find a series of clues which lead to the investigation's climax: Them all dying). How would you play Call of Cthulhu under a story web?

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Does anyone know where to find some other well written articles like the ones Alex is writing? I really would like to read about the philosophy and psychology of DMing written by/for other intelligent DMs.

Or perhaps you can help me out Mr.Macris?

Delve into the realm of Gaming Podcasts, they're chock full of advice. There are also sites like Gnome Stew, or Evil GM Tricks, chock full of GMy goodness.

 

[Bane_Star]

When I first started Games Mastering, I worked from Dragon Warriors, in which the story ARC was laid out, nice and easy.. the game works for people new to roleplay and a GM new to GMing, The map has the parts written on it, and the story progresses as the player advance through the map..

In a Dungeon, where you literally cannot 'step off the path' this works.. you cannot progress to room 17 until you have passed through room 16.. so story line can progress the same way.. DUNGEONS and dragons is based off this premise, which is why open plains, political scenarios, true to reality magic & actually intelligent evil bad guys, just wont work.

The Hardest map in DW was book 4 (from memory), why? because it had no set 'path' instead were maps of the castle, the region, a timeline of events, and player motivations, I skipped this adventure time and time again, because I could not 'GM' it... Until later..

When I'd grown up, and revisited the books, the concept of a structured adventure, railroaded storyline, and fudged dice, just.. lost its appeal. but that one adventure stuck and I had to try it with a new group.. and it worked.. as an adult, I could now appreciate the concept. Player could choose what the wanted to do, I knew where key players were at key points in time, and just had to read out entry points and keep track of these things.. and was my most successful game yet.

Its essentially how I've GM'd since, and that was 22 years ago.

The inheriant problem seems to be more of system.

D&D is/was made for the beginners, the learners, as true enthusiasts usually find something more complex and realistic to set their swords & minds to. If your 1 or two levels below an adventure encounter, your going to get thrashed, so you need to hold players hands to make sure they don't wander off into the woods and get killed. and if they do, you need the local priest to res them.. because beginners just want to win, which is fun for them.

As to the story arc

Your 'web' is a good idea.. but I fear you don't go far enough, having a set of locations is great idea.. assigning levels to each, and 'warning' players to avoid the harder stuff is cool too. but why should you have to structure the map so that players don't access the hardest stuff..

you touch on events and consequences, why just the king and his sickness.. what about the bartenders wife, the local candlemaker and his new hard wax business, NPC desires are great plot hooks.. if you have an idea of what the town is looking for, then it doesn't matter what the players decide to do, you have many different plot hooks.. but none of these compare to...

To me the question is, can you build a continous campaign without resorting to having to hand out scripts to your players. I would like to say yes, as the lure of a wellcrafted story with my character as one of the maincharacters sounds seductive. But to do this we need to move away from the free roaming campaign structure, and more into the realm of directed stories.

The main concept to keep players on track, is to have the players build their own tracks and railroad themselves.

Interview the players about what they WANT to do, what is IMPORTANT for their character..., reward the players who stay on track.. but don;t punish them for going in other directions. If your a person that likes to create the plot/world around the players.. knowing that bob's character "Thrud" would like to kill as many goblins as possible, will allow you to write in a nice forest of goblins nearby, mostly leveled around 'thrud' to make interesting battles & experience gain..

Or, if your more like me, you create your world, create major and minor time events and the consequences of both, understand what each towns inhabitants would like from their local adventurers, and throw in a mini-plot encounter table, THEN make sure the troubles of the region have enough propaganda going on to get local bards singing of the troubles of the goblins in the north, so that Thrud knows where the goblins are.. and let the players set their own story arc.