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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaculata" data-source="post: 7053939" data-attributes="member: 6801286">I would never block the players from searching for explosives, nor tell them that there are no explosives, when obviously there are. The assassination of the Marquis would still need to make sense. I cannot have him die to due to quantum-explosives that only appear once the players aren't looking. That would indeed be railroading, and I hate that myself.But as a storyteller I can of course set up the scene in such a way, that the players have no reason to search for explosives. If I want the Marquis to die, then I can set the assassination up in such a way that the players will not see it coming, and so the event is pretty much unavoidable. If I don't give them any hints that the bad guys have planted explosives, or that they are planning "something", then there is no need to obstruct anything that the players are doing. And I think thats an important distinction. Scripting events is not the same as railroading. But a DM has to be cautious then that he frames the scene in such a way, that the script is safe from tempering by the players.I don't think scripted events in a roleplaying session are bad. Sometimes you want your players to react to something that has happened, rather than to something that might happen. But you should never resort to railroading when that script is disrupted by the players.To give an example: I had set up a scene in such a way, that the love interest of one of the players would get kidnapped by an evil pirate. He was pretty much guaranteed to get away with it, so they could rescue her later. He had also tied this love interest to the bow of his ghost ship, to discourage the players from trying to ram the ship, as he made his escape. But then one of the players did something totally unexpected: He summoned a water elemental and ordered it to save his love interest. Rather than railroading it, I decided to roll with it, because this was a very exciting moment, and a very cool action. If he succeeded, how epic would that be? And so I had the evil pirate fire his canons at the elemental, but with just 1hp left, he managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The maiden was saved, and the pirate captain had to flee without his prize.And thats how I think a DM should handle a scripted scene. Sometimes the players will throw you a curveball, and you should just roll with it. Its these amazing victories that the players will talk about for months afterwards.</blockquote>

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