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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6307034" data-attributes="member: 42582">[MENTION=6776279]Rod Staffwand[/MENTION], sorry I couldn't XP your post, which I enjoyed.Your description of what is common among players isn't really something that I've experienced for 25-odd years. I've generally found that players want to engage the fiction.This relates to the idea of "punishing more severely". In my experience, if players want to engage the fiction, then providing them with fiction to engage - even fiction which is adverse to the desires of their PCs - needn't be experienced as punishing the player. It's providing the player with what s/he wants.This generalisation plays out differently in detail across different players, of course, and part of being a good GM is knowing in which respects, and how far, you can push your players without making the fiction no longer fun or engaging for them. But flawless victory for the PCs certainly isn't the only thing that will tick that box, at least in my experience.Finally, on the railroad - if players using a 13th Age-style mechanic declare a retreat, then the GM deciding upon the campaing loss is not railroading or circumventing the rules. S/he is following the rules, which the players have enlivened. If, at that point of the game, the players don't want to put things into the GM's hands, then they can always decline to declare a retreat and let the action resolution dice fall where they may.One thing that [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has posted a few times in recent weeks (months?) on these boards is that there is no single set of GMing techniques that is universally applicable. I agree with that.Moldvay thinks that metagaming is bad. In my OP I explained why I don't follow that advice any more, although even up to 15 years ago I used to follow it religiously. That doesn't mean that there aren't others out there following Moldvay's advice still, and whose games are better for it. Different RPGers are coming to the game with different propensities, different expectations and different desires for the play experience.</blockquote>

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