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[Ross Vernal]

I can tell you that she is exactly as loyal to the party as the party is loyal to her.

As expected. Well, at least the more volatile of us have someone to blame should something go wrong.
This of course means I'll have to negotiate a peace between them.
Again.
I can now sympathize with any party leader ever.

I'll just quote the Grand Tabletop Rules List and allow you to draw your own conclusions:

Rule Prime - All The World Is Your Enemy: The GM is cruel, incompetent, trying to railroad you through a pre-planned path, or any combination of the three. The other players are useless noobs or cutthroat munchkins out to kill their fellow PCs (and steal their stuff!), and you'll have to be an even better one to survive. Coherent plot and story, let alone any kind of collaboration between GMs and Players is a pipe dream. Trying to talk to the group about any concerns can only make them worse. The guy who brought snacks is actually a government assassin wearing a rubber mask, and the snacks are deadly poison. This is the underlying assumption behind the rest of this list - if it doesn't apply to your gaming group, not only might this list misinform you, it might send you into a spiral of suicidal depression from which your love of gaming never recovers. On the other hand, if you live in a webcomic of any kind, this is always true.

Rule 0 - Don't Give The GM Ideas: Keep your mouth shut. More players have been killed by giving ideas to the GM than have been killed by pre-planned traps, encounters, and bad rolls.

Rule 00 - The GM is Always Right: No matter how eloquently the Rules Lawyer states his case for the loophole he's trying to abuse, the GM always has the last word.

Rule 000 - ...But No Players Means No Game: Having the last word doesn't mean the GM can lord it over the players like a tin-pot dictator. Like any other governing body, abuse of power will eventually lead to a coup d'état.

Rule 1 - Don't Assume: Never assume that the Mook is alone/just a mook. Never assume that the treasure room is trap free. Never assume that the GMPC you're traveling with is actually on your team. Because...

Rule 2 - Everything's a Trap: The Mook is a decoy. The Treasure Room is actually the mouth of a monster. The GMPC is part of an underground conspiracy to kill you. The ship you're on is a secret pirate ship. The ruins are rigged to fall at any second. The gem will steal your soul. The treasure chest has a trap in it. The trap you bought for your Ranger to use is actually rigged to trap you.

Rule 3 - Know Your God: If your GM has just started playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, start playing it too. It's likely that some element from it will come up in some way or another.

Rule 4 - Cautious Bell Curve: Works something like this:
Rookie Players: Hey, let's barrel on in without checking for traps.
Advanced Players: Hrmm... Maybe there's a trap on this door... Let's check it first.
Experienced Players: Hey, let's barrel on in without checking for traps. (It's not like they can hurt us.)

Rule 5 - Rules of Gracious Gratuity: Never trust a GM who lets you hand-pick your starting equipment. It means one of three things:
- You're going to lose it all very soon.
- You're playing a One-Shot campaign, which means you'll never use this character again.
- You're going against enemies who are going to be just as well equipped as you are, at least.

Rule 6 - Bought Offerings: Game Masters are the Gods of their worlds. As such, they can be given an offering to help them rule in your favor.

Rule 7 - Inverse Characterization Rule: The more backstory you've created for your character at the beginning of a campaign, the less likely it is to come up during actual game play, and may require you to start a monologue to let the other players know just how awesome your character's life was.

Rule 8 - Book-Worm's Victory: Most people are too lazy to look up the actual spell. So always trust the one guy in your group who has actually read the spell book cover to cover.

Rule 9 - Door to Nowhere: All doors lead to exactly where the GM wants.
Rule 9.5 - Door to Nowhere Inverse: No door will ever lead you to where you want to go.

Rule 10 - Dead Kid Rule: No NPC is ever safe from dying. If the GM wants to kill them to shock you, he will.
Rule 10.5 - Dead Kid Rule Corollary: The safest person to be is the man in the middle of a battle.

Rule 11 - Don't Break God: Never put your GM in a position that he hasn't planned for. His improvisations usually prove to be deadly.

Rule 12 - Let Kindness Happen: If your GM is a kind GM and he gives you lots of things, be gracious and never point this out.

[Remuthra]

Where's Never Get in the Boat?

[Ross Vernal]

See Rule 2.

[Xanmyral]

Haha, those rules. Been a while since I've seen them.

Also, have to say I like the fact that you warn us ahead of time about the rails.

But yeah, Xantalos you got your work cut out for you. I wish you the best of luck trying to herd those cats, hopefully at some commoners.

[Xantalos]

Haha, those rules. Been a while since I've seen them.

Also, have to say I like the fact that you warn us ahead of time about the rails.

But yeah, Xantalos you got your work cut out for you. I wish you the best of luck trying to herd those cats, hopefully at some commoners.

Actually, they're not too bad.
Except for the homocidal lich.
And the proud, stubborn angelborn.
And the proud, easily irritated demonborn.
Actually, Neun's basically the only one I won't have to rein in at one time or another.
Provided no one messes with his booze.

[Xanmyral]

Isn't that more than half the party, almost all not counting you?

[Xantalos]

Isn't that more than half the party, almost all not counting you?

Well, I kinda count too, but since I'm the one doing the herding, I don't count myself unless I get demoted or something.

[Ross Vernal]

Also, have to say I like the fact that you warn us ahead of time about the rails.

I wanted to let you guys know that if you choose to take certain actions, the consequences are inevitable.

One rail has an outcome that cannot and will not change, no matter what you do (as in, it doesn't matter how much ass you kick, the person has reserves; your "choice" is simply "Resist and kill things before being defeated" or "Surrender without a fight.") Once you're dropped off at the destination, the sandbox re-opens. I really don't expect you guys to actually get on this rail at all, but it's just within possible.

Two of them have outcomes that are very probable, but I'm not putting it past you guys to find your way out given the party's talents and temperaments. One is much harder to derail, but in all honesty, if you end up on that rail, you guys deserve it.

Another rail is one that firmly insisting that the party does not want to do it will have the attempted railroader give up, and then take off on the rails with a group of Supporting Characters on his own. This may or may not have consequences in the future, depending on secret DM rolls and your own choices.

Aside from that, it's all about player agency.  You can absolutely bypass all the rails and do your own thing.

[Xantalos]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3svW8PM_jc

[Remuthra]

Spoiler: A helpful tool for indicating the presence of plot rails. (click to show/hide)

[Maxinum McDreich]

Rule 4 made me laugh. It's so true. (except with the gm I play with on Shadowrun and DnD. Any and all traps are deadly XD)

[Xanmyral]

Ross, have I mentioned that the more and more I hear you talk the more and more I like the way you GM? Because I should have.

In other news, question time. Probably outcomes for when Beta and Alpha inevitably meet?

[Maxinum McDreich]

Ross, have I mentioned that the more and more I hear you talk the more and more I like the way you GM? Because I should have.

In other news, question time. Probably outcomes for when Beta and Alpha inevitably meet?

+1 Think this is the first time ever I've agreed with a post so completely as to +1 it.

[Ross Vernal]

That depends on what Alpha Party does in Garrison.

I'd say, this week or this month. IC days? Probably a week.

[Xanmyral]

It was more a question to everyone in a "what crazy things do you suspect will happen?"

My bet is that it will end up fighting, no matter what terms they meet on, they'll be fighting by the end of it. Chances are, for a really stupid reason that they'll laugh on later.