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That certainly happens too. But checks or rules are not required for a scene to have objective, stakes or consequences. It should be rather obvious that a conversation can have all of these, and indeed regularly do both in fiction and in the real life.

Free roleplay is to get to know the situation and the NPCs. It does not need to be "recruited at the tavern" that is very basic, but I think the thematic and emotional connection to the events is better, if the players actually interact with the people. Like if you need to save a princess from...

I think this is really weird thing to say. I think this sort of roleplay is the best way to establish the stakes so that they have actual emotional weight. And of course it can have consequences too, you do not need rules for that.

Even if the the likely outcome of the roleplayed scenes is that the characters pick up the quest and head to the dungeon/haunted castle/etc, I think that it is usually worth playing it rather than just skipping directly to the "adventure location." The roleplaying is important for establishing...

I mean, players "change" such things all the time by the actions of their characters. They decide where their characters go, who to befriend, who to attack, who to rob etc. Now there might be less of such happening in an AP with limited material, but I'd certainly expect some of it. And in a...

What I think might encourage some railroading in D&D is the reliance on published adventure paths. A lot of people run these. And these are not necessary full railroads, but there certainly is a strong incentive for the GM to try to keep the game within the parameters of the material they have...

Sure, but I think having this sort of buffer is the point of D&D style hit point. They're a "defeatometer" that makes things more predictable. They inform you that things are starting to get dire and but you've couple of turns to course correct. And I think this is mostly a good thing, even if...

Yes, probably. But I don't think it would be too bad, if there was just one such "combo counter" to track. A lot of classes already require tracking several resources.

Of course a lot of this weirdness is not caused by hit points per se, it is caused by having so many of them and by the weapon damage capping so low. We can easily imagine a system where there are less hit points, weapon crits do significantly more damage (or at least have potential to do so)...

Interesting thing to say, and I think you are right. And I think this is why I prefer the D&D style approach (though I'm not quite convinced it is due rules supporting it here rather than just not interfering with it.) Basically method acting roleplay, you inhabit and express your character. And...

That is an interesting point. Some sort of "combo point" or "progress bar" system in which you fill it with weaker attacks and can then spend it for more powerful attacks is very common (though almost always alongside the HP) but I can't ever recall seeing something like that in a tabletop RPG...

One might think that due the name "narrativism" but it is not true. Narrativism very much expects you to follow the rules, though the rules might be more geared towards crating interesting conflicts and twists, rather than simulating the fictional reality of the world. But I also am not sure...

Though what also is not railroading: the campaign having a premise. If the GM says "I'd like to run the Tomb of Horrors, you guys wanna play?" and the players agree to that, I would expect the players to make characters who are actually willing to explore said tomb and it is not railroading for...

That the characters end up where the GM "wanted" them is no indication that any railroading happened. A good GM playing with people they know, taking account the interests of the players and beliefs and goals of the characters can probably predict far better than mere random chance would suggest...

It is pretty common here. People try to obfuscate the weakness of their argument by overtly verbose and complex expression of it. Coherent ideas can usually be expressed relatively concisely.

Using exhaustion track or something similar to abstract this seems fine to me, but it going away by normal healing (and thus by long rest) sort of defeats the point.

Yeah, I've been thinking the same. It doesn't even need to be some super grievous permanent injury, but something that cannot be instantly fixed. It would also give combat more nuanced defeat and attrition conditions, as you could sustain an injury that is not healed just by taking a long rest.

In any case, like I said ages ago when this thread started, the trouble with ranger is not actually the class, it is that the game as it is currently is basically has no structured mechanics for exploration, foraging, travel etc. These are things ranger should be an expert on, but there is no...

Perhaps. Not sure "urban ranger" works for me though. Right. Druid already is there as the nature magic class, so ranger doesn't necessarily need to do that too. But if rangers have magic, then I'd certainly expect it to be similar to that of the druids. In my current setting both druids and...

You can do that, but personally I think the literal point of having character classes is to evoke archetypes, so I want to lean into that in a class based game. If I want to independently come up with a character concept and then pick mechanics to suit it, I'd rather do that in a more freeform...