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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6575634" data-attributes="member: 82106">Dice don't factor into it. Anytime the DM presents a choice or action as if it matters and then proceeds to move the narrative on to the same point regardless of which option the characters pick or what the dice say, and doesn't tell the players, that's illusionism. The players have the ILLUSION that they made a choice or that the character's action governed the narrative, but it was actually no choice at all. This can be either retroactive or proactive on the DM's part. That is he can fudge a die roll so that all results are the same, or he can rearrange the plot after the fact so that in every case the situation that the characters ended up in was 'justified' by the plot presented to the players.In this case presentation matters. If the DM presents the choice as if it is significant (and not just arbitrary either, but one amenable to some sort of artifice of the characters) then it is Illusionism, the illusion of choice where no meaningful choice exists. If the DM just says "OK, guys, both passages end up at the vault, which do you pick?" then its not, there's no question of significance being falsely presented to the players. Likewise if the characters have no way to distinguish the consequences of one choice over another, so that they're just guessing or flipping a coin there's no illusionism because there's no player agency involved. The players may believe that the choice COULD matter, but its not really in their hands and they know it. Sure, that's fine DMing advice. I think what we're objecting to is the whole rigamarole show of there being some choices involved instead of just some narration with no player input suggested. I do these kind of 'cut scenes' all the time in my games, they're quite useful. Of course if the players want to interrupt and inject something new at any point they can do that, but often they don't have any dramatic need that requires filling except to 'get where they're going' and cut scenes fit that bill perfectly.</blockquote>

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