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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9559295" data-attributes="member: 6790260">While I am very sympathetic to these concerns, by that same token, I don't think a pattern like this is "railroading GM story-time" in absolutely all cases. As an example, the PCs in my group considered a powerful businessman an enemy of theirs before they'd even hit level 2. It would have been foolishness in the extreme to try to kill that businessman for a lot of reasons. That would be attempted murder, even if they could prove that he had hired people to kill them first (which he had done, to be clear). Given he's one of the most powerful merchants in the city, he hires expensive and merciless guards who would be perfectly happy to kill someone that tried to kill their employer, and no one would bat an eye about that. Even if they succeeded, they'd become pariahs in their own home city. Etc.So...even if there had been people complaining to the PCs that this particular merchant was being horrible to them (which he has been, to some people, albeit only at a significant distance removed--shell businesses, plausible deniability, etc.), those people would also have explicitly cautioned the PCs not to try to kill him or even attack him. Not because I have a pre-plotted story where the players aren't allowed to attack him, but because those townsfolk aren't stupid, they know this merchant, Jafar el-Aly, is powerful and dangerous and likely to hurt or kill someone who crosses him. The PCs didn't really need this warning, they investigated him themselves and learned that to him they were just temporarily in the way, so they earmarked that as "this guy's a jerk, be sure to mess up his plans in the future" and moved on with their adventuring lives rather than risking it all to get revenge or to seek justice for those wronged by him.</blockquote>

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