RPGs are an inherently collaborative medium. Often the GM will be put in the position of the authority to shape the world and direct how it responds to players' actions, but that doesn't strictly need to be the case. In Fellowship there is a clear distinction in who can Command Lore about various things, usually giving Players the control over the lore surrounding their people (so an Elf character Commands who elves are in the setting, whether they are pixies, aliens or what have you). While this approach might not be useful in all games (such as games with established lore, like Star Wars), you can still incorporate the players' creativity in how the world works on a smaller level.
In our lengthy Princes of the Universe Exalted campaign we ran into an interesting situation. My character wanted to unite the setting's dysfunctional bureaucratic heaven to work for our characters. To that end, I suggested the character would go on a quest to find an artefact, the Crown of Thunders, and use it as a symbol to rally the bickering gods. The Crown had an important symbolic meaning to the gods and the Exalts, but it wasn't a concrete "this crown makes you a ruler of the heaven and solves your issue" thing. As such, some other players dismissed the idea, but the GM rolled with it without hesitation, and even the various NPCs started reinforcing the idea soon after. It was a nice way of approaching problem solving in RPGs - a player's idea becomes a solution to the problem by the dint of player suggesting it as a solution.
Sol Invictus giving Queen Merela the Crown of Thunders and establishing the Creation Ruling Mandate
While this might be a no-brainer for some people, it's an approach that I don't see mentioned in too many RPGs or adventure modules - you should be aiming to use players' ideas on how things should work in your game. They might miss hints or clues on how some adventure wants them to approach a problem, not know some part of the setting their character might know, or in general not be in the same mindset as the GM. That shouldn't stop them from suggesting how things should be. You don't need to roll with every single thing, but it's definitely a good conversation starter.
As Fellowship hints, the GM is there to create problems for the players to solve. If they were to create solutions, you would either run into GM-PCs that have the foresight given to them by reading the script, or else they might be forcing the players to figure out their moon logic to solve a problem the way they envisioned. Either solution wouldn't be good. Since you can't expect the players to come up with the same ideas as the GM, then of course you need to allow for some leeway in how things can be solved, how the world will react and so on.
You should be leaning into those ideas as a GM - not only asking your players what they want to do, but also what they want to accomplish with their actions. There is a difference between "I want to beat the guard up" and "I want to beat the guard up to rally the common people to storm the bastille with me" - one sounds like the combat is the end-point, while in the others the violence is a means to an end that might not be clear if it's not spelled out explicitly.
By talking about the desired outcomes you can set the correct expectations and let the players know if their actions won't have the desired outcome. It's best to be up-front about such things than to let players go goblin brain down a dead end. Sometimes that can be a "no", sometimes that can be a compromise ("if you beat this guard, that will work in your favour for convincing the people to rise up"), and sometimes it can lead to some different ideas being worked out ("maybe if you rally the people first and come in as a mob, the guards will actually join your just cause?").
Conclusions
Try to incorporate your player ideas into the game - you are here to create the story together, and it's good when the world conforms narratively to the player actions and ideas (whether that's reinforcing it, or fighting back against it in a satisfying way ("hey, would you want the system to try crushing you and throwing you in jail for daring to fight the guard to show how the government will oppress you, making your character a martyr?")). Just saying something "won't work" without offering some alternatives isn't as fun as championing even some wacky ideas.
Recently, I was playing a character in Exalted vs World of Darkness that was a Sidereal, a troubleshooter of Fate. Basically, his heroic job description was to right the things according to how Fate wills it - uncover secrets that should be revealed, end people that should be ended, bring joy to the people that need it, etc. However, that got me thinking - what decides those things anyway? Unlike in some systems and settings, Exalted's Sidereals are agents of Fate, which is something that exists outside the control of any deities or similar entities. But since it's not controlled by anyone with an agenda, what agenda does it serve? What does Fate really want in the end? What is it's agenda and morality? If that couldn't be established, should my character go along with it and trust in Fate, or should they try imposing their own morality on the world instead?
