Buttercup
Princess of Florin
I agree that you should let the PCs do as they will, and let them suffer the consequences or reap the rewards.
I try my best to provide an open ended gaming experience, and it's a lot of work. I have megabytes of stuff I've written up that has never been used. Towns they have never visited, caravans they have never rescued, an invasion they could have stopped, but didn't. Heck, I've got a whole goblin nation with warring clans, sleazy merchants, horrifying meals in flea bitten taverns and dozens of potential plots hooks that they walked away from. Will I ever use any of this stuff? Who knows. But I'm not so good at pulling an entertaining night's gaming out of the air, in real time. So I have to be prepared for every eventuality I can imagine.
I don't want all this work to go to waste. But if my players send their characters into a situation that will cause a TPK, then a TPK is what they'll get. (And maybe I'll start the next campaign in that dang goblin nation!)
I try my best to provide an open ended gaming experience, and it's a lot of work. I have megabytes of stuff I've written up that has never been used. Towns they have never visited, caravans they have never rescued, an invasion they could have stopped, but didn't. Heck, I've got a whole goblin nation with warring clans, sleazy merchants, horrifying meals in flea bitten taverns and dozens of potential plots hooks that they walked away from. Will I ever use any of this stuff? Who knows. But I'm not so good at pulling an entertaining night's gaming out of the air, in real time. So I have to be prepared for every eventuality I can imagine.
I don't want all this work to go to waste. But if my players send their characters into a situation that will cause a TPK, then a TPK is what they'll get. (And maybe I'll start the next campaign in that dang goblin nation!)