---
title: "Ways of controlling the options"
description: "Greene's list of forms of the tactic of narrowing someone's choices so all of them serve you."
canonical: https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/ways-of-controlling-the-options/
updated: 2026-11-03
---

# Ways of controlling the options

> Greene's list of forms of the tactic of narrowing someone's choices so all of them serve you.

Robert Greene's framework, from 48 Laws of Power, pp. 377 to 389.

Framework 16 of 27 from [48 Laws of Power](https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/index.md) by Robert Greene. Category: Offers and pricing.

## The steps

1. **Color the Choices.** Offer three or four options and present your preferred one so it looks best against the others.
2. **Force the Resister.** Push willful people to choose what you want by appearing to advocate the opposite.
3. **Alter the Playing Field.** Change the terrain so the only options your opponents have are the ones you give.
4. **The Shrinking Options.** Make each day's choice worse or dearer so the indecisive buy now.
5. **The Weak Man on the Precipice.** Exaggerate dangers in every direction except the one you want the weak person to take.
6. **Brothers in Crime.** Implicate the person who could harm you in your scheme so their options narrow.
7. **The Horns of a Dilemma.** Strike quickly with a choice between two options that both hurt the victim.

## Where it comes from

From chapter: LAW 31, pp. 377–389

The best deceptions give the other person a choice in which every option favours you. Ivan the Terrible left Moscow for a month and offered Russia either his abdication or absolute power, and the country chose despotism, while Ninon de Lenclos split her suitors into payeurs and martyrs so that either choice satisfied her. People find choice comforting, and they struggle to believe they are being manipulated when they feel they have chosen. Greene lists seven forms of controlling the options, including coloured choices, shrinking options and the horns of a dilemma. The reversal is that limiting a rival's options can limit your own chance to watch and learn, as Rothschild preferred.

## The animation

24 seconds, 4:5, no sound.

- MP4: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/ways-of-controlling-the-options.mp4
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- Still, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/ways-of-controlling-the-options-dark.png