User Monomyth posed an interesting question on the Traveller discord that I wanted to replicate here:
hi team, just a quick discussion based question with no right answer; if youre running a game, and the players decide to veer off course into something completely out of left field (such as going to a planet you do not have prepped), is it appropriate to come up with some “delaying issue” so you can have it ready for next session?
Transposing to other settings: what do you do when the players go off-script?
I can summarize some answers we’ve got on that server, but I don’t want to prime your answers from the start.
Depends what you and the players want to get out of the game.
If the GM is a storyteller and the players want to hear the story with limited participation in creating it: all aboard!
If the players want to be part of making the story and the world: go out there and start building!