D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think a lot depends on how the DM decides to frame the situation in option 3. If it was the result of choices the players made previously - in a skill challenge, let's say - then I think the case can be made that the players had agency. If it's out of the blue then I think you're leaning more towards railroading - I think it'd be better to have a scene that leads into the situation at the gate, even if it's just some rumours from an NPC.

I don't think you need to avoid scene-framing and keep a detailed timeline in order to avoid railroading. I think the players must be aware of the consequences of their actions, though, especially if the consequences are related by theme instead of cause and effect.

Again, I think it would be railroading only if the DM forces the players to engage the situation. For instance suppose the guards grab the PCs and accuse them of being the perpetrators, that would be rather heavy-handed, unless this possibility had been telegraphed earlier. It might also be mitigated by providing various possible courses of action for the PCs (IE they can flee, bribe the guards, fight, or surrender). As [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] said, its difficult to assess the degree of DM force in a given example without some wider context, possibly more details, and some knowledge of how the scene progression is handled.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm a bit torn on this idea (recognizing that you're quoting it from a second-hand source, @pemerton). On the one hand, I see the justification for avoiding "boring" scenes by bringing on adversity/conflict to have the PCs engage with. On the other hand, as a GM, I'd feel like I had failed on my part of the bargain if I hadn't set the stakes high enough in the framing material such that those in opposition to the PCs goals are actively generating that conflict as a natural outgrowth.

I would also be uncomfortable with it in an instance where I've framed a scene, in accordance with the PCs expressed goals and prior outcomes, but the players play the characters inconsistently. Suddenly those conflicts and natural outgrowths of prior scenes become moot, or lessened in impact. Am I just supposed to toss aside the "framing" information that governs the stakes? I'd feel like I'm betraying the consistency of the NPC motivations at that point.....and that's wholly unsatisfying. I ultimately don't care how the events play out, but if pieces of scene frames are being ignored, I feel like it's my job as the GM to play out the consequences. If that happens to not play into the PC's "dramatic conflicts," tough luck; those consequences still play out.




On the whole I agree with this----but with the major caveat being that I've never, ever played or GM'd a game where these kinds of "meaningful" choices and character expressions arose where the players didn't have some degree of care and interest FOR the GM's backstory. It doesn't have to be wholesale interest in the GM's 150-page campaign backstory treatise. But it at least has to be enough for the player to say, "Hmmm, that sounds like an interesting point of conflict. Based on what the GM is telling me, I would choose to insert my character THERE. if I really want to get to the 'meaty' choices and conflicts, I have to have some sense of the how and why my PC is making those choices."

On some level this mandates the players having an understanding of what the GM is doing "naturalistically" with the game world. How do events flow around and through the PCs? What existing responsibilities and passions are the PCs invested in to justify their involvement with the "scene frames" they're interacting with? This has been a real problem in a number of campaigns I've played/run. A player creates a decent character concept, but comes up with no way that the character they've chosen would feasibly be involved in the campaign as constructed. I've then had to backfill events (usually hamfistedly and unsuccessfully) to try and keep the character involved somehow.

I've been tied up as of late so haven't been able to post much. I have some thoughts on why some folks are averse to "hard transitions", feel (I don't agree at all - SURPRISE!) that there may be some railroading going on, and feel that more (current descriptor) "naturalistic transitions" provide players with more agency. In light of the above post, take a look at the below play conversation. This is, of course, Dungeon World. Proper GMing and playing will yield a lot of hard transitions and/or conflict resolution mechanics that resolve those transitions, yielding content generation. If you care to comment on the below, please frame your commentary in terms of player agency (thematic, strategic/tactical). [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] or anyone else have at it as well if you're interested.

The player is a female elven ranger from the Feywild who is tracking down a refugee family originally of Giliad's Rest (but became wild frontier settlers of a sister settlement in the unforgiving mountains above). When their frontier settlement was eerily ruined, they fled. We're reaching the climax of this adventure.

2 of her 4 bonds are:

* The layfolk of this world are brave souls, I have much to learn from them.
* I am bound by solemn oath to protect Giliad's Rest.

