Over the last few weeks I've noticed that there is an undercurrent building in my feed where people have begun to argue that there are only so many meaningful choices available to you within the dungeon environment. This argument is predicated on the belief that your players are only able to move about your game like pieces on a board, held by the imaginary boundaries established within the environment. It further argues that your players are dull, unimaginative, clods who only do what is acceptable by the standards of the Dungeon Master and the game world they have established.
You can only go left, right, forwards, or retreat back the way you came.
Just imagine your players binding themselves in such an arbitrary manner that they seed control of the game to the Dungeon Master's map. What boring games these people must be playing in to even suggest such an argument!
Do not get me wrong, you absolutely can go left, right, forwards, and backwards within any dungeon. But you can also break down walls; pull up tiles and drop down level, by level - skipping entire sections of the dungeon outright; blow holes in the ceiling so you can escape through the roof. Hell, I've even blown up the damned dungeon!
The beauty of the Dungeons and Dragons game is that your choices are only constrained by bounds of your imagination and every choice you make as a player impacts that world. So to argue that I am suddenly bound only to travel in four directions when I have a sledgehammer, pickaxe, and no fear of explosives is to tell me that we have stopped playing D&D and are now playing your home version of Candy Land.
