Interested experienced adventure design opinion: if one is writing a short 5 encounter wilderness crawl, is it OK to build an ABCDE rail, or is there an expectation to have at least one alternate path? Depends on the audience. I think it is fine to build ABCDE with the expectation that's how it will usually get played, but give the DM some suggestions for other ways it might play out.

— Shawn Merwin, traveling to Eberron via Avernus (@shawnmerwin) September 9, 2019

Agree with Shawn here. Why not just give all five encounters and then let the DM decide? Do all five create a story together?

— James Introcaso (@JamesIntrocaso) September 9, 2019