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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5403217" data-attributes="member: 8835">I disagree.Celebrim already had a chain of stuff planned for this guy.  Who happened to be on the road, and happened to be the ONE guy the PCs chose to rob, without knowing who he is.If its going to cause such a mess, swap the guy out.  It's not that big a freaking deal.The PCs are still horse thieves, and they still have a horse, and there's still a guy going to cry to the cops.The GM-crime isn't swapping some stuff out because it invalidates stuff so bad.The GM-crime MIGHT be having so much hinge on an NPC in advance (possible in a sandbox).  You shouldn't know so much about this guy.  Him getting murdered, and or standing up for the PCs in the future is something you decide to do in the FUTURE to instigate some events for the PC.Part of this may be confusing because I'm not sure if Celebrim is relaying a point in the past where the PC COULD have robbed an NPC and how it would have screwed up everything (because to him its already happened).That's a horse of a different color.  Of course playing what if they PCs had done X will screw up everything.But in the present, that can't happen unless your adventure notes say it does.  In which case, if the PCs are about to throw off your adventure unintentionally, shift some stuff around.  Because to THEM they don't know or care about this stranger on a horse.  The relationship of the stranger to future events doesn't exist.Being unwilling to decouple this stranger from being the same man who gets murdered for the sake of keeping things going the way the PCs want is akin to a DM refusing to accept alternative decisions by the PCs to get out of a problem (a prime example of railroading).Steadfast adherance to your notes is a GM-crime that generally leads to railroading.  While I don't consider it railroading to do as Shaman says and keep the stranger as the same person, I do consider it an inflexibility to adapt to keep the players going in the direction they want to go. Which is presumably not to get caught or TPK.If you've got an adventure outline, this horse robbery does not HAVE to cascade out of control.  It should still have some impact on the world.  But sticking to your notes is in the same league as assuming that pick-pocketing the king results in TPK.  It doesn't HAVE to spiral out of control unless you the GM decide it does.</blockquote>

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