Sure, in meta terms, Fate is basically "plot" of an RPG - the story wants the characters to get from A to B and kill C, so the Sidereal gets to make leaps of logic to get them there like a Holistic Detective. Even the EvWoD book calls out Sidereals as being GM's best friend because they always have an excuse to get the right people to the right places for the plot to move on. That can be fun if you want to enjoy the ride and don't overthink it, but as writing goes a Sidereal following Fate is like saying people are following the Force to know where to go next - feels a bit like a cop out.
Dirk Gently the holistic detective is basically a Sidereal
If a character leans into following Fate too much, it can also start turning them into a lawful stupid, a puppet, or a Morty on a Death Crystal - basically an automaton that doesn't think much for themselves just follows orders - "this person is supposed to die? Oh boy, here I go killing again!".
Chosen of Endings without remorse
A comparison to D&D paladins and clerics isn't really that far off, although with those at least you know the deity you're following and their view on morality, so you know there is something that dictates that will. That just means you know what you're signing up for though, not that strict adherence to it will make you less of an extremist murderhobo.
Another popular manifestation of the same problem would be prophecies - should a character in a prophecy that they will do something or kill someone, or should they try to defy it? If they are "the chosen one", can they do no wrong because it's their destiny? Do they have a say in the matter, or are they a slave to the whims of Fate?
What all of those have in common is they tend to turn the characters into puppets of whatever they resign their character to. Whether it's a deity, a code of conduct, Fate, philosophy, etc., the characters can become less interesting for it. When you turn yourself into a hammer, you treat everything as nails or something...
Making it interesting - cutting the strings
Now that is all not to say you can't have interesting and thought provoking ideas some from those tropes, but you have to approach them the right way.
A character that follows some morality 100% of the time is a bit dull. Sure, RPGs encourage you to see how many problems you can solve with your hammer of choice ("I want to see how a good and naive person would fare in Ravenloft! That sounds like a fun game!"), but challenging the character's beliefs can lead to some powerful moments. Try focusing on that - start with the character believing one thing and then make them re-examine their stance when confronted with what Fate wants them to do - would they kill baby Hitler if they were Minority Report? Or would they re-evaluate their stance and vow not to kill people that are innocent save for that they might commit future-crime? Make your character have doubts and define their own morality consciously. Similarly, reward your players for doing so and don't punish them for not being lawful stupid. Screw what the gods might want from your paladin, a paladin with a crysis of fate is much more interesting than one that's an automaton! Don't punish them for it!
You could similarly involve the players in defining what is the will of the Fate. Don't hand them a script telling them what to do, whatever they end up doing might be exactly what Fate wants. To borrow a phrase from Fellowship - let them Command Lore about it and tell you what Fate wants of their character (with room for negotiation as with all things of course).
When it comes to prophecies specifically, they are probably best played as mundanely self-fulfilling - characters believing in them and putting stock in them are inevitably causing them to come true with their actions. A person believing themselves to be a hero rises up to the legend and becomes a hero. However, if you reject the prophecy, there is no other shoe that drops - there is no magic here, the prophecy was always just a fable and a guess. As long as both the players and the GM are on-board and aware of this, such prophecies might not take agency away from the characters and the game.
Finally, you could have the character's morality explicitly affect Fate - someone's fated to die not because the unknowable cosmic force willed it, but because the player character wants them dead and therefore they spin that Loom of Fate and make it a reality with their actions. This retains the character's agency and makes their actions and decisions have meaning in the game and the setting. They are no longer only the puppet, but also the puppet master.
Conclusions
Making your character beholden to an external system of morality or something else that dictates their choices can take away agency from the character, the player, and make the game a bit less interesting. On the other side, confronting the character's morality and making them actively engage with it can be more engaging. Embrace it.
Sometimes when you play a TTRPG someone introduces a seemingly small element into the plot that ends up changing the game and unintentionally grabbing a lot of attention to itself. They are Plot Elephants, because you just have to acknowledge the elephant in the room when it appears.
Let's talk about some examples.
DnD's Amulet of the Planes
Amulet of the Planes is an artefact that lets you transport yourself and nearby creatures to another Plane of Existence you know. If you fail a roll, everyone gets scattered across that Plane and possibly every other Plane. So basically you have a pocket device from Sliders with notable chance to scatter the entire party across the multiverse each time you use it.
