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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 5403397" data-attributes="member: 26473"><img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />Most of the npcs the adventurers are likely to meet in my game are involved in a complex web of relationships and intrigues, and if interaction with the adventurers result in an npc dying, then the stuff the npc is involved in changes as a result of the adventurers' actions. It's not that big a freaking deal.In my game, that relationship certainly does exist.I know who the friends of the chevalier de Didonne are. I know the intrigues in which he's involved. Those relationships may now come into play because of the meeting between the chevalier and the musketeer-adventurer; this would be no less true had the adventurer killed the chevalier instead.I set up my encounters specifically so that whatever actions the adventurers take may - indeed, are likely to - foster future events. At the same time, I don't have a specific take on what those events will be, because while I know a lot about the npcs, I don't presume to know what the adventurers will do in any given encounter. Perhaps more importantly, I'm not invested in any particular outcome, because whatever happens may produce a cascade of consequences.This is why illusionism is an anathema to me; saying that nothing exists until the adventurers come into contact with it - and in your example, maybe not even then - and should be freely mutated to conform to the referee's story takes away from one of the main reasons I enjoy roleplaying games, the synergy of imagination taking place around the table producing a unique outcome.Letting the consequences of the adventurers' actions stand is not the same thing as taking away the players' choices - quite the opposite, actually."Generally?" No, I don't believe that to be true it all.Railroading comes from demanding a specific outcome from an event or series of events which may produce a range of outcomes if played straight.  While I agree that most players don't want their characters caught or killed, it is infexibility on the part of the referee to prevent either of those consequences by changing the events of the game in actual play. In my experience, it's a referee most concerned with 'telling a story' who starts filling in encounters with safety rails, orange cones, and warning signs - or going so far as a becoming a traffic cop with a whistle and a stop sign outright directing traffic.</blockquote>

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