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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jhaelen" data-source="post: 5728843" data-attributes="member: 46713">All right, after carefully rereading your posts it seems that you haven't.Apparently, I only got that impression because whenever I was pointing out something about my preferred approach that I consider better than the alternative you argued that it actually wasn't.But you've been quite careful not to call either approach universally good or bad, so my apologies.Okay, back to a bit of hyperbole:Since my desired outcome as a DM is that I want everyone to have a challenging but fun session and like to reward cool ideas and exceptional dice rolls, yes, I admit it, I must have been railroading my players all the time <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />(Slightly) more seriously: I always assumed that for railroading to happen you first have to lay down rails, otherwise it's just 'roading', isn't it?Back to my example dungeon with the two factions: If my desired outcome was that the pcs allied with the orcs, why should I make it more difficult for them than allying with the hob-goblins? And why should I allow for them to ally with the hob-goblins at all?Somewhat frighteningly, something The Shaman posted above describes quite accurately what I've been trying to illustrate with my example:Now, to be honest, since I know my players quite well, I'm usually good at guessing how they'll react given certain choices. But sometimes they surprise me - and that's something I like - a lot!So, when preparing for a session, I concentrate on outcomes I consider likely. For my example that means, I'd first make sure to be prepared for them not trying to ally with either faction.The next most likely outcome would be that they try to ally with the hob-goblins and the least likely that they try to ally with the orcs.So, I'd have combat stat-blocks ready for both factions, and I've thought about parameters that have to be met for either of the factions to become allies.Actually, there's a fourth option that's even less likely: They might try to ally with both factions, effectively working to achieve a truce (or even more insidious: to convince both sides to engage in an all-out confrontation against each other!).And that's an example for an option that would in my opinion trivialize the adventure, so the best outcome they could hope for is for the truce (or the all-out battle) to last for a very short while, i.e. not long enough for them to achieve their objective and get away again in complete safety.So, while I don't have a desired outcome at least there is an outcome I _don't_ desire: I don't want them to succeed without having to engage in at least a single combat encounter! Note, that if we were playing a different rpg system than D&D, I wouldn't mind even that. But D&D without combat is like stale beer - not something I care about!I'm sure there's even more options I haven't listed above, but apart from them avoiding the whole adventure setup I trust in my ability to wing it, supported by everything I've prepared for this and previous sessions.</blockquote>

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