It is a powerful artefact, but one with a pretty high chance of throwing en entire adventure haywire. So either you make the point of avoiding using it, figure a way around its limitations, or YOLO it and ravel in the chaos to the GM's dismay. It's not really the type of artefact you just go "oh cool" and forget on your inventory sheet.
Taking20 listing Amulet of the Planes as a campaign-breaking item
"It doesn't matter what your campaign was about, it is now a plane-hopping campaign"
Exalted's Dragon Kings
In Exalted there is an old race of creatures called the Dragon Kings. They are creatures of perfect resurrection - their souls retain the memories of all of their previous lives when they are reborn. Couple that with them being one of the most ancient races of the setting and being heavily intertwined with the highest deity of the setting and his Exalted heroes, introducing a Dragon King into the game opens up a large can of worms.
Dragon Kings!
First of all, they have been around when the land was ruled by titans and a lot of them would probably have first-hand experience of their cruelty and how the world was put together. This history goes strongly against the cosmology put forth by the biggest faction of the setting, the Realm, but also many other players like Autochtonia, etc. They have dangerous knowledge.
Secondly, they've lived through multiple apocalypses and many of them could know of a number of ancient tombs filled with treasure and weapons from the height of the Deliberative. If anyone would know where some mad warmonger keeps their stash of doomsday weapons, it would be these guys.
Thirdly, depending on how you play them, they might be a terrible influence on some of the Exalts, particularly Solars. Our GM likes to portray them as sycophants, and there is no easier way of making a character do horrible things than to inflate their ego with flattery and tales of how they once were the rulers of the world. If their word was law and they could do no wrong, how can this time be different? They deserve to subjugate their enemies after all...
During the Congenials Season 1 Episode 7 our GM introduced a ghost of one of the Dragon Kings as a story hook for one of the players and it absorbed most of the attention from the party. The Solar wanted to cleanse its soul right there and then, the Alchemical wanted to extract the heretical history out of their head and mess with its reincarnation so they'd have a knowledgeable companion, and the Dragon King wanted to whisper honeyed words into the Solar's ear. That character alone sparked a large deal of debates for the players, both in character and out.
SWN's True AI
In Stars Without Number Revised the players can choose from a few key character classes - Warrior, Expert or Psychic. These are all pretty standard and pretty balanced between one another. However, in the Deluxe edition, you can also pick a fourth option - to play a True AI.
In SWN, a True AI is not just a normal robot like R2D2 or C-3PO (that would be a Virtual Intelligence character "race"). A True AI is Ultron:
True AI in a nutshell
Straight away at character creation you can take the murderbot frame (Omen) and be able to rip and tear way above your weight class and tear through even ship hulls:
This is your starting PC.
Yes, the one in the background that looks like
Michael Bay's Megatron
If you have a ship with the correct modifications, you can run it by yourself by level 2. If you had a hacker in your group, by level 3 they are outclassed by your innate hacking skills. At the same level you can control almost 3000 drones and it only gets crazier from here. By the time you're at level 9 you can teleport, rewind time, dictate how events will unfold in the future, and retcon almost any level of preparation out of your hat ("why yes, I did bury a spare spaceship with months of life support and power armour on this desert planet for this exact eventuality"), so you're outclassing a lot of psychics (oh, and unlike them, your powers can't be countered or detected by psychics).
All the while you have a lich-like phylactery which makes you a lot more immortal than anything in the universe, and you can swap your shells to get high bonuses to specific things ("need a medic? I can be a medic in 5 minutes. Need a mechanic? I can be one as well").
In-universe, the value of a True AI far exceeds what any player or even entire planets could earn, and they are also extremely dangerous if they turn malicious. Heck, in-fiction True AI have to have breaks on them to dumb them down to human-level thinking. Otherwise, these "unbreaked" AIs turn extinction-level-entity very rapidly.
