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Would you say there is a difference between the act of facing a challenge to something you care about/your character cares about, vs. the act of changing the sound of your voice, speaking dialogue chosen for dramatic effect, and "selling" a scene as having a certain emotional color and texture...

I think the reason they get dragged along with it for folks who come from other, non-narrative-game perspectives is that these innovations generally came to their attention only through narrative games like AW, 13A, etc. So if they're in a narrative game, they must be narrative mechanics, right?

Personally, I thought the 5.0 Warlock "split subclass" concept had a lot of potential. It just wasn't necessary for the Warlock, and the new version is better for making pacts non-unique. The Summoner class I've been chewing on for a few years now uses this model. At 1st level you choose the...

It does not. Unless the GM is a control freak, I guess. Why do you insert the "randomly"? That was never mentioned. You are inserting ideas, specifically player-hostile and antagonistic ideas, for no reason; the post quoted certainly doesn't give the slightest reason to do so. No, they don't...

Perhaps, then, there has been a breakdown in communication, if you believe you are arguing for A, and multiple different people are interpreting you as arguing against A.

Then if they genuinely are completely unprepared, they should answer honestly: "I don't actually have anything prepared for doing this, and I'm not up to improvising it tonight, so this will need to be the end of the adventure proper for this week. I'm happy handling downtime activities, or any...

There are no classes with a d4 hit die, so as phrased, the question is moot. However, if you had a Cleric, Wizard, etc. with 20 Con, then you could have a situation where 2x[Con Mod] is greater than the hit die. Personally? I think the feat should give you that minimum value. So you...

When I finally have to get concise, I often can. It's just a matter of getting my brain in the right gear. 99% of the time, logorrheic sludge.

Because you said that a GM having things they like and thus think would be cool to have in their game is railroading. Or at least that's where your examples keep pointing, whether or not that was your intent. Because when you say things like... Especially after you have (repeatedly) said that...

At least in this case, I am partially basing that on this very forum. Folks here very frequently tend to skew that way, sometimes to an almost unbelievable degree. Plus? We literally had an over-1k-page thread specifically on this forum talking about the conservatism of the D&D community. This...

Twilight Cleric is in fact the reason I couldn't say "spellcaster options", because people freaked out about that one pretty hard. "May or may not get a pass" was because of the kerfluffle from silvery barbs, which was actually a huge nothing-burger but good Lord people were crying apocalypse...

Unfavorable interpretations that make things weaker than they really should be are very common in the 5e community. The community overall is hypersensitive to anything that might be potentially overpowered, except for Wizard options, which may or may not get a pass.

I mean, I think there's a very clear reason why.

I would not, personally, call that a form of railroading--if the GM is open about their actions. "Guys, I understand you'd like to do that, but <explanation>". For example, let's say they want to destroy the Red Wizards of Thay. That's...a really, really big task. Even if the players fail...

Wait wait wait wait wait. So, now it's not, even remotely, about any form of agency at all--even though that's pretty consistently what everyone else uses the term for--and is instead solely and exclusively about GM caring about the content being undertaken or skipped? Absolutely the heck not...

"Railroading is the word for when a GM, through coercion or manipulation, enforces an inflexibly linear experience as part of GMing, that the players would not accept if they were aware of it, or do not accept if they are already aware of it." Also, if I may, a secondary point I've been trying...

Further, there is a critical difference between GM points being used, and the techniques (or lack thereof...) in D&D. That is, the manipulation is done openly. You openly spend your Doom Pool on things. You openly, without any pretense or concealment, draw on GM metacurrencies to achieve a...

Then let me ask simply: Why does "railroading", this single specific word, NEED to be both positive and negative? Why can't it just be negative, and we use the other, widely-used, widely-available, inherently neutral term "linear"? Why do you NEED this one specific word to be positive?

If it is a singular isolated case, perhaps it might not be railroading--but I see it as reflecting a general pattern of pretense. The GM is pretending that they allow the players to act with meaningful freedom, but in practice, they're functionally forbidding anything that doesn't suit their...

Some people like linear adventures. Not all linear adventures are railroads. The first group of people would be people who want a linear adventure and are not even attempting to exert their own choices, yes. The bolded part makes all the difference, imagine that. Except that that's not what...