What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

[Thomas Shey]

Sure, I would agree there may be better ways to mechanize this stuff for gameplay.

I just think that leaving it open to interpretation by the GM is one of the worst ways to go.

Probably so, though I'm not sure its intrisnically worse than systems with psychological disadvantages. I've seen the argument "But you buy into those" but I'd argue "setting a mental attribute low" is buying into one of those in a roundabout way.

This is mostly an issue that should only come up with some degenerate play processes or where the GM and one or more players aren't on the same page as to how the mental attributes should be viewed, most likely.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"One True Way" is a term that by its nature, denies the legitimacy of other approaches. I don't think that's what you're intending here.

It's the way I have the most fun with, and the only way I want to run.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I have no problem with non-physical stats mattering, and, the way I play, they do, but I think enforcing certain decisions by the character by force is a terrible way to make them matter (if you feel like they don't for some reason).

It isn't a great one, but in some degerate cases it may be the lesser of two evils.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I suspect even you would get tired if they kept running away from everything they weren't debating about about until the end of time.

Never seen that happen. Sounds like those people aren't interested in playing to me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's the way I have the most fun with, and the only way I want to run.

Yeah, but "One True Way" doesn't limit it to just you.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Never seen that happen. Sounds like those people aren't interested in playing to me.

As discussed earlier, it can happen because of a misalignment of how much reward-to-risk the GM and players have. They keep looking for one that lands in their comfort, the GM keeps not supplying it because it seems pointlessly easy or doesn't fit their idea of how it'd work in the setting.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't think there should be mental attributes, because they measure something against the player, rather than separate from the player like physical attributes. Those scores and the mechanisms they impact are fine, just call them something else and it won't be a problem anymore.
No one should tell a player they can't try something "because your character isn't that smart."

Its a legitimate position, just not one I can entirely share. To be honest, its one that surprises me a bit from a one-time Hero System fan.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't have a problem with mental attributes and using mental attribute terms - as long as they are used for execution of actions when checks are made and not as gatekeepers for playing a certain way.

Besides the degenerate case I've mentioned, sometimes game systems present attributes but don't actually have a lot of mechanics affiliated with them. As I noted, back in the day, if you weren't a MU Intelligence didn't do much for you as an OD&D character.

 

[Thomas Shey]

From the perspective of mental attributes, a character is only what the player decides to play them as. Most of the time, a PC is exactly as smart as the player, for obvious reasons. On some occassions, they are dumber than the player. They cannot, by definition, be smarter than the player.

I don't think that's actually true; its entirely possible for the GM to give hints to a player playing a particularly smart character to represent things they've noticed or might have thought about that the player may not have.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I enjoyed 2e's Skills and Powers - an Intelligence 10 meant you could have a Knowledge of 8 but a Logic/Reason of 12.