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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5587159" data-attributes="member: 42582">That's fairly controversial. It's not how I think of an RPG at all, for example, any more than I think of any other fictional work or authoring process as primarily an attempt to model real life.Again, it's a big assumption to think that realism is an important goal for players in playing their PCs. For some, perhaps. But certainly not for all.Now this I agree with, because it is entirely independent of whether the aim of RPGing is to model reality in some fashion. If the players feel that the only meaningful option for them to have their PCs take is the one the GM is laying out for them, then the GM is constraining their choices - whatever the relevant dimensions of "meaningfulness" for those players. This way railroading lies.Another good post. For some players, a necessary condition for the "meaningfulness" of play is that their PCs are the heroes who make a difference in the world. For those sorts of players, the scenario you describe suddenly deflates the meaningfulness of the campaign, however much freedom they had to decide which of the two major problems they would confront.OK, but what if they don't - because the threat forecloses any other option that might be meaningful for the player in question?Which raises the question - who gets to decide what counts as meaningful? I assume that, given we're talking about "meaningful for the player", it is the player's conception of meaningfulness that is paramount here.Given that player conceptions of meaningfulness are paramount here, I think it matters very much how it feels. You don't deliver a good play experience by assuring your players that they had choices that you think they should have cared about. The players actually have to care about them. The choices must be meaningful for them.Because what is meaningful is different from player to player and group to group - some regard exploration as the GM's gameworld as the most important thing, for example, while others don't - there is no general answer to what is the best way to set up a gameworld, and to develop it in response to the players' choices about their PCs' actions.But that's because, in the scenario you're presenting, the player has two meaningful options. It's not negative consequences in general that are under scrutiny here. It's a certain sort of negative consequence that forecloses other meaningful choices.</blockquote>

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