# Freedom of Choice

LLMS index: [llms.txt](/dvw/en/llms.txt)

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Designers decide what options to provide to players and the manner in which to provide them. This is how design influences players.

For promoting immersion, it’s slightly different. The whole point of identity play is that you’re free to make choices. Designers may suggest directions that you hadn’t considered, but they have to stop short of actually recommending any of them. It’s for you to make up your own mind.

Virtual worlds should be as open-ended as possible. Players should be able to try anything. They don’t have to succeed (there are too many killer-type players for that), but they do have to know they could have tried. The decision not to do something can be as life-changing as the decision to do it. Let players take their own path.

This particular way to promote immersion is one with which many designers feel uncomfortable. They don’t like giving players the freedom to make major decisions because, all too often, they make the wrong one. They then refuse to accept it’s their fault, sulk, and quit. The counter-argument is that these are the players who were going to quit after a short while anyway, so why pander to them? From this point of view, the question boils down to: Do you want their business for a couple of months or don’t you?

It’s actually a broader issue than that, though, involving concerns such as narrative, content, and (of course) community. Choice of action has implications beyond immersion that must be considered.

Choice promotes immersion. It’s up to individual designers to decide whether to act on the fact, though.