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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7156369" data-attributes="member: 29398">Reading this again makes me wonder if you're maybe mixing two separate issues together.The DM deciding what's behind the door the moment it gets opened is a quite different issue from sandbox vs. railroad.  A sandbox-style DM might have (or try to have) everything as meticulously pre-planned and prepared as you do, with the obvious difference that she will sometimes have to make an educated guess where the PCs are going to go and will have to prepare a lot more, just in case.  And, as I argued to a rather crazy length in another thread a few months back, if the DM is any good then the players won't be able to tell the difference anyway between a pre-planned AP and the DM making stuff up, nor between whether the occupant behind the door was determined 8 months ago or 8 seconds ago.  (though you did mention you show your players your DM notes after the session; I'd never do this until enough time (sometimes years) had passed such that any secret info on them - e.g. item properties, things done by a PC that no-one else knew of, etc. - could safely be revealed)As for always wanting things to be balanced...meh.  It starts to become too artificial at that point, particularly if it's obvious.  Sometimes you wipe the floor with your opponents, other times you're the mop.  All is good. <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=":)" />And I'm probably not the player you want to have riding a railroad, in that if my character sees something more interesting over there than the prepared dungeon over here then over there is where she's gonna go (after talking the party into joining her); and if you haven't got 'over there' planned out...well, batter up! <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=":)" />Lan-"you must be blessed (or cursed, depending on POV) with very Lawful-aligned players"-efan</blockquote>

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