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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 5096953" data-attributes="member: 3424">Anyway, this seems as good an occasion as any to quote some stuff I once wrote on the issue of <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/firelance/2051-musings-choice.html" target="_blank">choice</a>: Choices and Consequences Of course, in order for the players' choices to be meaningful, different choices should also result in different outcomes. A scenario in which the same outcome takes place regardless of the choices made by the players is seldom well-received as it means that their choices were largely irrelevant. The consequences of certain choices (in particular, those made in combat or during the straight application of mechanical sub-systems) are enforced by the game rules. As for the rest, it is essentially up to the DM to ensure that the players' choices matter. Ideally, the consequences should be a reasonable outcome of the choices (barring complications such as incomplete or incorrect information - see next section). Of course, the key problem is that different people can sometimes have very different ideas of what is reasonable. One person's clever solution that should succeed can be another person's abhorrent scheme that ought to fail. When this happens to people on different sides of the DM screen, the DM may find himself either wondering why the players don't take the obvious approach, or aghast that the players are prepared to do something that he never thought they would. The consequences of a choice can sometimes seem overly harsh to the players, and can be a source of player-DM conflict. Because of this ambiguity, a DM should be particularly careful when using game-ending consequences such as character death. Choice and Information Player choice can sometimes be hampered though a lack of information, either because the DM has inadvertently or deliberately left out important information, the latter because finding the relevant information is supposed to be part of the challenge. In situations where the players may make choices without knowing all the relevant information, a DM who doesn't want the game to end abruptly should avoid using game-ending consequences, or ensure that the players get sufficient feedback before the consequence happens. This is for pretty much the same reason that a game of Hangman doesn't end after just one letter is guessed incorrectly, and why the game of Twenty Questions is not called One Guess.So, in my opinion, before a DM decides to smack down his players for having made the wrong choice in his game, he should ask himself the following questions:1. Has he inadvertently left out any pertinent information which might have caused the players to make a different choice? This is particularly important since the DM is in charge of the information flow in the game. The players might feel aggrieved if information which should have been obvious to the characters (but not the players) was withheld from them. 2. Would the consequences of the players' choice seem reasonable to them? If it seems likely that the players will regret the outcome of their choice when it becomes clear to them, it may be worthwhile for the DM to devise some way for them to reverse or mitigate the effects of their choice. This could turn what would otherwise be a negative experience for both the players and the DM into a more positive one.</blockquote>

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