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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8698471" data-attributes="member: 42582">Well I am not a PC, I'm a real person in the real world.If I was playing a character in a RPG, then one thing I might do is declare that my PC undertakes research. Whether or not the game is a railroad depends on a range of things: where is my reason for undertaking the research coming from?; and how is the outcome of my research resolved?.When you say &quot;I know&quot;, what you mean is I have decided. Because the shared fiction has no independent existence as an object of knowledge.So what is happening here is that a player is declaring an action; the GM has already decided the outcome (ie nothing useful happens); and the GM is not telling the player that straight-up, but rather is allowing the player to proceed as if the search for the clue, door, etc is meaningful. That seems to fit the definition of &quot;railroading&quot; and &quot;illusionism&quot; being used in this thread. I'm responding to what you (and others) are posting. As I posted, the default presentation of 4e D&amp;D is not railroading (eg in the rules for resolving a skill challenge, there is no provision for a check to find a clue to fail just because the GM has decided that there is no clue to be found).If the default approach to 5e is to run it as a railroad, that would of course be an interesting state of affairs.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8698471, member: 42582"] Well I am not a PC, I'm a real person in the real world. If I was playing a character in a RPG, then one thing I might do is declare that my PC undertakes research. Whether or not the game is a railroad depends on a range of things: [i]where is my reason for undertaking the research coming from?[/i]; and [i]how is the outcome of my research resolved?[/i]. When you say "I know", what you mean is [i]I have decided[/i]. Because the shared fiction has no independent existence as an object of knowledge. So what is happening here is that a player is declaring an action; the GM has already decided the outcome (ie nothing useful happens); and the GM is not telling the player that straight-up, but rather is allowing the player to proceed as if the search for the clue, door, etc is meaningful. That seems to fit the definition of "railroading" and "illusionism" being used in this thread. I'm responding to what you (and others) are posting. As I posted, the default presentation of 4e D&D is not railroading (eg in the rules for resolving a skill challenge, there is no provision for a check to find a clue to fail [i]just because the GM has decided that there is no clue to be found[/i]). If the default approach to 5e [i]is[/i] to run it as a railroad, that would of course be an interesting state of affairs. [/QUOTE]

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