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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4587149" data-attributes="member: 40961">But the reason that's bad isn't illusionism.  Or at least there's a far bigger, far more obvious reason that's bad that obscures any point you might want to make about illusionism.  That call is a bad one because it doesn't make logical sense for the Tomb of the Ancient Lich King that used to be over there to now be over here when the players already know the Tomb's location, and because it creates potential plot holes as a general matter to have the Tomb of the Ancient Lich King pop up where the ogres were expected. It also runs afoul of my two rules for when illusory choices are bad- the players can tell you're doing it, and there's a fair chance that they won't be happy about it. Why don't you take on more reasonable propositions? 1. You've drafted up an NPC blacksmith that lives in Hereshire in anticipation of the PCs going there.  He's a plot relevant NPC, who the PCs will have the option of assisting with an important task.  But the PCs don't go to Hereshire.  They go to Thereford.  You decide to use the NPC in Thereford instead, and offer the PCs the sub plot in Thereford.  Is this bad, and if so, why? 2. You could make an important clue to the plot available to the PCs by means of a puzzle that is easily solved with teleportation.  But, your wizard, the only party member who can teleport, just retrained his only teleportation spell into something else.  So you instead decide to make a different puzzle.  Alternately, your player just learned teleportation, so you immediately make a puzzle based on it.  Had he not, you would have made a puzzle based on a different set of skills possessed by a different character.  Alternately, you've already made a puzzle based on teleportation, but your player retrains his teleportation spell into something else, and you choose to rewrite the puzzle.  Is this bad, and if so, why?  Are the examples different in any way?  Why? 3. The PCs are about to have an encounter of level appropriate difficulty.  They come up with a sweet plan to beat the encounter.  You realize this plan will really work, so you increase the encounter difficulty to compensate.  Is this bad?  Is it bad if the party actually receives experience based on the new encounter level?  Is it bad if they don't, and if so why?  What if your game doesn't use experience points, and all they get are "cool points" for trashing a really tough encounter?  Alternately, you were going to have the PCs ambushed that evening by assassins, but they take a bigger beating during an encounter than you expect.  You're worried that your old plan of 5 assassins might kill them.  You either delay the assassins until tomorrow, or you reduce the number of assassins to three.  Is this bad, and if so, why? These are the forms of so called "illusionism" that actually exist outside of examples of obvious plot holes and DM errors.  I mean them as serious questions.</blockquote>

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