How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

Reynard said:

A railraod isn't the same as a linear adventure. In fact railroads aren't things, really, so much as how GMs do tings. In a railroad, the GM only accepts answers and actions that in line with their predetermined sequence of events (the plot). Sometimes this is subtle (quantum ogres) and sometimes it is decidedly not. But that is still different than a linear adventure (although linear adventures lend themselves more easily to railroading).

Also: if a railroad is fun, it isn't a railroad, it is a roller coaster.

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I don’t know. I get that linear adventures may differ from railroads. I think one allows for more choice than the other. But they’re certainly similar.

However, my point was more that simply opting out of the railroad at the start doesn’t mean the “plotline” (the term used in the post I quoted) isn’t a railroad.

Corinnguard said:

And how would you run an adventure if you were the GM?

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It really depends on the game, to be honest. I believe I saw that you’re a player and not a GM, and from yOur posts it seems like you’re primarily familiar with D&D 5e.

There are many different ways to go about GMing a game. You should look into other games that do things differently than D&D. Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, Spire… there are lots of games that just function differently than D&D. They allow for more player proactivity.

If I was GMing 5e, though, what I’d strive to do is have different options available to the players. Either different goals or different paths to a given goal. I could go further and try and really make for a different experience, but at this point I just don’t think D&D is all that suitable for that.

So I’d say I would give the players options. I’d readily share details and information so that we could keep the game moving, so that things remained interesting. I’d not have only one goal of play, or if I did, there’d be several different ways to get there. But I’d also accept that it’s D&D and is largely a GM-led experience.

Thomas Shey said:

I mean the authors of the game had some pretty bad accusations directed at them with reasonable support, all the more disappointing since the game itself is pretty inclusive.

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Well, that's too bad. Shouldn't affect whether or not they made a good game though. I played Chill for years back in the 90s.

hawkeyefan said:

However, my point was more that simply opting out of the railroad at the start doesn’t mean the “plotline” (the term used in the post I quoted) isn’t a railroad.

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If the GM is railroading you, you can't, by definition, opt out.

Corinnguard said:

It means that the players need to concentrate on whatever specific problem is before them, instead of imagining extra features.

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They certainly better not imagine flies hovering above the sweaty body!

Or ash on the floor that the GM didn't bother mentioning.

Lanefan said:

I'll make the scene about the scene, including some possible distractions; and leave it to the players/PCs to determine what gets focused on and what doesn't.

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This denial of authorial agency is implausible.

You mentioned the hole in the wall. You didn't mention the flies. You expect the players to take the flies for granted. You don't expect the players to take cigarette butts in one of the empty bottles for granted.

You didn't mention bottle caps. Are the players meant to take for granted that there are some lying around, with/near/in the bottles? Or is this another clue, to the mystery of the missing bottle caps?

Your description makes the scene about some things and not others. You just do it without reference to what is interesting in the trajectory of play, from the players' perspective. I personally do not see the virtue in that.

hawkeyefan said:

Meh, it sounds pretty railroady to me. The option to get on the train or not doesn’t change that the “story” as we’re discussing it is a railroad.

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The option is everything. If you aren't forced onto rails, a railroad simply does not exist. That is what is required for a railroad to exist. You have to have no option.

overgeeked said:

It's a great way to get players to stop showing up to games.

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It's more realistic for the game to be as boring as the time I spend on the phone waiting to get through to the telephone banking customer service desk . . .

Micah Sweet said:

All of that sounds unbearably mechanical to me, like you are reducing the game to, "check these boxes for success however you can"!

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Do you find this to be the case for D&D combat - tick of these hit point boxes however you can (via sword damage, fireball damage, pushing-them-into-a-pit damage, whatever) for success?

If not - for instance, if you sometimes find that the fiction of play matters - then I encourage you to generalise that idea to @overgeeked's approach.

pemerton said:

Do you find this to be the case for D&D combat - tick of these hit point boxes however you can (via sword damage, fireball damage, pushing-them-into-a-pit damage, whatever) for success?

If not - for instance, if you sometimes find that the fiction of play matters - then I encourage you to generalise that idea to @overgeeked's approach.

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Yes. Hit points ARE a clock.

Grendel_Khan said:

What jargon? Clocks? Sandbox? How basic and widely discussed does something have to be to avoid being labeled as dreaded jargon?

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Well, I start frothing inside as soon as someone mentions hit points or armour class or character class - and why is one of those classes expressed as a number, but the other as a semi-technical descriptor? - but normally I'm just too polite to let it show.