Her alignment statement is currently (it has been resolved prior and so she changed it to this once she figured there was despotism involved in the primary antagonism):

* Defeat a Tyrant

---

PLAYER: I'll defer to Otthor here. This is probably as good as we're going to get without incurring the wrath of the dragon.

As the dragon flies off to its hoard to get the satchel with the poultices and healing potions, I'll comfort the dog. It is high time that we give him a name. In talking with him, he has very little ability to communicate what the humans called him. It was good fortune that we found him when we did. Good fortune for him and for us. Therefore, I'm going to name him "Lucky". I'll promise Lucky that the trip will be short and I'll hold him the whole way up there. I'd rather have him with us and I think he'd rather be with us.

Hireling (Loyalty)
2, 6 + 2 = 10

* Hireling stands firm and carries out the order

Once finished with Lucky, I'll let Otthor know that I'm going to mark our trail with charcoal every 100 meters. I'll mark it with a cardinal direction, such as NE. There should be plenty of rocks or hard earth to mark up there. I don't know what direction we'll be heading first so just look around where the dragon sits us down at. It will be obvious.

Marking off 1 Adventuring Gear.

When the dragon returns, I'll insist on Otthor taking one of the two Healing Potions. When he relents, I'll take the satchel, say an elven blessing for both of us, bid him good luck and farewell for the moment.

When we get up top, I'm going to apply both of the Poultice and Herbs to my terrible burns. At Slow, that will take several minutes. Once done I'll get my bearings and see if there are any tracks or man-made trail signs or signs of habitation in the immediate area.

Discern Realities (Wis)
2, 3 + 2 = 7

1 question and + 1 forward when acting on it.

* What happened here recently?


GM: The dragon drops you off at what appears to be a way station for travelers once they make their way up the steep ascent that is the precarious trail to the Coldlands above. It would be a brutal trek that would take all of a day without rest. As such, it's a sure thing that all weary travelers rest here.

There is a hewn hollow into the stone face that gets folks out of the biting winds. In the hollow is a firepit and some cast iron pots/pans/ladel/spoons and a broken down spit. There is a bin in the back for food stores but there is nothing in there currently. The scree in the hollow is undisturbed by the wind so it will keep its history for some time. Three travelers came through here last, one of which was a small child. How long ago is unknown but there are no embers and no remnant food to evaluate. It had to have been more than a week.

The three traveler's trail out of here into the interior couldn't be more conspicuous.

The ground drops away at a steady decline from the way station where the entire interior is something of a massive bowl. Apparently, once upon a time the interior of these Coldlands was entirely underwater. Perhaps the climate turned dramatically and changed once wetlands into a mostly arid bog. This place probably doesn't see much precipitation as the only snow on the ground is on the upper reaches of the far peak. The bowl below you is covered by a thick bed of peat moss for as far as the eye can see, the only resilient greenery at these harsh elevations. It is almost frozen, keeping the tracks of travelers in perpetuity. There is a weathered trail right through the middle.

As you look far out on the open, half-frozen mire, you see a small group of musk deer chased down by a large snow leopard. The creature drags its kill away. From this vantage, you can see several miles into the distances. There are a pair of non-natural structures dotting the far, far end of the bowl where the ground ascends steeply to the upper reaches of this place. The walk across the half-frozen peat bog must be a grueling one and surely a breezy one as there are no obstructions to stop the wind.

Beyond that, you can see the tall peaks rising in the distance. On the tallest one, there is a tall, dark rectangle jutting up near the peak...utterly out of place with the rest of the rugged, white mountains. That must be the strange tower that the Winter Wolf told you about at the beginning of your journey.


PLAYER: Well, there is nowhere for natural predators to hide out here so we should see them coming. However, that means there is nowhere for us to hide as well. I'll mark a rock with our travel direction for Otthor and the five of us will set out through parts unknown.

