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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ThirdWizard" data-source="post: 4707205" data-attributes="member: 12037">Hmm, okay I retract my statement in that case.There is kind of this unspoken rule of D&D (well unspoken in the rulebooks at least) that if the DM spends a lot of time preparing for a session, its expected that you won't go running off for no good reason (as determined by the group dynamics). There are two good reason for this: 1) Your DM has put a lot of effort into it, and he's your friend, and you don't want to make your friend feel like he's wasted his time, and 2) Most DMs don't ad-hoc a game nearly as well as they can run a prepared one.This isn't to say that PCs never go outside what DMs plan for. They do it all the freakin' time! It's one of the things that makes D&D worth playing, IMO. But, its a group game, and just as the DM makes concessions for the players, the players make concessions for the DM, usually, or at least without some kind of reason. And, that is a good thing. If that's something that you consider railroading, then I can definately see that point of view.I like the term "linear design" taken from video games. The reason is that I think of the term "railroading" as something done in game. Two DMs could be  using the same material to run a game, and it could play differently based on how strictly they preserve the A -> B -> C -> D structure in the presented module. So in this sense, I think its important to distinguish between how one prepares the game and how one runs the game.At least, that's how I've been approaching this discussion. It's possible we aren't all quite on the same page as far as that is concerned. Would you say that the discussion is more about preparing for a session, running a session, or both? In other words, when does the distinction between "situation" and "adventure" become most important?Question: If the players express an interest in exploring a "situation" and the DM prepares for it for the next session in exactly the same way that he would have if he had under the "Adventure" definition, is it a situation or is it an adventure? This goes into my question above about preparation vs. running. If two sessions are prepared identically, but one as the result of DM intent and one as a result of player intent, what does that mean as far as the distinction between situation and adventure as per this discussion?This I can understand, but doesn't it go against what people have been saying in the thread? By that I mean that it has sounded like people have been making the point that "situations" and "adventures" are some kind of opposites that don't interact with each other. And, that has been my main problem with the whole idea of situations. But, in this definition they play off of each other and, in fact, improve each other. But, isn't that going against what Celebrim said above?Or are we just agreeing, but having a hard time realizing that we agree? It has happened before on these boards...I think that would be a great idea.</blockquote>

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