So the moment a True AI gets introduced into the game, you're dealing with a large elephant that needs addressing. If it's a PC, they can make the game interesting very quickly (especially since SWN encourages the GMs not to "keep the PCs poor" and so on). If the PCs find a True AI, they can get either very rich, or very dead, depending on how things roll. Heck, RollPlay's SwanSong was a game about dealing with unbreaked AIs and the nightmare even one of them can be.
EvWoD's Ceasing to Exist Approach
In Exalted vs the World of Darkness Sidereals have a Charm called "Ceasing to Exist Approach". It lets your current self stop existing while you take on the life of any person you want, whether they are human or supernatural. The past reweaves your new existence into itself to fit you, so if you are a vampire prince's daughter you have the backstory to back it rather than appear out of thin air. You also get a lot of dots in Backgrounds, meaning you can have a lot of potential influence as a character - you could be a high-ranking member of the vampiric society and a millionaire at the same time, etc.
The thing is, when you end this power and go back to being yourself, that other story doesn't vanish, just the person goes missing. Suddenly the prince's daughter is missing, or a politician is nowhere to be seen, or what have you. Their stuff is also there, and since you know their bank account passwords or could arrange some other transfer to your old self, you can bootstrap a lot of interesting stuff to yourself. You could for a moment create a Bruce Wayne-like figure in your town, complete with an Alfred, tell them what's going on, then come in as yourself and enjoy your life of luxury and a hyper-competent and loyal butler.
So the Charm is very powerful, but also has strong drawbacks that have vague consequences. You could use it to bypass a lot of problems ("our target is locked up in his doomsday bunker? Good thing he was his loyal butler by his side! Disappears!"), which can make the game a bit boring and very frustrating for the GM. It's also a very expensive Charm, so it's a Plot Elephant - either the game is about hopping identities and you make the investment, or you just spend a good chunk of XP on something you don't want to use or can't utilise.
Sidereals Ceasing to Exist everywhere...
Conclusions
When introducing elements into your game that are very strong, have a lot of knowledge to share, or have the chance to derail the plot, you should be prepared for what you're getting into. Once a Plot Elephant is in the game, your whole game could revolve around it, or be shaped by it. This of course can make for some excellent stories and even entire games, but if they weren't meant to be the focus, they can take away from everyone's enjoyment. Teleporting someone into the Elemental Plane of Fire might be a fun joke once and getting your party back together from across the multiverse might be an interesting story, but both can be frustrating the second and third time around...
Respect and acknowledge the elephant in the room...
I've been listening to stories from various RPG groups, and I've noticed an infrequent trend that hasn't been discussed much - that of managing your session's "screen time".
The situation usually comes up as a player complaining that they aren't having a fun in a game because the GM is describing everything in too great a detail, or the story is getting nowhere due to infinite distractions, or perhaps someone is hogging all the limelight.
An example of GM not respecting players' time
by creating long sidequest with nothing but dead ends
(among many other things...)
The situation can also be caused by the system not respecting players' time with a high crunch:
If each time a combat starts you lose 2-4 hours of game just rolling dice,
this better be a lot of fun, otherwise you might be wasting time...
All of those scenarios are a matter of managing your screen time. Essentially, a good RPG session is like a good episode of a TV show - a balance of action, drama, progressing the story, etc. Also like with a TV show you have to manage how much of your limited screen time you devote to each component - you might have 4 hours of footage you'd want to show, but with a 30 minutes runtime, you have to cut some things down or out.
With that approach, you (both the GM and the players) can start saving and spending that screen time where it suits the story and your game the most. Describing a pretty mosaic on the floor? You probably only need a short establishing shot rather than devote 10 minutes to it. The PC explores a dead end of a side quest lead? You could have a quick montage, rather than spend an episode on it. PC's nemesis shows up? Now it's time to slow things down and focus!
Don't forget that you are also your own audience, so make sure everyone is engaged in at least most of the story. If one character gets a solo scene, either make it short, entertaining to listen to, or be sure to switch to what other people are doing from time to time. Doing 3 solo scenes for 3 characters each lasting half an hour is more manageable if you switch between the plots every 5-10 minutes, rather than leaving someone twiddling their thumbs for an hour waiting for their go. Perhaps borrow a page from Fellowship and try swinging the spotlight between characters on a cliffhanger - when they get into danger, when some big twist happens, or just whenever enough time has passed and you come to a natural "scene cut".
