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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5498563" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think you're expressing far too rigid a position. The idea is to play the game and have fun. If things are going in a direction which the DM believes won't be fun for the players then doing nothing isn't serving the game well and it isn't a sign of good DMing. I feel relatively confident that there are MANY good to excellent DMs in this forum who would not agree with you and are probably not accurately classified as rookie DMs. Now, there are going to be cases where eriktheguy pointed out that information isn't always adequately communicated and some reiteration is desirable. That can go well beyond reminding a player of a rule or of some information he may have forgotten. It could be like you say that the DM forgot to convey something or didn't realize he'd conveyed inadequate or confusing information. There could be a wide variety of other cases though. The PCs presumably have lived their lives in this world. They are surely going to understand many things (particularly social relations) in ways that the players cannot. There's nothing wrong with the DM interjecting and providing input as a way of explicating things. If the DM is in the process nudging the players, well he presumably has at least some reason for doing that. It could be no more than convenience, but so what? Unless the situation is one where the players expressed a genuine desire to follow a particular path and the DM is effectively railroading them out of it and they're just going along to please the DM then it should be fine. Most choices players make tend to be fairly arbitrary anyway.Now, there is likely a better way to go about this in some cases. The DM can talk to the players at an entirely meta-game level. "OK, guys, you wanted to go kill some undead. I have that all set up, just follow my lead. If you've changed your minds and want to do something else instead then that's fine, do your thing and don't mind me." I have these discussions with my players all the time. Sometimes there will be several plot hooks. I might explain the reasoning behind them and let it be known that A leads to undead, B leads to a dragon, and C leads to a nasty intrigue. Now, maybe I know they want to kill undead, but in that case it is not really nudging, it is just giving them what they want.</blockquote>

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