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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadence" data-source="post: 6230353" data-attributes="member: 6701124">I'm guessing I've fallen into a semantic quagmire and we actually don't disagree on this as much as it seems.I don't take "a better idea of where something is going" as locking things in or not being subject to change in unexpected ways... Take a fantasy sports league for example.  Doesn't the player who has looked over the schedule for the season, when the bye weeks are, which players have injuries, and has examined the past performances have a better chance on average of predicting the outcomes across the weeks of the season than someone who doesn't have that knowledge?  (Even though there are shocking upsets each week that the novice might have gotten lucky about and selected?)Within a scene you're running, do the player's always exactly know the power levels of the opposition and all of the details about those capabilities?   If not, doesn't that give you more knowledge about the scene?  If there are any surprises/traps at all, isn't that extra knowledge the DM has?  Ditto for the DC targets on skill challenges. Beyond a particular scene, as DM do you already have at least a sketched out idea about what the NPCs and challenges are around for the next scene? That sounds totally correct to me.But don't you still dangle some plot hooks before the players that there's a decent chance they might find attractive, even if its just describing the part of the world that you think they might be interested in and even though it doesn't put a limit on their possible choices?  How specific are the players at choosing the missions/enemies?  Is it "we want to go find some local bandits and take them on", in which case you would have lots of knowledge they didn't have access to once you stat them up. Of course the players can always decide unexpected things, but don't the better ones have some stability in their character conceptions that allow you to at least hazard guesses about what will interest them?   Do your players ever let you know what their character's long term goals currently are to let you plan ahead?  If the DM doesn't have a rough idea of where things are heading, wouldn't that make it futile to stat up any future challenges or scenes?  (How does a completely mutually created sandbox work?)</blockquote>

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