Li Shenron
Legend
Sometimes I think, that walking such a fine line is a mistake, like wanting to serve both fish and meat in the same dish. It might help to take a bolder stance on either way of playing the game, at least sometimes.That being said, if you tell a player, "this is a role-playing game. You can do whatever you want," that's going to set an expectation. Then there's the book, which usually says " you can do all these things! " Another expectation. Then the GM comes along and says (unfortunately), "no, you can't do that." Well, now it seems like the GM is being unfair.
So you walk a fine line between maintaining a consistent narrative and giving the PCs agency to affect that narrative/ game world.
There are players who want to write the story, and there are players who want to solve the story.
When you have players-writers, then it pays to let their ideas shape the story as much as possible, in fact it's probably a good idea for the DM not to plan too much the narrative beforehand, since it is difficult to predict what the players will choose.
When you have players-solvers, then too much freedom can feel like there is really nothing to solve, as whatever you'll do it will eventually be fine. But these players perhaps want a game that makes them think as in a point-and-click adventure, where what matters is not your creativity/originality in coming up with something nobody thought about, but instead your intuition and logic to figure out the 'solution' of each challenge.
Effectively two different types of game, but who has the right to say one of them is wrong?