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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GMforPowergamers" data-source="post: 8698625" data-attributes="member: 67338">but I assume you control PCs in the past and will again in the future.and again... why do you assume it ISN'T the players choice?!?!  I can't list 500 different actions that the player COULD declare. This post would just take 6 days to read and longer to write.correct I dexided... cause I know that what really happened didn't have to do with that tree. Lets take a game I have pitched before but not actually run yet (it's in my to be played pile) where there is a mostly human kingdom that flourished until a king married and elven woman as his second wife after his first died in child birth... since then it has been hundreds of years of her rule as queen as both the pure human royal line (from that kings siblings and his children with first wife) and his half elf descendants with her all grew up had families and grew old... so now as she is sick there are A LOT of claimants to the throne and being a human kingdom this has never happened before. That is the general idea. The specifics will change based on who is playing and what they are playing (and adding to the world) but one of the plots I have in my head is the question of if the 500 year old elf is really just getting sick or if she is being MADE to be sick.  Since this is only a rough idea I can't admit to having the answers now... but I will by the time game 1 or 2 kicks off. If I decide she was poisoned by coronial mustard then there is no clue to be found in any trees.... because neither mustard or elf would have been in the tree. BUT if a PC chooses to climb a tree I wont tell them not to or that they can't, I will just tell them there is noting up there and move on...because the search IS meaningful... I don't understand why "you find nothing" isn't an  answer!!?  I have people on these boards tell me all the time that if a 8 str no training no equipment character declares they climb a deadly cliff but there is nothing on top I am supposed to let them auto succeed instead of roll... but then (and mostly different but sometimes same people) claim that once they get to the top something MUST be there...  not even close. letting a player do what they want is never railroading... telling them what to do (either by trickery or just out right) is. And the illusionism here is nothing like the hidden rails... I am not directing there choices I am infact letting them go anywhere they want no rails. I have even said that if they go far enough afield (And trust me players will) I will gently but honestly tell them they are on a dead end... BUT they ALWAYS have the choice to stay on the dead end... the best part is when they go chaseing a dead end and find a whole different plot.  THis is why I very rarely make it a dozen games into the campaign without at least a few major surprises TO ME THE DM.there actually is... reread the skill challenge, the DM decides if an action or skill is appropriate (and again the going joke from the time Tony 'did a push up for insight') in fact one of the very examples was that during a negotiation you can declare all intimidate checks to count as fails without a roll if you decide that intimidating isn't what is needed. I don't think it is. I think the defualt of many published adventures for every edition is though.</blockquote>

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