Thing is, when there are certain aspects of the story that you REALLY develop... like NPC characters, don't you kind of NEED to force plot? Otherwise the players never meet these characters that you created just for the purpose of livening up the story and being original and interesting.

It'd be a serious shame to come up with a huge, awesome plot, and then players decide to sit on the sidelines and watch, wouldn't it?

Nah, the players are gonna have to face the plot eventually. If they don't, the entire world slowly gets destroyed until the players run out of places to run.

And then they have to face the plot in its full fury.

For major NPCs, I have 'em do their own thing, and players can follow along or not. For the most part, it seems that the players associate more with random NPCs that slowly become more important and more developed, which is fine by me. The shift of character focus is unintentional but not unwelcomed, and drives the plot in a different way.

Well you've managed to work it well, and you've got less of an "open world" and more of an "existing world".
Players are more spectators that can choose to participate than they are participants that can choose what to participate in.

My plan is to more give players a bunch of leads or quests or whatever that they can pursue at any time without major consequence, and will for the most part not go anywhere if the players choose to take their time.
That said, when they DO take their time I want to rip my hair out because I have to do more rolls of "You sit around and wait while exciting things COULD be happening."

Ya know what, you guys have convinced me to take a more loose approach with my next game. My plan WAS to force plot, but now I think what I'm going to do is introduce the characters I've created at certain points where it seems suitable, and throw hints of plot out, but allow players to ultimately do as they wish. Luckily, the plot I've planned out is large-scale enough to the point where it'll be nigh impossible to escape no matter what they do.

Ya'll are probably right in choosing freedom over forced plot - I'm sure it's much more fun that way for the players, but the degree of randomness that it allows for lets you wing it a little and the plot revolving the players will change, making it more like you, as the DM, are not the dictator of the story, but just somebody helping it along as it writes itself...

>Can't tell if r34 innuendos or storylines.

Also is ethersphere gonna roll someday?

I recognize the meme, and I know what rule 34 is, but...

... Sorry. You're going to have to explain the joke about innuendos, because I'm just not seeing how anything that was just said is an innuendo. Then I'm going to feel really stupid and ashamed for not getting it.

*Sigh*

I manage to be socially awkward even on forums.

Plots are butts.

The most succint 3-word explanation I've ever seen, and yes, I do feel stupid now.

Thanks anyway, Cave.

Cave you are a model of efficiency. See in my case it took four tries to spell 'efficiency' right.

Spoiler'd for XBAWKS HUEG.

Im quite surprised, our dear Torrent, Destroyer of Pants, using a PONY? Now, i want to know, who is a brony here?

EDIT: Yeah, sorry for the Uber-Big Picture.

Quite a lot of the off topic regulars are.

'Bronies' is a stupid ♥♥♥♥ word.
Seriously.
I like ponies, I'm not a brony.

Sadly, you don't choose the name assigned you. I wish I could be called intellectually incapable, because it sounds nice, but people usually settle with "idiot".

Roast is correct. Most of the fanbase just don't have ponies as avatars etc etc