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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 5793178" data-attributes="member: 20323">That's a good observaition. I never asked specifically for goals, and thought I'd tease them out of the character backgrounds that were provided to me. But, the backgrounds were the opposite of goal-focused (for the most part). There's nothing wrong with that, but it does show a group's leaning toward "adventure path" play.See, that's what I *thought* I was doing. And for little things like the example of the Clockwork Labyrinth above it worked. However when it comes to larger goals about which direction to steer the adventure, that's when the paralysis sets in. Here's an example that illustrates this:The PCs just defeated a cranium rat hive mind, and ended the session in the sewers; they were down there to (a) figure out why the cranium rats had conspires to assassinate an NPC, and (b) access a portal. In between sessions I sent out an email asking the group for their next direction, presenting several options: "You could go thru the portal to the clockwork plane of Mechanus in pursuit of the Hollow Woman who purportedly masterminded the assassination attempt? Alternately you could go thru the portal to the wild Beastlands to find the blood magic ritual the NPC is supposed to be pursuing? You could return to NPC and run what you've learned by her? Or you could explore the fair sewers some more?What followed were several emails reflecting the party wanted to go every which way (or didn't have an opinion). Then we met up and it took a good hour to arrive at a goal, with the responses I described in my OP.In short, I totally agree about limiting options being freeing, but there seems to be something more to it than just number of options.Hmm, could you explain framing the limits of a box more? That example you gave sounds un-heroic and definitely not what I'd want in a Planescape game where a lot of the fun is exploring. But it sounds like the kernel of a good idea I might be able to adapt. <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=":)" />Maybe I'm not following you here, but how does this approach help with easing a group of "adventure path" players into a more "sandbox" style of play Heh. Glad to see I'm not the only one who had that urge. When the players go into their analysis paralysis mode I need to step away from the table to resist the urge to throw a "kick in the door" encounter at them.</blockquote>

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