You can apply similar principles when it comes to mechanics. If a player wants to knock out some minor NPC to show off you don't have to bust out the full combat engine - just decide everything in one simple roll, or wave away the need to roll entirely. You can handwave a thief stealing pocket change to pay for their drinks, a fighter roughing someone up, etc. to save screen time when it's not important, giving you more time to spare on the meat of the session.
On a higher level, you can start tailoring your RPG systems for your games. Be critical of the systems and every now and then make sure they work for the story you have at hand. For example, we moved away from Exalted 3rd edition for our Princes of the Universe game because the game would slow down to a crawl whenever combat would start. In our last session that used that system we had a one-on-one combat where one turn would take over an hour of rolling. Not two episodes later when we switched over to Godbound, we had a 5 PCs fight multiple armies and multiple generals and the whole engagement took less than that one duel. By cutting out the grindy mechanics we gave ourselves a lot more screen time to spend elsewhere.
In the end what constitutes a good investment of screen time is up to your group. If you like a grindy combat, by all means, focus on the grindy combat, but make that decision consciously. Have a chat with your group and figure out which parts of the game are fun for you, and which you'd rather hasten up, if any.
Awhile back I heard an interesting story in one of the Discords I frequent. One of the GMs ran a campaign of Stars Without Number Revised Edition using the transhumanism rules.
When making a transhumanist character, you star with up to 50 Face (reputation credits essentially) worth of a shell (augmented body that houses your consciousness). However, if you don't start as a transhuman character, you get to spend that 50 Face on gear at highly reduced prices (being in a post-scarcity society gets you that).
So as the story goes, one of the characters decided to be a normie, while everyone else was transhuman. He got to start the game with like, two high-tech hovertanks, and some other military gear to spare, while everyone else had their lab-grown enhanced bodies - someone went for superhuman, someone else for a murder robot, someone else had a flying frame, etc.. The GM wasn't amused by the hovertanks and what have you, but he let that slip.
Not a bad way to start a campaign, being a murder robot
After an adventure, everyone in the group has earned like, 20 Face each, barely enough for the lowest-end replacement body, a crude box design. However, apparently the one normie player has convinced his 4 buddies to pool their payout together and give it to him, which meant he was able to afford the top-of-the-line shell, the Terminus. Max in all physical stats, built-in armour, being able to survive in vacuum for awhile, you name it.
Understandably, the GM was a bit vexed. He didn't expect that played to game the system twice and now be ahead of everyone else that played by the spirit of the game. The GM vented a bit about the situation on Discord, and we commended that player for being clever, and there was a fair bit of story potential created now that he owes so much Face to the rest of the group. We had some good chuckle out of the situation.
Thinking about it, there was a way for the GM to play an interesting trick at the player's expense in that situation. The situation would be a bit like some concepts found in Soma:
So here is how I'd handle it, in hindsight, and if I was the GM. I'd let the player go through the process, and roleplay his transition into being transhuman. Roleplay how he'd go to get his brain digitised so it can be uploaded into his new body. Then the next scene would switch over to the other characters welcoming the new version of their friend. The twist here would be that that version wouldn't be played by the player, but the GM. They'd tell other players that this person is their friend and acts just like him, except he'd still be controlled by the GM.
Then, the GM would let the normie character walk in as himself, and cue the awkwardness as the process is explained. The process is actually copying the original person, doing a "copy and paste", not "cut and paste". The original would then perhaps be allowed to leave, or something else to indicate to the player that that character still has rights and so on. Then the GM could let the players work out what to do next, how to split possessions, who should go with the team and so on. If the normie character would leave the party, the GM could then sternly look at the player and tell them to make a new character. Then finally after a small pause laugh it off and give them their now transhuman character to play as.
With this approach, the GM would deliver on the heavy themes relating to transhumanism, let the players know that playing cheeky can have repercussions, while still not denying the players the rewards for being clever.
