Search results

Why railroad when you can Borg cube?

You can replace “normal” with “non-force” if it makes it easier. In this context they’re intended as synonymous.

I mean, railroading as a term is "fraught" in the sense that it's generally considered to be pejorative if used to describe a particular game or gameplay. (I've argued against the term's use as purely pejorative in the past, but I do appear to be in the minority in that opinion.) Using a term...

I think there could definitely be different assumptions about how widespread knowledge of any one spell is within the greater setting. It is a 7th level spell, after all; players bringing in an assumption that possessors of that spell aren't common seems like a rational assumption.

I mean, obviously you're uncomfortable making new threads. :)

I think you're misreading my post. I'm saying the rules exist to check "narrative contrivance". Transferring authority to the setting via rules (most especially rules that model diegetic elements) is the check on GMs and players creating new narrative elements based on what's currently...

Let me quibble a bit (although I actually more agree with you on this topic.) Games with detailed, exception-based rules (I'm thinking of D&D spells here as a specific example) exist to establish concepts within the fictional setting that grant the setting its own authority, a presence that...

One idea I've toyed with over the years is for a system where every character makes two major selections; their race, which grants them an ability at every odd level, and class, which gives them an ability at every even level. Some ancestries have strong, locked in abilities that really...

Just to toy with this, if our goal is to use 5e classes but not have race as a separate choice silo, we could conceivably use ancestry-themed subclasses. Assuming classes are modified to allow for subclass as a choice at 1st level.

I really think that wasn't their intent, though. They simply assumed that the kinds of changes they were proposing were a natural evolution of gaming style; almost no one at the time (2006-2007) had any idea that the TTRPG base was actually going to fracture into different kinds of gamers...

MVP is a regular-season award. Using playoff results to justify a selection is bad post-hoc rationalization.

If railroading as a term is kind of fraught, isn't "GM force" just as challenging? I don't know what boundary I would draw around "GM force" and "normal GM play", and my gut feeling is that it's certainly game specific.

No spoilers, but I think the Patriots will pull it out.

That seems like a cynical ploy to get people to post Simpson memes, my friend.

I mean, if you as a GM frame a situation such that there is exactly one solution, you kinda laid down the tracks already, right?

The problem here is that assumes that playstyle preferences are some immutable thing that can't change over time.

No it doesn’t. The situations I described above are about stakes versus no stakes, not diegetic vs non-diegetic mechanics. Centering a game around diegetic mechanics can have utility for some play modes, but isn’t connected to the point I was making. A mechanic might be intended to directly...

Any time a scene is framed as "your characters are trapped", players are going to be somewhat unhappy. We instinctually want to escape from a trap, it's not surprising that a player who burns a 7th level slot on an escape spell that doesn't work is going to be salty about the combination of...

If we're staying in the fictional frame and not referencing the mechanics, one of two things is happening. 1) Nothing that has stakes and requires resolution is actually being resolved, so we're in thespian "acting like my character and having conversations" mode. Which I know plenty of...

Real people make stupid decisions with easily avoidable consequences all the time. Characters who always make the appropriate, rational decision all the time are an extremely poor simulation and violate my sense of verisimilitude.