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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Camelot" data-source="post: 6165041" data-attributes="member: 82617">Let me put it this way.  It's like watching a movie, and the protagonists enter a cave and are attacked by minions of the antagonist.  They win and are debating amongst themselves whether they should enter the cave to confront whatever the antagonist has in store for them, or leave to better prepare themselves.  Suddenly, the cave entrance collapses behind them, making their decision for them.  There better be a darn good reason why that cave collapsed or else I'm going to be disappointed that the plot is being propelled by the word of the author rather than meaningful decisions on the part of the characters.  Sometimes this can work, for example if the antagonist specifically traps the protagonists in his lair in order to prevent them from getting help from outside.  But sometimes it would just be disappointing.The story in a role-playing game that I run, just as much if not even moreso than that of a movie or novel, should be propelled by meaningful decisions by the characters.  When they enter that cave, I want them to be able to look at their options (which include at least delving or retreating) and choose which one they want.  Both have benefits and consequences, but different situations call for different decisions.  And when the players make that decision, they feel in control of their adventure and subsequently become more invested in it.  If the DM continuously makes decisions for the players, they lose that sense of involvement.In my experience, it arises from the players running into a string of bad luck or just overreacting to an enemy that isn't as difficult as they think and spending more of their daily powers and healing surges than they wanted to.  They start to worry that they won't make it to the end of the dungeon or wherever, which might be true, so the option of retreating to take an extended rest starts to seem like the best decision.  This is even if the dungeon repopulates when they leave, because a completely fresh start means they might have better luck or have a better idea of what's in store for them.  This is fine once in a while, but too much and it makes running dungeon crawls take way too long.  The reason I want a system like the Hero Score system is to make continuing an equally viable option on average.  Rarely do I want my players saying "Well, I guess there's really only one thing to do now," when they could be saying "All right, all our options have their pros and cons, but we've made a decision."</blockquote>

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