With respect to the first of the two quoted passags: here seems to be some confusion here.
I replied to this somewhere upthread - the issue with "saying 'yes'" rather than calling for die roll, in the context of looking for a vessel, is not to do with railroading. In fact, in the OP I try to articulate why I think that setting a DC, rather than just "saying 'yes'", is not railroading.
Yes, and I agree. Your using the DC/skill check mechanic is not railroading. My point is that simply saying yes is also not railroading. Hence I don't see either approach as being much better than the other.
The reason for calling for a dice roll is drama and pacing. As I've already posted a couple of times (in reply to you, and to [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]), by setting even low DCs at key moments a certain sort of tone is established (grittiness); over the life of the game it allows for moments of failure (perhaps black comedy) even when the risk of failure is low; it reinforces a certain "ritual" element to the game (this matters, and we're going to stop in play and acknowledge that, by setting a DC and calling for a check and picking up the dice); etc.
Yes, you did make that point earlier. I mentioned in my post that I didn't think that the best way to achieve drama was always to call for a roll. Meaning, at times, the chance of failure is significant and so we need to use the dice to hep determine the outcome. Other times, I think it is easier to simply proceed and let the actual drama of the situation be the main focus rather than the result of a skill check. I think that the player's desire to try and salvage some of the blood form the corpse in order to bring it to his naga patron is an interesting idea and I'd prefer to see how that might play out more than I prefer to see if a die roll determines if there is a bowl in the room or not.
This relates to the second of the quoted passages: what makes this a moment that is worth emphasising in the course of play is because the PC - having lost the opportunity to take the living mage to his dark naga master - has determined to take the blood instead. So the availability of a vessel is the "crunch" moment for that goal.
Is it? I mean....there's a corpse right there. It's not like a tipped pitcher of water that has drained. There's still blood in that corpse.
Divination and similar abilities: if these are adjudicated in the traditional way, they require the GM to already have backstory authored (so that s/he can report it to the player using the divination magic). This tends to push againt generating backstory as part of framing and narrating consequences. (In terms of the history of the game, this sort of divination is a legacy as a game aimed at "beating the dungeon" - [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s "free kriegspiel".)
I don't agree with that at all. First, I don't know if the DM has to already have all backstory determined in order to adjudicate divination attempts. He can simply determine that on the fly, using his judgment and all that has happened in the campaign so far as his guides. Second, there's no reason that how he approaches the divination adjudication need be "traditional". Depending on the circumstances, perhaps he can involve the players in the process. Maybe he can describe details loosely....say give a vague description of a person that the divination reveals, and then see who the players think it is.
Mechanics that drag attention away from the action, and push towards an ingame-causal-logic-driven continuous narration, can include rest and healing mechanics; resource mechanics; etc. If a PC needs to spend X ingame days or weeks healing, then how is the GM going to go to the action? If the archer PC runs out of arrows, X miles from town, how is the GM going to go to the action?
Well, 5E has largely removed major concerns about the time it takes to heal....they're very abstract and quick. It never takes days or weeks to be back to full fighting strength. Some see that as being a problem in and of itself. I rather like it as it keeps things moving. I prefer dynamic situations that can continue to develop separate of the PC actions to some extent rather than static environments that only change when the PCs interact with them.
As for resource management....given how easy it would be to either handwave this entirely, or to track every arrow and every ration of food, or any point in the spectrum between those two extremes, I don't really see this as a problem. In my game, we tend to handwave this for the most part....unless there are story elements or developments that make it matter, like if they've been wandering the wilderness for some time, or something similar.
Well, that is a device for doing it - a method or system.
A bit pedantic, but fair enough. My point being that there is no mechanic beyond DM judgment. I don't know if that really constitutes a system. Your comment made it seem like you would introduce some kind of mechanical expression. You seem to prefer to have hard and fast mechanics of some kind in place for most things, and have a distaste for anything that can be seen as DM fiat.
To the extent that bounded accuracy tends to make PC build and player resource expenditure less important, because they get swamped by the die roll, it can potentially reduce the responsive of resolution to player choice and commitment.
I'm not saying it's an insuperable obstacle. But I don't think that it supports player-driven play. As I've posted a couple of times, I think the use of inspiration and hence having advantage as a player resource might be enough of a "solution" to the issue, because spending inspiration to gain advantge is a player resource choice that will tend to dominate over the vagaries of the dice.
I don't agree with that assessment of bounded accuracy at all. PC Build is still important....in bounded accuracy, a +1 bonus tends to be more meaningful than a +1 bonus in other systems (not all other systems, I am sure, but let's say other editions of D&D and some of the OSR clones). And resource expenditure matters quite a bit if the game is played with those resources in mind (i.e. making sure there are enough encounters per day to require some decision making in that regard).
If the main way to get XP is fighting monsters, but one wants the game to be all about following the players' leads into action that engages their PCs' beliefs, ideals, goals, etc, then I think a tension in player motivation can emerge pretty easily.
That I can agree with. I mean, as I said, we abandoned the XP system long ago, so I am actually not sure....does 5E's XP system only reward experience for the creatures defeated or otherwise overcome? I would think that there would be options for awarding XP for roleplaying or for clever play and things like that. Even if there's not, it's easy enough to do it on one's own.
I've stated the conditions under which I would regard a game as railroad-y: if at (1) [ie framing] and/or at (3) [ie resolution], the GM introduces fiction in accordance with his/her priorities and/or pre-authored conception of the situation.
Sure, and I suppose that it's the word "always" in your description that is a key to your view. I doubt that most games always rely on GM only for the framing and resolution. So if you mean that literally, then I can understand, but if you mean that any game that favors or skews toward GM driven framing and resolution is a railroad, then that's where I would disagree.
