>>95862004
>DM: "See this point on the map? There's a dragon right there. You guys can go kill it if you want, I won't consider it metagaming if you just go there while exploring."
>P1: "Okay, great. We go to Silen and visit The Black Rose."
>DM: "You find yourself in The Black Rose. People are talking about rumours of a dragon in the mountains. You overhear one man say an army led by 'Julius' is planning to move on the dragon soon."
>P1: "Julius, as in my character's father who was general of the army?"
>DM: "Most likely. When you ask about Julius, the description you're given matches your father."
>PC: "Oh, wow, okay. That's cool. Can I get a room and sleep for the night?"
>DM: "Yes. You wake up the next morning, what do you want to do?"
>PC: "I'm gonna go to Brelford and check out the tavern."
>DM: "Okay... But Brelford is further away from the dragon, not closer."
>PC: "I go there anyway."
>DM: "You're at the tavern in Brelford, what do you wanna do now?"
>PC: "I ask if anyone knows about the dragon."
>DM: "Fewer people in this area know about what's happening, but the few that do give you the same information you already had."
>PC: "Okay. Can I get a room?"
>DM: "Yes. What do you want to do in the morning?"
>PC: "I travel east towards Garalel."
>DM: "Away from the dragon?"
>PC: "Yes."

No bullshit. I audio record our games and I cannot tell you how many 3-4 hour recordings I have that play out exactly like this. What's worse is it's not just him - usually the other players are either explicitly enabling this shit or not doing anything to stop it. Even when they insist on going to the dragon, they will not actually take action to get to it, but they'll say they want to.

We just started playing again after about a year and a half break and the FIRST THING he said when they landed in the starter town was "Okay guys, you know those 2 nearby cities with very obvious quests for us? We need to avoid them at all costs". I wish I joking.