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Message: <blockquote data-quote="chriton227" data-source="post: 6672454" data-attributes="member: 33263">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.  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.</blockquote>

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