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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RealAlHazred" data-source="post: 9733994" data-attributes="member: 25818">Sure, but there are a lot of module authors who then decide to prevent any but the "smartest" choice. And that's railroading. "If the PCs try talking to the NPC, the DC is 10; if, instead, they want to pick the lock to continue, the DC is 45" in a module for 1st through 4th level PCs, for instance. "Oh, but it's still possible" falls flat when it's mathematically impossible. How many high-level modules have walls "impervious to teleportation" for instance? You have a player who has invested character resources into developing a certain ability and then module authors who decide it's too difficult to figure out a way to allow for that ability so they just make it unusable.Every player is a different person. Every PC is a different character. What may be the smartest response for an elf wizard is probably not the smartest response for a dwarf fighter. And even the greatest authors who can accomplish what I quoted, are designing their modules for the playing field that exists when they write it -- if the game later adds a race or a class that has some special ability, it can absolutely foil the most subtle attempts at manipulation.Read the best of the Old School modules. The best of them do not even attempt subtle manipulations; they come up with a solid premise with logical hurdles and problems. Those are my preference. Let the players who spent resources shine. Let the final scene play out organically. If the villain has been given a well-developed personality and appropriate abilities it will probably be a dramatic ending no matter how it plays out. But deciding on a conclusion first and then trying to figure out how to get to that conclusion is not how I run games.</blockquote>

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