Railroad of Illusion

Somes times as a DM you have this grand vision of how your game is going to go, you put in a tremendous amout of preptime into the game, You have a dream. So you provide a path so that you can show them.

How do you do you do this and not making it a Railroad? How do you allow a player to feel this is his adventure not your story.

Answer: You provide the illusion of choice.

All roads lead to Rome: no matter what choice they make the outcome of that choice will eventually lead to same desination. In my esitimation it is the condition you arrive in that determins which is the best path or the best entrance to the destination. A. has the local dragon path B. has the local brothel.

$hit happens!: you may not have a choice in what happens to you from time to time, you do have choice on how to deal with it once it has happened. Example in my home game a player is the victim of an Akashic Possession (think Alia from Children of Dune), it takes him over when he sleeps, it in no way affects the characters choices, but when the player does not show up to the game his character goes off an does some rather nasty things. The player can do whatever he wants about the enemy, I have no control of ther outcome just over the initial hook.