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<blockquote data-quote="Composer99" data-source="post: 8336930" data-attributes="member: 7030042">In order for the players' choice of path to take to be invalidated by the Schrödinger's Ogre, the potential presence or absence of the ogre actually has to materially affect the meaningfulness and/or consequentiality of the players' decisions.If the players' decision is based on factors that are orthogonal to the possible presence or absence of Schrödinger's Ogre, the ogre turning up does not materially affect the meaningfulness of that decision. As such, no invalidation (and hence no railroading) is happening.If on the other hand the players are making decisions based on avoiding encounters generally or avoiding possible encounters with ogres specifically, and then you as DM willfully decide they are specifically going to have an encounter with an ogre anyway, that is invalidation and hence railroading (at least IMO). [*][HR][/HR][*] Exceptions made for the vagaries of the dice. For instance, if the players want to avoid random encounters generally and roll badly on the checks needed to accomplish that, and you roll up a random encounter that happens to be an ogre, or if they take a path that has a non-zero chance of an encounter with an ogre in order to avoid paths with a certainty of ogre encounters or a higher likelihood of same, and you roll up a random encounter that happens to be an ogre... then they encounter an ogre despite their best efforts. But at least you did not willfully and specifically decide for that encounter to happen.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Composer99, post: 8336930, member: 7030042"] In order for the players' choice of path to take to be invalidated by the Schrödinger's Ogre, the potential presence or absence of the ogre [I]actually has to materially affect[/I] the meaningfulness and/or consequentiality of the players' decisions. If the players' decision is based on factors that are orthogonal to the possible presence or absence of Schrödinger's Ogre, the ogre turning up [I]does not[/I] materially affect the meaningfulness of that decision. As such, no invalidation (and hence no railroading) is happening. If on the other hand the players are making decisions based on avoiding encounters generally or avoiding possible encounters with ogres specifically, and then you as DM willfully decide they are [I]specifically going to have an encounter with an ogre anyway[/I], [B][I]that [/I][/B]is invalidation and hence railroading (at least IMO). [*] [HR][/HR] [*] Exceptions made for the vagaries of the dice. For instance, if the players want to avoid random encounters generally and roll badly on the checks needed to accomplish that, and you roll up a random encounter that happens to be an ogre, or if they take a path that has a non-zero chance of an encounter with an ogre in order to avoid paths with a certainty of ogre encounters or a higher likelihood of same, and you roll up a random encounter that happens to be an ogre... then they encounter an ogre despite their best efforts. But at least you did not willfully and specifically decide for that encounter to happen. [/QUOTE]

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