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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6594439" data-attributes="member: 27160"><p>Well, I didn't think so - I thought we were talking about whether player decisions made for their characters (either in the sense of 'advocating for' or in the sense of 'acting in the position of' their character) were fundamentally and, indeed, meaningfully different from choices made by the player either based on reading the GM for game advantage or essentially acting as a glorified random number generator. But, if you thought it was merely a semantic argument I guess I can see where the disagreement might have arisen.</p><p></p><p></p><p>So, you have scenes that are mandatorily <strong><em>not</em></strong> interesting? What you say would imply that your worlds have situations where the prisoners transition from alive to dead with no elapsed time between states. It would imply that preparing to eat a corpse (and eating one, I suppose) takes no time. Surely that is as artificial a situation as the opposite?</p><p></p><p></p><p>But, if the players control the actions of a small band of adventurers and you control the actions of a mass of sundry NPCs without any reference to the players or their characters' actions or desires (outside of what directly and physically impinges on what the NPCs are doing), surely that means that the greater part of the story is simply being invented (or randomly generated) by you? The players are simply window dressing.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Hmmm - I buy this less and less.</p><p></p><p>What is this "process" exacly? In both cases, it starts off with "the GM brainstorms ideas about what <em>might</em> or <em>could</em> happen". Then some selection mechanism is used to pick one of the possibilities. In one case the GM tries to take inspiration from the players concerning what might happen, in the other case they may take inspiration from a randomised table or something. In either case, the vast majority of possible events will be missed out simply due to the limitations of the human imagination under time pressure.</p><p></p><p>Take the "prisoners are sacrificed" example. Maybe the evil guy's plans will all go smoothly and the prisoners will be dead before ever the PCs arrive at the dungeon. Perhaps there will be some minor delays with the troublesome one, and the sacrifice will be imminent when the PCs arrive. Possibly a spy will arrive from town just before the PCs to inform the evil guy about the PCs sniffing about, or about some action they took (maybe all-unknowing) in town, and the interview will delay the sacrifices until the PCs arrive. It could be that the evil guy loses his sacrificial knife and has a screaming fit at his henchman, whom he blames for the blade being misplaced, delaying the sacrifice until the PCs have scouted out the complex warily and then burst into the sacrificial chamber. Or maybe an alarm in the "office" itself delays the sacrifice as steps are taken to bolster the guards while the sacrifice takes place, since there are intruders about. It may even be...</p><p></p><p>You get the idea. There are literally millions of things that might happen. A choice by the GM that one of them <strong>does not</strong> happen is just as much a choice as deciding that it does. The idea is that the "naturalistic" GM decides that events happen (or not) based on random tables or some sort of "common sense", but the fact is that the decision for the vast majority of these "potential events" is made by arbitrary selection. So, the difference we are talking about is the difference between selecting because one possible chain of events sounds like fun to play, and selecting based on - what? - what habitually comes to mind for the GM based on their conception of how things "ought to" happen? So, if they think things "ought to" happen dramatically or in a fun way, the second is identical to the first? Whereas if they have some personal (but as far as I can see rather ill-defined) aesthetic guiding what "ought to" happen then different possibilities will be assumed and an "aesthetic appropriate" selection method will be used to choose between them? Is that the difference we are really coming down to?</p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't think anyone here is really talking about using Paizo AP unedited and in whole cloth. They strike me as really only being useful for "story tourism" type play, or possibly "light gamism" (which is how I use 4E published adventures).</p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't see that that follows at all.</p><p></p><p>Just because there are bad ways to GM does not mean that there is only one good way; there are a myriad ways to act well and to play football well, and yet there are most assuredly "bad actors" and "poor football players".</p><p></p><p></p><p>So, you define "railroading" to include presenting the players with a situation and accepting any outcome from that situation that the resolution mechanisms of the game generate, if that situation was created by selecting the off-camera events leading to it by any means other than one that adheres strictly to your own aesthetic preferences?</p><p></p><p>Mkay.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 6594439, member: 27160"] Well, I didn't think so - I thought we were talking about whether player decisions made for their characters (either in the sense of 'advocating for' or in the sense of 'acting in the position of' their character) were fundamentally and, indeed, meaningfully different from choices made by the player either based on reading the GM for game advantage or essentially acting as a glorified random number generator. But, if you thought it was merely a semantic argument I guess I can see where the disagreement might have arisen. So, you have scenes that are mandatorily [B][I]not[/I][/B] interesting? What you say would imply that your worlds have situations where the prisoners transition from alive to dead with no elapsed time between states. It would imply that preparing to eat a corpse (and eating one, I suppose) takes no time. Surely that is as artificial a situation as the opposite? But, if the players control the actions of a small band of adventurers and you control the actions of a mass of sundry NPCs without any reference to the players or their characters' actions or desires (outside of what directly and physically impinges on what the NPCs are doing), surely that means that the greater part of the story is simply being invented (or randomly generated) by you? The players are simply window dressing. Hmmm - I buy this less and less. What is this "process" exacly? In both cases, it starts off with "the GM brainstorms ideas about what [I]might[/I] or [I]could[/I] happen". Then some selection mechanism is used to pick one of the possibilities. In one case the GM tries to take inspiration from the players concerning what might happen, in the other case they may take inspiration from a randomised table or something. In either case, the vast majority of possible events will be missed out simply due to the limitations of the human imagination under time pressure. Take the "prisoners are sacrificed" example. Maybe the evil guy's plans will all go smoothly and the prisoners will be dead before ever the PCs arrive at the dungeon. Perhaps there will be some minor delays with the troublesome one, and the sacrifice will be imminent when the PCs arrive. Possibly a spy will arrive from town just before the PCs to inform the evil guy about the PCs sniffing about, or about some action they took (maybe all-unknowing) in town, and the interview will delay the sacrifices until the PCs arrive. It could be that the evil guy loses his sacrificial knife and has a screaming fit at his henchman, whom he blames for the blade being misplaced, delaying the sacrifice until the PCs have scouted out the complex warily and then burst into the sacrificial chamber. Or maybe an alarm in the "office" itself delays the sacrifice as steps are taken to bolster the guards while the sacrifice takes place, since there are intruders about. It may even be... You get the idea. There are literally millions of things that might happen. A choice by the GM that one of them [B]does not[/B] happen is just as much a choice as deciding that it does. The idea is that the "naturalistic" GM decides that events happen (or not) based on random tables or some sort of "common sense", but the fact is that the decision for the vast majority of these "potential events" is made by arbitrary selection. So, the difference we are talking about is the difference between selecting because one possible chain of events sounds like fun to play, and selecting based on - what? - what habitually comes to mind for the GM based on their conception of how things "ought to" happen? So, if they think things "ought to" happen dramatically or in a fun way, the second is identical to the first? Whereas if they have some personal (but as far as I can see rather ill-defined) aesthetic guiding what "ought to" happen then different possibilities will be assumed and an "aesthetic appropriate" selection method will be used to choose between them? Is that the difference we are really coming down to? I don't think anyone here is really talking about using Paizo AP unedited and in whole cloth. They strike me as really only being useful for "story tourism" type play, or possibly "light gamism" (which is how I use 4E published adventures). I don't see that that follows at all. Just because there are bad ways to GM does not mean that there is only one good way; there are a myriad ways to act well and to play football well, and yet there are most assuredly "bad actors" and "poor football players". So, you define "railroading" to include presenting the players with a situation and accepting any outcome from that situation that the resolution mechanisms of the game generate, if that situation was created by selecting the off-camera events leading to it by any means other than one that adheres strictly to your own aesthetic preferences? Mkay. [/QUOTE]
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