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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8163406">And I think here we bump into a fundamental issue over our uses of language. This isnt' at all what I would recognize as a railroad. The GM deciding something about a detail in the setting, even something related to your character, or what you might be interested in, isn't railroading. Railroading is when the choices you make in the setting are being thwarted, so you are railroaded towards some adventure or outcome the GM wants. This is by no means a perfect definition (it has been a long weekend), but it is much closer to my conception of the term railroad, than you saying you are being railroaded because the GM has decided your characters brother is dead. Now that decision could be made in a railoady way: for example you guys are on a quest for your brother and the GM doesn't want that, so he makes him dead. That wouldn't be a good reason in my mind to decide if a relative is dead (I do think when it comes to player character relatives, GMs should be very careful in how they use them). But I can't say I've ever heard anyone call a GM having power over that setting element as features of a railroad. And this is part of why I find conversations with you frustrating. It seems like many of the things which are defining features of the more open sandbox style (agency, avoiding railroads, a believable world, etc), are you things you very consistently shift the language on to not only make defining features of approaches and games you prefer (like Burning Wheel). But also you treat it as a zero sum game and deduct that proportion of each one from the sandbox style. Perhaps you don't mean anything by it. Perhaps this is just how you really feel about the terms. Perhaps you are stuck in legal mind mode, because it is related to your profession and that is just how you make points. I don't know. But this is the aspect of engaging with you I find quite difficult to wrangle with at times.</blockquote>

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