Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

Another name for the problem described in the previous post is "illusionism."

"Eventually, every game master winds up guilty of illusionism: You offer the players a choice that seems to matter, and then rearrange the game world so all the options lead to the same outcome.

"An illusionist GM prepares an encounter that pits the characters against an ogre on the road. Then, whether the players take the low road or the high road, they face that same ogre. If they opt to stay home for tea and cakes, the ogre fancies a bite."

This takes the two-door problem one extra step (I suggest reading the previous post).  Instead of the players going through the door, the door comes after the players.  Is this fair?

Let's be clear.  In my game's preparation of the party encountering an ogre, no choice of which road they took ever occurred.  D&D is a game in which players come to adventure.  As they walk along roads through various topographies and biological ranges, they're going to encounter intelligent beings, authorities, criminals and monsters.  As the DM, it's my role to service that expectation.  I've never had a player who turned on me and said, "What's this ogre doing on this road?  Did we even have a chance of taking a different road and not meeting it?"

And how stupid does that question sound?

I pick what's on the road.  The legitimacy of this ogre being here is that the road is reasonably "wild" enough that the appearance of an ogre seems fitting.  If it were the road between Ealing and Harrow, not so much.

Yet somehow, my honesty or fairness has rarely been questioned.  Some years ago, within the online campaign, I was questioned when I posted a 7th level fighter as the sole guard at a gate defending the castle of a 16th level cleric.  The justification for this questioning was that I put the guard in perfectly ordinary clothing.  I didn't deck him out in the finery that "a fighter of that level would wear," or so I was told.  Words were said and the player quit the campaign.

I've known numerous gentlemen in my past who could break my wrist with their thumb and forefinger, without needing to move their arm.  Many dressed in finery when on parade.  NONE of them did when they were on the job.

Excessively incredulous players should not play role-playing games.

As a DM, I am obligated to ensure that "player choice is meaningful," just as DM David quotes John Arendt as saying ... yet I'm NOT obligated to always give the players a choice.  Sometimes, they don't get one.  Sometimes, as I've said, there's only one door.

Now, I'm on record an excessive number of times regarding the importance of player agency in D&D.  These days, I'm seeing more old timers climbing aboard that boat, and that's good, but I've been piloting this ship for a long time — and so it should be obvious that I'm a believer in players having lots and lots of choices.  But the worst way to do this is to obolish the elaboration of meaningless, frivolous details such as two doors into "important" choices.  Let's not polish turds.  If we're going to give the players meaningful choices, these cannot be, Which door do you open?  They have to be, What does your character want to do with his or her life?

Then, once the players HAVE made a choice, such as, say, to enter the dungeon, they need to climb on board with the sentiment that the choice has been made ... and too bad, so sad, it's too fucking late to pull out now.  YOU went into the Ogre's House.  You can't cry now that you've found an Ogre in it.

As such, there is no "illusionism" in my campaign.  It's the cold, bitter, blatant, intractable reality is right there, plain as the blood on your cheek.

Cue Title Drop.