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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5498954" data-attributes="member: 2011">Bad idea? Maybe, maybe not. But is it necessary?One of the best aspects of 4E that I've found as DM though is that I can easily come up with several different adventure ideas and have the first few encounters (combat or otherwise) / skill challenges for each skeleton-ed out enough so that I can be flexible enough to head in one of several different direction without a hiccup occurring.The search features of Monster Builder / Compendium have been a big help in that area. I had an adventuring site with 4 different entrances not too long ago where I had the main path in great detail, and 3 other paths with just a one sentence note on the basics of which monsters were located in each "room" and why they were there. I didn't even bother with treasures since in many cases, I could re-use the treasures that I had already placed in the main path.Maybe it's just my perception of how you are discussing it being a problem for the DM not being prepared for more than one adventure in this discussion, but I prefer to always have a few options for the players beyond the main 1 or 2 that I was planning. Always give the players multiple choices.And, it takes very little effort to re-skin a bandit encounter into a swamp frog encounter on the fly (or even grab a few more appropriate type monsters out of one of the books on the fly). And it's fairly simple to create a reasonable skill challenge on the fly. I think it's a lot easier to retool and/or create new encounters on the fly with 4E than earlier versions, so I also think that it's safer for the DM to allow his players to make their own decisions without totally rocking the boat.You now seem to be defending the concept of "nudging" by claiming that not every casual DM is prepared as opposed to your earlier contention that expert DMs are making a mistake when they do not nudge (your earlier statement "I think it's a novice mistake that some expert DMs make, refusing to speak directly to the players because they see it as meta-game.").I agree that casual DMs might be a bit hesitant in doing improve, but expert DMs shouldn't have that limitation.Expert DMs should be able to go wherever their players take them. Expert DMs should lay the table out with "a wide variety of foods" and let their players pick and chose what they want to try instead of directing them to "one or a single few best dishes" (metaphorically speaking).And, casual DMs shouldn't be afraid to try out improve either. It's a way in which to improve DMing skills and help make the game fun when the unexpected occurs. Sometimes, one should try to jump into the deep end once in a while.</blockquote>

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