WHAT IS FLOW CONTROL?? (AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?)

(i kind of already know what it is, i'm not completely against it but i'm just sort of generally ambivalent and prefer to minimise it. I think on the whole I prefer an adventure with high possible interconnections and less-managed ones)

DESCRIBE THE SITUATION PATRICK

I've been talking with an internet friend about this adventure concept, a big house or mansion, full of strange artefacts. The artefacts are all potentially dangerous, potentially useful, dangerous to leave alone but also dangerous to interact with, like a fantasy S.C.P. essentially.

Talking about stuff like numbers of rooms and relative labrynthyness of the mansion, we disagreed, revealing likely intuitive differences in assumptions in adventure design.

My intuitive assumption was to - since it’s a house, to have a very open plan with immediate (in theory) access to most of the rooms, or at least, you need to explore to find them and then investigate, but there are relatively few locked doors or hard blocks sopping you from exploring most of the house, the difficulty being in investigating and understanding the collection and dealing with the rituals and mysteries of the house. Largely a very 'open' concept, in which you can go in any direction and where the difficulty increases as you interact with more things, largely as a consequence of you interacting with them.

We haven't got deep into this yet but my friend hasn't responded yet, but if I were to guess I would guess they were imagining a more... 'dungeonly'? experience? With more locked doors, more things and areas hidden away, a more controlled experience in which you were more certain to encounter or deal with this thing and then that thing e.t.c. with more 'difficulty walls'(?)

That’s my guess anyway.

SO WHATS YOUR PROBLEM WITH FLOW CONTROL ANYWAY?

It’s not like I *hate* it, in fact I think it’s necessary. I try to arrange my encounters so there is likely to be some kind of rhythm  between types of things, I try to loop and pierce dungeons somewhat, I try to build up (to a degree) to the really weird shit, (at least after MotBM). And truly, every dungeon is by its very nature as a literalised flowchart, an exercise of a kind in flow control. (Though this need not be the case as much for more naturalistic settings).

But at the same time something in me pushes strongly against it.

most dungeon design is a complex synthesis between 'game-ish' and diegetic elements, treating the adventure purely as a game, or seeing it as in inhabited world, you can make good adventures from either polarity of course and like I wouldn't mind (or don't think I would mind as I don't really play computer games) if I were playing a Nintendo game, being channelled around a long and encountering a series of interconnected boutique situations, but the moment I feel even the hint of those walls close in around me in an adventure I basically shit myself with resentment.

(Which brings up the complex question of is it bad because the walls are there or is it bad because I can sense the walls and actually I have been happy with a wide range of experiences which were actually very controlled but just so well controlled that I either didn’t sense it or didn't care).

Largely I am much happier with a sense of freedom, even if it leads to a less pleasant experience

at least, that’s the story I tell myself about who I am, a 3rd party analysis might get a different response. I am much much much happier re-interpreting a problem rather than "finding" the planned solution to one

SO CAN YOU BRING THIS DOWN TO A QUESTION OR SOMETHING

It's a difficult thing to shape a query to but I would like to PROBE the blog readers for a deeper awareness of the polarity between these modes of thought. I couldn't really shape a strong defence or pro-statement for the more-flow-control side of the argument, too wrapped up in my own responses, 

BUT

I would like to hear from YOU PEOPLE

Specifically play or design experiences, games you yourself have been in and specific times where you yourself have thought thoughts equivalent to;

"There's too much flow control here."

and/or

"There's not enough flow control here."

what were the circumstances when you noticed this? 

Did you think it was a feature or a bug (did the adventure writer fail to attain their own goals or were their goals just different to yours?). 

What differentiates the two situations in your mind? (When would you think "Ah, more flow control would be good here in this situation", or the opposite.