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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8343159" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Because it is one thing for circumstances to accidentally result in choices that don't matter, and quite another for the DM to intentionally cause choices to not matter.Plus? The point isn't making EVERY choice matter. The point is making choices that seem to matter actually matter. Sometimes, the player knows they're making choices that don't matter. What color their character's hair is, for example, is very likely to not matter very much. What color armor they wear or how they spell their name or a host of other aesthetic choices often don't matter at all. The player is given no illusion of these choices mattering when they truly don't.I mean, let's turn this around for a sec. Wouldn't it be pretty bad to make a player believe that a choice they made genuinely didn't matter at all, only to turn around and have it actually matter a lot? I can certainly say I would be pretty upset if the DM permitted me to mistakenly think that playing a dragonborn would not matter, as opposed to it resulting in tons of racism and nasty comments thrown my way etc. (And yes, I have been directly told by at least one actual poster on this very forum that, if someone wanted to play a dragonborn in their game, the player would be told they totally could--and then that character would be summarily ignored by NPCs, who would only speak to the human members of the party.)I certainly did not intend to say that, since I've never run a sandbox and don't intend to. I have a fairly plot-centric world. It's just not railroaded. Events happen. Things do not simply manifest out of the aether, they're well-grounded in fiction--and since I don't do anything unless it is well-grounded, I'm not allowed to just invoke whatever I like whenever I like. The players can, and do, research and prepare and investigate. We just had a session mostly focused on casing the joint (a <s>cultist</s> alternative philosophy compound), doing research on obscure topics, identifying plausible threats, collecting resources and ally-support, and preparing an infiltration plan. My players regularly avail themselves of these things, because they know that I will never pull fast ones on them--but that I will exploit their ignorance if they ignore the breadcrumb trails. They know the world won't change under their feet without justification, which they can then investigate and either prepare for, mitigate, or ideally turn to their own advantage.There have been plenty of things my players have overlooked, some detrimental, others merely lost opportunities or situations allowed to become more complex (not necessarily more dangerous/difficult). I don't make them do much of anything, but I do dangle new hooks in front of them or have NPCs act in rationally-appropriate ways, both on and off camera. It's on them to capitalize on opportunities, prioritize threats, and accept that they can't be everywhere at once.</blockquote>

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