D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[pemerton]

What do "to visit grief upon her" and "the situation became charged" mean? Because both those seem like game-specific terms in your example.

Both are terms of ordinary English. The verb to visit something upon someone means to bring it to them. Grief, used colloquially, means harm or, more generally, bad things.

Charged, of a situation, means that it is laden with potential for action or emotional response, as in "the atmosphere at the meeting was highly charged".

 

[Gradine]

Suppose a GM does this: do you know what I call "drawing the players into the GM's pre-authored family drama"? I call it a railroad.

If you're allowed to call certain structures of play "artificial", "forced" and "unnatural", why am I not allowed to call certain structure of play "railroads"?

I am absolutely up for most of what you've been putting down in this thread, but this is has been an unwelcome detour. "Railroad" has a pretty solidified definition within the community and a (well-deserved or not) negative connotation... and it ain't this.

Like I can absolutely understand a preference for player-driven stories, or even player-driven worldbuilding. But calling every style of running a game that isn't exactly that "railroading" is pretty insulting to a pretty broad swath of GMs (and players) whose preferences are different.

Hell, I could even see you making the argument that all of these things are just another form of railroading, and that would be something to discuss. But just acting like it's true and that everyone else is being obstinate in not agreeing is not moving the conversation literally anywhere worthwhile.

 

[pemerton]

I'm telling you that calling a style of game that does not include ongoing creation of fiction by a player a "railroad" is derogatory.

And I have now told you about four times that I am not doing that. So can you please stop asserting that I am.

 

[CreamCloud0]

If you're allowed to call certain structures of play "artificial", "forced" and "unnatural", why am I not allowed to call certain structure of play "railroads"?

Because those first three terms are more general descriptions of observation whereas railroad actually has an (approximately) agreed upon definition that means a specific thing to the people who use it

 

[Gradine]

That isn't really advice out of character though. The PC is familiar enough with the terrain of Middle-Earth to know what their options are.

One of my many RPG soapboxes is that it is 100% always the GM's responsibility to inform the players of any relevant information that their characters would know in any given situation.

 

[pemerton]

I am absolutely up for most of what you've been putting down in this thread, but this is has been an unwelcome detour. "Railroad" has a pretty solidified definition within the community and a (well-deserved or not) negative connotation... and it ain't this.

Like I can absolutely understand a preference for player-driven stories, or even player-driven worldbuilding. But calling every style of running a game that isn't exactly that "railroading" is pretty insulting to a pretty broad swath of GMs (and players) whose preferences are different.

Hell, I could even see you making the argument that all of these things are just another form of railroading, and that would be something to discuss. But just acting like it's true and that everyone else is being obstinate in not agreeing is not moving the conversation literally anywhere worthwhile.

I'm not asking anyone to agree. I'm sharing my feelings. Just like other posters have shared their feelings about what is "unnatural", "artificial", "forced", etc.

 

[Oofta]

And I have now told you about four times that I am not doing that. So can you please stop asserting that I am.

That's not how it works. If call you the "n" word and say "Hey, I don't mean anything by it" that doesn't make it okay.

 

[Gradine]

If I were to call you a boogaloo*

 

[pemerton]

Because those first three terms are more general descriptions of observation whereas railroad actually has an (approximately) agreed upon definition that means a specific thing to the people who use it

Really? You think so?

I mean, "railroad" means a specific thing to me when I use it: it means play where all the fictional outcomes have been decided by the GM (see my reply to @Pedantic not far upthread for a slightly more technical setting out of this point).

And so does "artificial": in this context it is OBVIOUSLY a criticism, intended to convey that the game feels unpleasant or alien or not a thing to be done naturally.

If I'm expected to accept, I have done throughout this thread, that it is OK for other posters to call the sort of game I enjoy artificial, why am I obliged to refrain from saying that the sort of game they enjoy is, for me, a railroad?

 

[Oofta]

I really hope it's not an offensive term I just didn't know about.