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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jhaelen" data-source="post: 5725011" data-attributes="member: 46713">Exactly. And that's why it's _also_ possible that he just _thinks_ he knows the shortest route!Who is this 'we'?It sounds like you're arguing for a kind of railroading:The GM decides that there is no way to prevent the villain from escaping, because that's the required result of the encounter. Otherwise the next encounter, which relies on that result won't work, thus wrecking the entire adventure.If the GM wants to allow for the players' actions to change the predetermined result, he'll have set a DC (or decide on one on the fly) for the required actions _or_ allow an ingenious approach to work automatically.In every case it's the GMs prerogative to make a decision to follow his original plan or let the players (temporarily) derail the adventure. The players usually don't even know if there ever _was_ a plan.Imho, giving the players narrative control is _usually_ a good thing. But sometimes it's better for a DM to stick to the original plan.Naturally, it also depends on the DM: Myself, I like to prepare encounters in a way that they're easy to modify, replace or omit and reuse later. So, I typically got nothing to lose by following the players' ideas.There are limits of course: If the players suddenly decide to do something else entirely I might end up having prepared nothing I can quickly adapt to the changed circumstances. At that point all I can do is talk to them OOC and ask for a vote to end the session early so I can prepare something or backtrack a bit and postpone their alternative ideas.If I'd prepare everything in excruciating detail, things would be different. E.g. if we agreed to play a particular Adventure Path, then there's basically only as much freedom as has been written into it.</blockquote>

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