D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Crimson Longinus]

Right, like I said, "but magic." This is an arbitrary and uncritical bit of reasoning entirely based on "I'm used to this happening, so it's okay."

No. I outlined the reason for the difference.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No. I outlined the reason for the difference.

You did? You said something about the PC being able to do the thing in the fiction, but that reason here is "but magic." I don't see where you said anything further on the matter, outline or not.

 

[FrozenNorth]

They’re really not, in my opinion. I’m sure we’re wirking with different ideas of “significant”. Or that, within the confines of an adventure path, such changes may seem significant.

I played through Curse of Strahd. Once finished I watched a playthrough of the same game by a different group (PuffinForest’s video).

The two games were meaningfully different in virtually every sense of the word. The people they met different. Places that were visited, different. Stuff that was important to the characters, different. Why we did things was different. Even when his group and my group met the same characters (such as Rictavio), they were essentially the different characters with the same name.

In order to say that they are they same, you have to zoom out to a ridiculous level.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Another, "It's a spectrum" when it's really not.

But it is. There are games where players have no such authority at all, some in which they can limit the GM to indirectly have such authority and ones where they can directly assume such an authority via some currency or such. GMless freeform would probably be the extreme end of player setting authority, where the players can pretty much just make anything up as long as it doesn't contradict what other players have established. I think @Campbell was perfectly correct to point out the difference.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You did? You said something about the PC being able to do the thing in the fiction, but that reason here is "but magic." I don't see where you said anything further on the matter, outline or not.

It is whether the addition/edit is such that the PC could knowingly and causally produce such in the setting.

 

[FrozenNorth]

What I specifically mean when I say something like "I don't feel like who my character is matters" is more along the lines that there is no relevant situation attached to the character that changes the overall scope of play. Stuff like ambitions that go beyond the current adventure, responsibilities, relationships. Basically what changes if Brave Sir Robin dies? How would the setting change? Who would miss them? Would there be a power vacuum? Who would take care of X in their stead?

Well, that’s up to you. If your character has ambitions, makes relationships, changes the world, etc. than people will mourn them.

Again, the problem is that you are describing the AP as if it isn’t being run by a human DM. It is, which means that the world can react to your character.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I played through Curse of Strahd. Once finished I watched a playthrough of the same game by a different group (PuffinForest’s video).

The two games were meaningfully different in virtually every sense of the word. The people they met different. Places that were visited, different. Stuff that was important to the characters, different. Why we did things was different. Even when his group and my group met the same characters (such as Rictavio), they were essentially the different characters with the same name.

In order to say that they are they same, you have to zoom out to a ridiculous level.

None of those things actually were different because of the different characters, though. The places were there both times. The people were there both times. The differences here are the choices in play, but if you swapped out a character in each party, you'd not have any really meaningful differences. The game, the goal, the locations -- all the same.

I guess you really have to play a game that does fully center characters to notice the difference. All of the rebuttal arguments are about exactly what I, and others, are saying -- the tactical choices made in play. They keep missing that so much is entirely independent of the characters.

 

[FrozenNorth]

RE: APs

I would much rather have a bunch of separate dungeons and set-pieces I could put in my own world where they could be made to fit nicely without much work (kind of like Yawning Portal or some old modules like B2) instead of a huge chain adventure (like the 1e GDQ combined book or some of the modern APs). The Goodman Borderland book has B1 and B2, but is set to let you run them separately with places explicitly to plug in things in the map or modify things you don't want. And the world doesn't end if the party doesn't decide to clean out the caves.

Sure. Different strokes fir different folks. No one said anything different.

 

[Ovinomancer]

But it is. There are games where players have no such authority at all, some in which they can limit the GM to indirectly have such authority and ones where they can directly assume such an authority via some currency or such. GMless freeform would probably be the extreme end of player setting authority, where the players can pretty much just make anything up as long as it doesn't contradict what other players have established. I think @Campbell was perfectly correct to point out the difference.

No. There's a difference between a system tool that is constraining the GM's authority over something and one where the player is granted authority over something. Like how 5e constrains the GM's authority to narrate outcomes in combat to the results of the attack rolls compared to the Forcewall spell which allows a player to say, "there is a wall of force right here right now." These things are not on a spectrum, because one is a constraint on an authority and the other is a granting of authority, or the moving of an authority from one player to another. This are different things, as Campbell says.

And, to that, my examples of spells are different -- not in the way I was using them to showcase how "edits" are okay with you for entirely arbitrary and uncritical reasons so long as they're familiar, but that spells are actually a fundamentally different kind of mechanic from a Spout Lore in that the latter places constraints on the GM's authority while the former moves limited backstory authority from the GM to the player. It's a good catch.

 

[prabe]

Well, that’s up to you. If your character has ambitions, makes relationships, changes the world, etc. than people will mourn them.

Again, the problem is that you are describing the AP as if it isn’t being run by a human DM. It is, which means that the world can react to your character.

I assure the APs I played in were run by human GMs, and I assure you that our characters didn't matter at all to them.