Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
Yes, it is their wish of what to do with him. In a general sense I don't make the call. The setting is full of people with their own ideas, but none of them are mine.

Again, in general, if I want a villain to be a long term one, like be around for a real year or more, they won't be a combat type villain.



Again, this is there call. I'd be quick enough to enlighten the players through game play that they are wrong though. I know lots of players have the Catastrophic Thinking problem: They see one guard and are like ''the place is nigh impenetrable''. Though this is also why I like to stick with good players that won't do that.



Sure, in both cases they are not changing the plot. The only plot is: Deal with D'rk. So it does not matter how they do it. The lair has no plot, it is just lots of rooms of combat. And as the players want to free the land of evil, they will have to deal with it sooner or later...but if they want to level up a bit before that is fine.



I have always said Railroading is part of the game, not the whole game.
"Deal with D'rk" isn't a plot. It's a goal.

Since you would let the players choose to approach it in any fashion they like (leaving aside silly notions like twitching their noses and having D'rk appear magically in front of them, already defeated, since none of them have that power on their character sheets), this isn't railroading.

The players do, in fact, have choices, and agency.

How they go about trying to defeat D'rk has consequences. Some ways are more optimal than others. Some are easier than others. Some wind up with him alive, others do not. Some wind up with more NPCs dead than others. The choices can even change which of D'rk's forces they encounter, and whether they fight them or trick them or hide from them.

So the primary problem seems to be the way you define "agency," "choice," and "railroad," since you claim player agency and choices are illusory, but the ones you just said you'd allow them to make (perhaps with guidance if you think they're misjudging the situation) are not illusory.