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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7732634" data-attributes="member: 29398">To me, that's just a different form of railroading in a way: jumping straight to the next "scene" without allowing for anything in between.Hell, for all the DM knows in this instance something en route that the DM thought was irrelevant might have caught someone's attention, sending the party on a different course entirely.  But they'll never know, because the exploration sequence was skipped.And note this happened in mid-adventure, when the stakes were in theory rather high.  Low-stakes or no-stakes stuff like this:Who cares?Again skipping the opportunity for PC choice ( = railroad).  Why not instead describe their night's rest, narrate the new day's weather, and ask what the PCs are going to do now?Things change over time, of that there's no doubt.  That said, as an example I've been to London (UK) three times as an adult and several more times as a kid or teenager; with about 25 years between the last teenager visit and the first adult visit.  I didn't remember much by way of specifics, but I remembered enough that finding my way around the city's core was relatively simple - once I remembered to check for traffic coming from directions I didn't expect! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Major landmarks, such as temples in a D&D city, aren't likely to change their locations very often.  And every now and then yes, I'll randomly determine that a shop or tavern or a person they visited last time is for some reason no longer present, to reflect the idea of it being a living breathing place rather than a painting.Nothing that's happened up to that point changes at all.  A minor Diplomacy success might lead to the opponent slipping up or acting oddly; while a heavy success might blow his cover completely.  From there, the backstory would proceed as makes sense: if the opponent has allies, at some point they may learn his cover's been compromised and act accordingly; while if the opponent is working alone that secret backstory has pretty much just become open...well, frontstory, if you will.History isn't mutable*.  Anything that's happened before now is locked in; anything that's happening now that the PCs can't affect is locked in; and anything that would happen in the future will happen once the future becomes the present unless something else occurs in the meantime (usually coming from the PCs) that would change it.* - unless the PCs somehow gain access to time-travel, at which point all bets are off.Lanefan</blockquote>

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