I'll trivially navigate the half-frozen peat bog and do my best to keep an eye out for any signs of thinness over deep mire that may trap us. The winds are harsh so I'll keep us all close together to share our body heat. Rawr and I will be on the wind-side as I'm magically warded from the cold and he is large with a thick fur coat. That should help buffer Exel, Xanob, and Lucky. Exel and Xanob can also keep their shields up to help protect themselves and Lucky a little better.

The tracks are trivial for us to follow. Even if I wasn't here they wouldn't need a ranger to guide them. Before we set out, I'm going to gather the most sizable rocks from the scree up top. I'll put them in my satchel so I can leave markers for Otthor as we transit this bog. He should be able to follow our tracks no problem, but I'm not taking any chances.


GM: Every step crunches 6 inches or more into the permafrosted peat. If it weren't for the extreme cold, navigating this place would be beyond treacherous...nigh impassible in fact. Slogging just a few miles takes the better part of an hour...and you've still got 1/3 of the way left to go.

When you slog through the frozen mire, roll + Con. On a 10 +, you're the master of the bog! On a 7-9, choose 1 and the GM will use one of the other 2 against you.

* Your physical fortitude is up to the exhaustive effort.
* You avoid any thawed-out, quick-sinking areas.
* Nothing worse than snow leopards inhabit this bog.

You can take + 1 here as your wisdom has mitigated a lot of the misery for your crew and the magical warding of your amulet doesn't hurt either.

PLAYER: Sounds good.

Slog through the frozen mire (Con)
3, 4 + 1 (+1) = 9.

I'll take:

* You avoid any thawed-out, quick-sinking areas.


GM: The tracks continue their way straight across the bog. You can tell that there were many falls and struggles by the people that moved across it last. About a mile in they clearly sit down and rest and the little one must have been carried the rest of the way as the small prints are gone while one of the adult prints simultaneously gets a little deeper.

Nearing the end of your crossing, something changes abruptly...but not the tracks. There is a fine line of gore that literally cuts right across your path as far as the eye can see (probably from one end of the bog to the other). It is cold and freezing, but clearly relatively fresh and laying atop the tracks you're following. Flies buzz around torn flesh and maggots crawl across entrails. You can see multiple human prints, of about the same freshness. paralleling the line of gore that cuts across your path.

 

[LostSoul]

This part, in my opinion, highlights the real differences: the players decide to play a detective story. But they do not solve the mystery because the captain (an NPC) finds out the information. The PCs also do not fight the evil necromancer because the guards do that.

This would not happen in pemerton's game. And it would not happen in my games either. If the players show clear intent to play a detective story, why deprotagonize them by not letting them do what real detectives do: find the real clues, fight the person behing the murder etc.? And if all of this was the result of the roll of the dice on a prepared table: why make such a table at all?

This sort of thing would happen in my game. However, since I want to run a western (science-fantasy post-apocalyptic western!), I made up a quick and easy system for NPC-NPC conflict. I figure out what the encounter level of the NPCs is, roll 3d6 for each side, add a few very abstract modifiers, and consult a table to see how much "damage" has been done. Then a morale check is made to see if the NPCs can continue the conflict; it is likely that one side will retreat after the first pass through the mechanics. NPCs have a lot more HP than damage dealt - it takes a level difference of at least 7 combined with good rolls (17+ on 3d6) to defeat a foe on one pass. Even when NPCs are defeated they get a saving throw to avoid death. This means that NPCs are "bouncy"; when they get into conflict it's often inconclusive (they bounce off of each other). This allows the PCs, in the western style, to ride in to take care of business.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

When I play an RPG the last thing I'm after is some experience that matches with what I have in real life. In that sense both movies and RPGs are escapism.

Of course, there are other ways in which playing an RPG is more like reading a novel, or watching a movie. There tend to be more explosions and sword fights than most people encounter on a daily basis.

In terms of player agency, though, an RPG is a lot like real life - your only agency is what you can causally affect within the world, and the possibility of a higher power organizing things for you is uncertain at best.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Of course, there are other ways in which playing an RPG is more like reading a novel, or watching a movie. There tend to be more explosions and sword fights than most people encounter on a daily basis.

