I think this is the root of the issue. I don't play to experience the GM's story, if I wanted to experience someone else's story I'd just read a book or play a video game. I play in order to forge my own story from the raw materials that the GM provides. I don't want an illusion of meaningful choice, I want my choices to actually have meaning, be they good or bad. If I choose to be weak in combat, then the logical conclusion is I should then try to avoid combat, either through diplomacy or through being careful about where I go, or accept that combat is more dangerous for me. If instead the combats become easier because of my choice, it has invalidated the meaning of my choice.
If you make this bad at combat character in a party where most of them are good at combat, should I exclude you from the group or force you to make a character better at combat? Or should I create encounters for a non-combat character to shine? You don't play alone. You play in a group. All of the group must be considered when designing encounters, not just one character. A DM attempting to make every player's choices meaningful will be unsuccessful if he does not tailor the game to characters capabilities be it combat or non-combat.
If a player makes a ranger and you never allow him an opportunity to use his ranger skills, I consider that a DM failure unless I tell the player in advance you can't make a ranger because I don't plan to incorporate anything meaningful for you to do other than fight. You're making these claims that you want your choices to be meaningful, but if you make a character of a certain type that doesn't ever jibe with what I'm running, how does that make your choices meaningful? Would you continue to play with a DM that pretty much defeated everything you do?
For example, let's say I ignore completely the PC's capabilities. Instead I design monsters to counter every standard conceivable method of fighting. You keep on losing because I as a DM have far more resources for defeating you than you have for defeating me, would you consider that a more entertaining game? Would you feel your choices had more meaning? Or the flip side where I open up the
Monster Manual and use standard creatures that you steamroll over and over and over again, would that make you feel like your choices were meaningful? Would you have fun if I did that?
I know my players wouldn't. But maybe you would.
I know if I were to design encounters in an ideal fashion even using the xp budgets, I could kill party after party. If I looked at them and said, "Sorry, man. I'm just better at tactics than you and your group. You need to make better choices." I'm seriously doubting players would have fun in that game.
I'm sure part of this is due to personal experience; I've played in games where everything is tailored to the party, and the end result was that it felt like we were on a treadmill, no matter what we did or how hard we worked, we were always going to stay in the same place. We level up, the enemies level up too. We get new abilities, they get new counter abilities. We get better gear, they get better gear. We get allies, the enemies just become more numerous to compensate. The story would proceed exactly at the pace the GM mandated on exactly the rails the GM provided. I know this is an extreme case, but there is a slippery slope leading from tailoring encounters for the desired challenge level to tailoring the encounters to get a foregone outcome to tailoring the encounters to steer the party in the desired plot direction, and many DMs are not able to stay at the top of that slope without sliding down.
Player choice is always an illusion. That is the nature of a game. Everything is tailored.
I know the type of DM you're talking about. I don't enjoy those types of DMs either. The ones that make you feel like they're following a script and don't know what to do if the players go off script. That's not how I do things.
The tailoring for me starts from the beginning and incorporates the players' backgrounds and includes everything thereafter including how the players interact with the world. I don't quite understand how you write your own story using a DM. Do you write encounters up and hand them to the DM? Do write up NPCs and expect the DM to run them as you instruct them? Do you know a DM that will do what you want him to do whether he enjoys it or not? This is the part I never understand when someone says they want their choices to be meaningful. What do you mean by that? Are you forcing the DM to run the game a certain way and only put things in front of you that you choose? If that is not the case, the DM is indeed crafting the story and world. How detailed it is may vary, but it is still the DM creating it and putting it in your path as a obstacle unless you are writing the encounters and the adventure and handing it to the DM to run. I would never allow a player to do that. I'd tell him to run himself.
There is no slippery slope. This game has always been and will always be a gamed where the DM tailors the game. To what degree differs, but unless the player is writing the encounters and has found a DM to run them as they specify, you have not escaped DM tailoring or having a DM dictate the world to you.
