Lanefan
Victoria Rules
With this I agree; and would even go a step further and try to let them know that a) the options are close to limitless if that's what they want (in other words, if they throw curveballs at me I'll try my best to hit them) while at the same time b) if they're happy following the rails I have a story in mind which I hope will be engaging enough to pass muster.If I was GMing 5e, though, what I’d strive to do is have different options available to the players. Either different goals or different paths to a given goal.
And even within the same campaign, different groups of players (and sometimes even different groups of PCs run by the same players) take very different approaches.
What I try to have are two or three or four long-term storylines percolating in the background such that if the PCs engage with one for a while and resolve it, the campaign doesn't come to an end; instead (in the event the players/PCs haven't developed their own goals and pursuits by then) there's still other story lines out there the can pick up on.So I’d say I would give the players options. I’d readily share details and information so that we could keep the game moving, so that things remained interesting. I’d not have only one goal of play, or if I did, there’d be several different ways to get there.