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Yeah but we aren't discussing this kind of player. We're discussing "best tactic the player could think of every time plus personality" player. which you seem to keep forgetting.

The nice thing about Advantage/Disadvantage is you can use it in almost any game, not just 5e and not just D&D.

also, i liked the check

In the case we're describing, a character's tactical choices are only perfect if the player's are and the player is as imperfect as all humans. Yes, but the point is your assertion that highly tactical players always treat their PCs as disposable bits (and therefore somehow less "real" than...

Yes. Precisely my point But this is only relevant to our conversation if you assume that the threshold for "realness" of a character (and therefore as a human) is that they panic under pressure. Not all real humans do, therefore not all "real" characters do. Yes, but not with the same...

Exactly my point: Your choice of tactics is limited to the ones your limited PC could make, but within that you have a wide range of possible interesting choices--and this is good and fun. These games involve creativity within restraints which make for interesting choices, the PCs imaginary...

Then we play with real different people. Yesm and in any game you lose and play again. But you'd much rather not lose. A game CONSISTS OF things that limit your tactical choices. If you're playing soccer you can't use your hands unless you're a goalie but then you need to hang out back...

This is still a "difficult situation" (even the chess king is in a difficult situation) and tactical advantage is about survival and survival is deeply emotional. This why tactical games can be fun: the stakes are you die and stop playing. I'm real. You're real. All our characters are equally...

A good GM will entertain the players and him or herself for a long time. Period. If the players: -A) aren't pushing their characters RPwise and -B) they would enjoy it if they did ...then the GM will push the players to do that. If both A and B aren't true, the GM doesn't have to do that and...

This is baffling: You like mechanics that blur out fictional positioning advantages to a die advantage because why? Otherwise the player and GM might have to agree on the physics of the game? Otherwise the player might have to trust the GM they agreed to spend hours of their life playing with?

That's funny because I tend to like D&D better than AW for exactly the same reason. I can't imagine a walking around needing "emotional connections" or "a sense of community" (those things are free and always have been, even in the post-Apocalpse) but I know I don't want to be...

Then we're right back where we were a few posts ago where I already said: if the _sole content_ of the choice is the presence of the tower, that is genuinely a waste of time. If it isn't, that's different.

Not at all in any way-- The DM can write: "It's sandy on the left, if you go left there's a beach, there are footprints leading only one way to the right, the tower is there" or the DM can write "It's sandy on the left, if you go left there's the tower, there are footprints leading only one way...

I wasn't talking about whether it was railroading specifically, I was talking about whether it was a waste of time ("a pointless choice"). If there's a choice and the choice leads to no different outcome in any way it's DEFINITELY a waste of time*. Whether it's railroading depends on some...

It's a semantic argument. A lot of people call "Pleasant railroading" 'participationism". I don't care what you call it. I will say "choice is removed" is way too vague a description. Choice is always being limited in a game by the mere fact that, say, Glorantha isn't Greyhawk so you can't do...

Then why was the choice there at all? You're just wasting time.

The more important thing is whether the choice has any effect at all. If not: that's a waste of time. If the entire content of either choice is the same, the choice doesn't matter. If the tower is the ONLY thing there either way, it was a pointless choice.

This is wholly incorrect for 2 reasons: 1. Events can simply proceed offscreen and players interact with them at different stages depending on when they come in contact with them (real life works like this--if you get tickets to see the Knicks, you interact with the Knicks at whatever stage of...

I see a virtue in this (though I'd never do it) in that it's honest. If a gm is inexperienced or just really wants to run a module and the players have agreed to run that module, I think it's ok to go "Yeah that's not in the module". It's not ideal, but in a Participationistic situation...

These examples are quite different from what I was attempting to describe originally then: A situation where there is a choice presented and it has zero consequences.