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<blockquote data-quote="Spatula" data-source="post: 4226212" data-attributes="member: 2198">If you can turn a little bit of prep into a full night of adventure, that's good DMing.&nbsp; It's not being dishonest, any more than any exercise of DM fiat is dishonest.&nbsp; DM: &quot;You get attacked by five ghouls on the third watch.&quot; Player: &quot;What?!&nbsp; You didn't roll each hour to see if wandering monsters showed up, or to see what monsters, and how many, attacked!&nbsp; That's dishonest!&quot;&nbsp; The players trust the DM as the custodian of &quot;stuff that happens&quot; in reaction to their actions.&nbsp; &quot;Stuff that happens&quot; includes what they run into when they go down a particular path.I'm sure every DM has had some point early on where they lavishly detailed some part of an adventure, only to have the PCs completely bypass it or go in a different direction, leaving the inexperienced DM with no idea of what to do.&nbsp; Now, if you're an amazing ad-libber this isn't that much of a problem, but most people are not amazing ad-libbers.&nbsp; So there are ways to deal with this situation if you're not.&nbsp; What I tend to do is have a broad plot outline in mind, a few key encounters, and I'll prepare a bunch of different possible enemies to fight.&nbsp; If the players go to location A, they fight some of the enemies that I prepared and possibly have one of the key encounters.&nbsp; If they choose to go to location B, the same thing will probably happen, even if they arrived at the encounter in a slightly different fashion.You can also over-prepare, detailing every choice just in case.&nbsp; This is what I used to try to do, but eventually I realized it was a lot of wasted time.&nbsp; It was better to put more effort into a flexible list of &quot;cool stuff&quot; than to spend a little bit of time detailing every possible player choice.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Spatula, post: 4226212, member: 2198"] If you can turn a little bit of prep into a full night of adventure, that's good DMing. It's not being dishonest, any more than any exercise of DM fiat is dishonest. DM: "You get attacked by five ghouls on the third watch." Player: "What?! You didn't roll each hour to see if wandering monsters showed up, or to see what monsters, and how many, attacked! That's dishonest!" The players trust the DM as the custodian of "stuff that happens" in reaction to their actions. "Stuff that happens" includes what they run into when they go down a particular path. I'm sure every DM has had some point early on where they lavishly detailed some part of an adventure, only to have the PCs completely bypass it or go in a different direction, leaving the inexperienced DM with no idea of what to do. Now, if you're an amazing ad-libber this isn't that much of a problem, but most people are not amazing ad-libbers. So there are ways to deal with this situation if you're not. What I tend to do is have a broad plot outline in mind, a few key encounters, and I'll prepare a bunch of different possible enemies to fight. If the players go to location A, they fight some of the enemies that I prepared and possibly have one of the key encounters. If they choose to go to location B, the same thing will probably happen, even if they arrived at the encounter in a slightly different fashion. You can also over-prepare, detailing every choice just in case. This is what I used to try to do, but eventually I realized it was a lot of wasted time. It was better to put more effort into a flexible list of "cool stuff" than to spend a little bit of time detailing every possible player choice. [/QUOTE]

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