Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Or have the ogre just on one path but not the other? I agree with this.I don't see any benefit to doing this - appear to offer a choice, but then negate that. Why have apparent branching paths with the ogre down whichever one is taken? Why not a single linear path with the ogre on it?
Once in a while deceiving the players can be a useful thing to do. An example of such might be where they think they're on a mission to accomplish X but the real (but unknown to the players) reason they're there is to do thing Y. So, they could be for their own reasons exploring a crypt in hopes of recovering the Shield of Dozain that was buried with some knight or other; but you-as-DM just want them to break the seal on that crypt because doing so will cause bigger headaches later.I'm against deceiving the players. I think this is different though from standard tropes like "the PCs arrive just in time to stop the evil ritual" - these aren't necessarily deceiving the players. Though if the players deliberately metagame it like it's a video game and go back to town for a long rest thinking the scene will be suspended in time, it's ok to have the ritual complete. These days I'd probably warn the players first, though.
And of course it's fine for NPCs to seek to deceive the PCs. I think a deceitful GM is breaking the table contract, but deceitful NPCs are just doing their thing.
As for "arriving just in time to stop the ritual" tropes, I'm less of a fan all the time. The PCs never arrive on time; they're either too early or (much more often) way way too late.