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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5393467" data-attributes="member: 18280">I disagree with the above, very strongly.If one is to make a choice, and that choice is to be important for that person to make, then it follows both (1) that the person be able to make a choice, and (2) that a real choice be offered.If the optimal answer is clear prior to the option to chose, then that impinges upon (2) in direct proportion to the degree of clarity, and the degree to which the choice is optimal.Your counter-example (the Orcus statue) seems to be in response to someone else's post, or to someone else's ideas.What you quoted wasafter which you follow with a scenario where the optinal choices are not readily apparent, apparently to demonstrate that the above is false: AFAICT, what you are writing here seems to be in exact agreement with what I wrote, and what you quoted.Hmmm.  Let's backtrack for a second, shall we?(1)  I say that it is only when the optimal course is not obvious do PC decisions actually matter.(2)  You offer examples where play is interesting because the optimal course was not obvious, and the PCs made choices that surprised you (thereby changing the nature of game play, and exercising that very important power that some apparently feel doesn't exist).(3)  You then conclude that it makes perfect sense to only include relevant details, by which you mean details that "connect to ongoing dynamics and themes of the PCs and the unfolding gameworld".This last does not follow from your argument, and begs the question of what sort of detail doesn't "connect to ongoing dynamics and themes of the PCs and the unfolding gameworld"?  It also begs the question of relevance at all -- if the PC is uninterested in the statue of Orcus, is it irrelevant?  If so, should it have been included?  If it is now irrelevant, and should not have been included, what happens seven sessions later, when the players bring it up again?  Is it now relevant, because they express interest?  And therefore, should it have been included?  Does the statue exist in some sort of quantum relevant/irrelevant state until either the players express interest, or the campaign ends without them doing so?  And what if it then is mentioned in the next campaign, spontaneously, by the players?  How far does this superimposition of states go?Finally, if a (or, indeed, the) goal is to "not foreclose meaningful choices by players", and you agree that a real choice being offered is impinged upon in direct proportion to the degree to which the optimal choice is clear to the players, and the degree to which the choice is optimal, then some degree of "irrelevant" detail is, in fact, relevant, because (as described in my previous post) it helps to obscure what would otherwise be obviously optimal choices.RCEDIT:  Just to be clear:Emphasis mine.Either you have misread/misunderstood what I posted, or you are disagreeing while in agreement of it.Since the described purpose of detail is to prevent choices from being obvious, and since that seems to be what you are doing with your "interesting" NPCs, your conclusion certainly does not follow from your premise, or from the examples given.RCEDIT to the EDIT:  It should be obvious that everyone agrees that there is some cut-off where extraneous detail simply should not be prepared.  Where that cut-off is is dependent upon personal taste....but will have an effect on how obvious optimal choices are.  Again, no one is fooled by a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing in a world where bunnies or stumps are never otherwised mentioned.  In a world with neither colour nor texture, camouflage is of little value.RC</blockquote>

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