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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8022255" data-attributes="member: 29398">Offhand I don't remember this example, sorry.  But I get the gist.From the players' point of view the consequence of the gorge is unforeseen.  It matters not whether the GM had the gorge on her map all along or made it up on the fly (in badlands a sudden gorge makes perfect sense either way).No, just the players. Ideally the GM has already thought of a bunch of possible outcomes and thus won't be caught off guard.First off, there's a difference between a GM having a preconceived outcome and directing play towards it and a GM having a bunch of possible outcomes in mind (or in notes) and putting these in play as the situation suggests.  That said:a) sounds like something [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER], who IMO has a rather strong and consistent anti-GM bias, would post.b) if the GM's only just now finding out what's going on, she's floundering.  The GM should IMO always be a few steps ahead.  In your chase example this would include having a half-decent map of the area done ahead of time so I could see what was where, and track the PCs' progress. (and the PCs would probably have learned some of what was where on their initial trip from the forest to the temple, if one was made, though when hotly pursued later they could still get lost as hell and find a gorge they didn't expect)That's what prepping more than you need is for: reducing the chance of having to hit player-thrown curveballs and-or having to wing it, which IME often (as in, always!) leads to consistency issues when I don't remember some relevant detail I said an hour ago, can't write and talk at the same time, and don't want to grind everything to a halt every two minutes while I make notes on what I just said.  Not saying I can't wing it, but I prefer not to* if possible.c) I don't hold the same strident objection to GM Force that some here seem to.  It has its place, particularly on nights (and they do happen) when the players are in story-consumption mode.  Even a full-on railroad has its place now and then, though I prefer to keep these occasions to a minimum.* - the exception is something like a dream or alternate-reality scenario or adventure where consistency doesn't necessarily matter anyway.  I'm happy to wing those. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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