In terms of player agency, though, an RPG is a lot like real life - your only agency is what you can causally affect within the world, and the possibility of a higher power organizing things for you is uncertain at best.

I'd say the action of 'higher powers' is pretty typical in an FRPG. Nor are RPGs NECESSARILY like real life, the player can have all sorts of agency, it just depends on the type of game being played. Anyway, obviously your style of playing is as 'good' as anyone's.

 

[Balesir]

So in this case, literally what we're talking about.

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.

I'm confused here. This demon scenario would never occur in the style I use. It was a freeze frame, triggered by the presence of the PCs, and my style (mostly) ignores the existence of the PCs when determining what would happen. By necessity, my style also tends to not rely on mandatory scenes with a required outcome that can be failed if the PCs aren't in exactly the right place at the right time.

So, you have scenes that are mandatorily not 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?

In my games, the players can have a ton of impact on what happens, mostly because I don't plan the future too far in advance. Instead, I generate the timeline procedurally; whenever an amount of time passes, I consider what each of the significant NPCs needs to do next, and roughly how long that's going to take - almost like I'm controlling my own party of characters, except it's easier to multi-task. That way, when the PCs inevitably end up doing something I couldn't have predicted, the world can respond appropriately in real time.

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.

For me, the process is at least as important as the result. As I player, I need to have faith in the process. Even if a broken clock happened to be right at the instant I checked it, I wouldn't feel comfortable with what it told me if I had reason to believe that it was broken.

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 might or could 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 does not 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?

By that metric, I would argue that any freeze-frame with a mandatory outcome is not an interesting one. But what is the GM to do, then? Read through the whole book backward and forward, cutting out the boring stuff and placing alternate routes in response to PC engagement? Because that seems like a lot of work, and one of the big draws of Paizo Adventure Paths is that they're supposed to do most of the work for you.

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).

Poor GMing implies OneTrueWay.

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".

I literally didn't read the rest. Yes, it is. And I don't think we're going to get anywhere discussing it.

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.

 

[TheFindus]

This sort of thing would happen in my game. However, since I want to run a western (science-fantasy post-apocalyptic western!), I made up a quick and easy system for NPC-NPC conflict. I figure out what the encounter level of the NPCs is, roll 3d6 for each side, add a few very abstract modifiers, and consult a table to see how much "damage" has been done. Then a morale check is made to see if the NPCs can continue the conflict; it is likely that one side will retreat after the first pass through the mechanics. NPCs have a lot more HP than damage dealt - it takes a level difference of at least 7 combined with good rolls (17+ on 3d6) to defeat a foe on one pass. Even when NPCs are defeated they get a saving throw to avoid death. This means that NPCs are "bouncy"; when they get into conflict it's often inconclusive (they bounce off of each other). This allows the PCs, in the western style, to ride in to take care of business.

Why is this bouncyness necessary for the PCs to ride in to save the day?
To make the flow of the story more plausible? What I (and I think [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and others also) are saying is that if this one result is plausible why should the DM not simply decide it to happen without rolling the dice? The result does not become more plausible through the use of dice. The decision by the DM, however, is based on the need and story-intent the players have conveyed. Now, this does not mean that bad dice results on the players part or bad decision making will not lead to unwelcomed end results. But the power here lies with the players/PCs and is not decided by the DM rolling on a random table, turning the end result into a completely random element.
Turning the DM into some sort of console for the player's game (much like a Nintendo) by rolling the dice does not add anything here, in my opinion. From the actual play examples in this thread I get the impression that the opposite could be true.
The players want to be detectives, but NPCs do the work for them. They want to engage the NPCs in the post apocalyptic Western (which sounds really cool, to be honest), but are not part of the shootout. Instead, to me the DM seems to be playing his own game, rolling the dice on some table he needed to come up with in order to not seem as a participant in the construction of the story everybody came to develop and experience together to begin with.
No, as a player, I want story based on what my PC can and cannot do. I think the DM has a right to know where my interests are - and the other way around. And I want that story now, not based on some random table. 4E can deliver this through character choices (themes, paragon paths, epic destinies and powers), skill challenges, advice in the DMGs and the ability to refluff stuff very easily. This is its feature.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What is this "process" exacly? In both cases, it starts off with "the GM brainstorms ideas about what might or could 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 does not 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?

