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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takasi" data-source="post: 4864845" data-attributes="member: 20194">Take this example:A player wants to buy a potion that makes her pet dog pretty.  The only place she has bought this potion before was in Little Town.  She arrives at Little Town to discover that the potion maker is in mortal danger.  She wants to keep buying potions from this guy.  There's only one way to accomplish her goal and that's to help out.  It doesn't have to be one path; railroads can lead to several destinations, but they have tracks you must follow.  In this scenario the track comes from GM fiat.  'Let's endanger the potion maker!'  While the player can choose to ignore the danger (which seems out of character), she now has an ugly dog.    Players start labeling a game as a railroad when these events occur so frequently that players are no longer satisfied with the game.What about the characters who do want to save the world?  Or when the characters find out later that things are now horrible, and that their outlook was flawed?If they're OK with how things went down then kudos to them for having fun.  Some players may look at what has happened and say 'well it's not really my fault, the DM made all of this crap up.'  In that respect there's no pressure, but there's also no reward.  Where is the fun there?I never said it was an entire campaign.  But if that's what the players really wanted to do, why stop them?  They're having fun.  Why poop in their sandbox?It might not be a tavern.  They might be exploring a mine.  Or hitting on a shopkeeper.  If everyone's having fun then there's no need to inject changes into the status quo.That was just one example of player motivation.  I also included the Wild West and Grand Theft Auto examples.  If a character is really trying to play an anti-hero who is forced to adventure then that's great too.  But make no mistake that you are kicking him around and IMO every player has a breaking point.</blockquote>

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