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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 5181129" data-attributes="member: 3887">This seems to move the definition of illusionism beyond "DM actions which invalidate or remove meaningful player choice" and closer to "anything that fulfills a player's desires". Lucking into the vorpal sword Tom always wanted doesn't appear, to me, at least, to deny Tom a meaningful choice, ergo, I wouldn't call it illusionism.I think this is where discussions of illusionism frequently break down; over the failure to acknowledge not all choices are equally important. Most of us can agree that rendering individual player choices irrelevant is a bad thing... but not every choice is meaningful, or even rightly considered a choice at all.Let's say I'm DM'ing and I invent a location, a tavern full of charming grifters called the Inn of the Prancing Phony. It's a place of plot hooks, role-playing opportunities, and cheap, imaginary beer. What it is not is a trap to be avoided or a treasure to be sought, so there's no element of strategy involved. I can't definitively place it in the setting because I'm running a campaign where the player's direct where the plot goes (since they are the plot). So the tavern will be wherever they go.From my perspective, I'm not forcing anything on the players, I'm just making smart use of my creative output. I thought up this cool place for them to visit so I'll plunk it down in their path. Once there, the players are free to bite on the plots hooks or ignore them. Neither am I denying them a meaningful choice, since they don't know the tavern exists, there's literally no choice involved. Now once they start interacting with the NPC's in the Phony, then meaningful choices emerge. Do they bite on the plot hooks? Do they decide to do some proactive, and probably larcenous, themselves? Since I'm apparently in wall-of-text mode (I blame it on exposure to Celebrim's posts<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=":)" />), here's another example. I've decided to introduce Patron X into my campaign. He's out to recruit the PC's and is secretly in the employ of a foreign power. Naturally, he's going to be directly in the PC's path, wherever they go. I mean, where else should he be? He's a fictional character, after all, in a fictional world. He should be where I need him. Which is in front of the PC's, offering them a choice, a deal that sounds too good to be true. Because that's where the interesting and meaningful choice lies. It would certainly be bad form if, after introducing him, I conspired to force the players to work for Patron X. Luckily, I wouldn't do that.</blockquote>

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