Yeah, in the interests of discussion, I've kind of skated past this whole part of the discussion. I think [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] kinda did too, but I don't claim to speak for them... The whole thing seems very arbitrary and IMHO really amounts to "the DM does what the DM feels like doing" vs the DM trying to serve the player's agenda. Of course it then sounds rather uncharitable and further discussion breaks down, which is why I left off that aspect of things and have simply taken [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]'s assertion that his selections are neutral and fit some sort of definable naturalistic agenda that can be distinguished from the narrativist one I would follow (at a more meaningful level than just "different results happened").

I can grasp, and once pursued, this sort of goal. The problem with it, fundamentally, is it simply cannot be achieved in any meaningful way. The DM is simply, IMHO, decreeing whatever events he feels like decreeing for whatever reasons he has. He may have some limits to how far he'll go with that, and he may well respect player agency within certain bounds, but he'd be just as well off to include player agency and dramatic considerations in there as not, it won't make his decisions any 'less realistic' because there is no measurable degree of realism in an RPG to begin with, at least in this sense.

 

[Bluenose]

Why is this bouncyness necessary for the PCs to ride in to save the day?
To make the flow of the story more plausible? What I (and I think [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and others also) are saying is that if this one result is plausible why should the DM not simply decide it to happen without rolling the dice? The result does not become more plausible through the use of dice. The decision by the DM, however, is based on the need and story-intent the players have conveyed. Now, this does not mean that bad dice results on the players part or bad decision making will not lead to unwelcomed end results. But the power here lies with the players/PCs and is not decided by the DM rolling on a random table, turning the end result into a completely random element.

One reason why I as a GM might decide to roll the dice to see what happens in a conflict between two NPCs would be because I didn't have any particular preference for what should and am therefore amenable to either result turning up. I'd also suggest that it's a useful technique if you want to avoid playing the GM's story; if you can't know how things will work out - because the dice may not cooperate - then it's a lot less likely that you'll be tempted to adjust other things to ensure your preferred results are what get delivered. And frankly, I like to be surprised as a GM and rolling for what happens between two NPCs can lead to that.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

So, you have scenes that are mandatorily not 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?

The situation where a PC encounters a powerful demon eating a corpse is entirely something that could happen in a game I run. It's just that, since I have no way to ensure that situation actually happens (without violating my role as neutral arbiter), the entire plot isn't going to hinge on that encounter.

The kind of story where everything hinges on one unlikely coincidence is not one that lends itself toward a game being played in this style, in much the same way that a story with only one protagonist doesn't lend itself toward multi-player games.

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.

The story is whatever happens to the PCs. They are highly likely to directly impinge on the actions and activities of the Big Bad.

The vast majority of NPCs are not going to influence the story, one way or another, because the first thing that most people do in any situation is nothing, and one of the common traits shared by PCs (and important NPCs) is that they actually do stuff. The DM should avoid protagonizing the PCs, because the players already do a good job of doing that.

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?

Yes, the difference is entirely in how the GM decides what will happen. It's an arbitrary choice only in that it is a binding decision by an arbiter, not in that the decision is made without logic or reason; the decision should make sense to anyone in that situation, and not feel random.

The naturalistic GM decides that the events which happen will be the events that would otherwise occur if the world was a real place, conforming to known details of that world (not subject to narrative causality). Imagine what's going on in the world, on a typical day. Like every other aspect of being a good GM, some people are better than others at this. Practice helps.

An easy tip for making the world feel more realistic (less story-y) is to avoid all unlikely events. While it's certainly more realistic for some unlikely events to happen, unlikely events are also highly noticeable to players, and can make the world seem more contrived than it actually is. A more advanced technique would be to imagine the most likely complication to any event, and then roll a die to determine randomly if that complication shows up.