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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 3454387" data-attributes="member: 5171">As somebody who designs CRPGs for a living, I think Ourph is at least partially correct. A lot of times, you do put the next plot point behind a door that can't be opened unless you get the key. Ideally, if it's critpath, you offer a few different ways to get that key, but yeah, unless you get that key, you're not getting in.(And sometimes the key is a dragon skull that you can use to convince the dragon-ghost to forgive its killers and let you through, and sometimes it's the answer to a riddle, and so on. You can disguise the key and the door pretty well.)Where I disagree with Ourph is in the assumption that RPGs are different. I've played in a game where we tried to get through a portcullis by Bluffing the serving girl who was talking with us, using Disable Device, or even just Sundering it with a nice hefty magical warhammer. The DM finally raised his hand and said, "This is the hand of plot! The hand of plot says that you can't get inside until you go to the temple!" He systematically shut down any attempt to get off the rails.Clumsy as all hell, and absurdly frustrating at the time, but hardly unique. A lot of DMs have doors that are just as impossibly locked, regardless of how clever the players are, until the players complete the quest that the DM wants them to complete.EDIT: Unclear attribution.</blockquote>