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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaro" data-source="post: 5726756" data-attributes="member: 48965">Hey Jhaelen, the comments you quoted weren't Hussar's they were mine, it was probably due to the mess up in formating that happened when I quoted Hussar above my own post... that said, onto your post.  Well it's based on preference and often times preference just boils down to like or dislike as opposed to logically arguable facts.  Perhaps you didn't understand my argument, since no where have I argued for "arbitrary" restriction of options. In my example I didn't list all the skills and randomly pick some to work and some to exclude... that would be arbitrary. And for the record no one on the other side of the coin has convinced me either...go figure <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.  Easier doesn't equal better either. I think for some groups harder will equal better and for others easier will equate to a better game. I mean we add traps, hazards and terrain into encounters to make them "better" since a flat field with monsters is considered boring... the funny thing is really all we're doing is restricting options and setting parameters in a combat that would otherwise be a totally wide open, flat field to fight on... I don't find doing the same thing to encounters outside combat any different, do you? If so why? They are both challenges with particular complications added into them. Why is one right and one wrong to add complications to beforehand?   Bringing up the restriction of too many options at this point seems disingenuous as I, at least, have established that I am not discussing extremes... otherwise leaving too much open can leave the PCs in a world of chaos, that mutates on a whim and offers no challenge at all... see how that works. And honestly some part of the game is always 'guess what the DM is thinking' otherwise the game would be structureless.  Emphasis mine: So your main beef is that some DM's decide beforehand whether they feel something wil "trivialize the challenge." (interesting since this seems to imply you don't want the challenge to be too easy since that would make it unsatisfying for you and your group) as opposed to in the game? Isn't this just two different methods for the same means? I mean you're still deciding that some of the ideas they think are cool can't work because they will trivialize the encounter (all in your opinion)... aren't you? So you don't run into the "problem" (though I wouldn't consider it a problem) where you have to tell them that their cool ideas cannot work because you wrote down that particualr things can't work... You have traded it for the "problem" of having to tell them that their cool ideas don't work because you decided they would trivialize the encounter in the moment...Huh? What is the difference (besides one being done beforehand and the other being done on the spot)? Both are rulings that things can't be done and thus restrictions on your players... is the time in which these things decided really that big of a deal? Does it mater if I decide that a shortcut is not viable beforehand or in the game? Either way the end result is the same.   I still don't see why a split second decision is better than thinking out the parameters of the encounter beforehand? It would seem that in one situation you have the time to think about the encounter, what you and your players want out of it and what would or wouldn't trivialize it... while in the other you have to make a snap decision.  And really, are we back to arguing that setting restrictions and parameters, no matter how many other options, actions and decisions remain... is railroading (writing a novel)... this is just baseless hyperbole  So you would be perfectly fine with my pit example that I gave earlier in the thread?  I can honestly say I have never played a D&D game or ran one where "nothing" is fixed.   And I totally understand that, can you also see why for some it may not be?</blockquote>

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