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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7051467" data-attributes="member: 29398">I don't even know what this means, so...no answer. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I don't think so.  Whether or not there's a railroad, an illusion, or neither does not depend on system; and people will still have their system preferences thus yes, system still matters.That might be a table-by-table thing and again might not have a direct correlation with the presence or absence of a railroad or an illusion.This one might have a correlation, in that a DM running the illusion style is probably a bit more controlling than one who is not.  But note that I say 'probably'; as I don't think the correlation is always present.==================================But what if you don't even realize it's happening?What reading this tells me is that a DM who doesn't plan things out in advance and maybe even makes it all up as she goes along - perhaps with the specific intention of leaving herself able to react to what the party do in order to give a more interesting game for the players - is by your definitions always going to be railroading in the negative way.  Seems a bit over-the-top.You state "One of the tenets of good world-building is to design a setting which is conducive to interesting things happening", with which I agree.  But the unspoken part of that would logically go on to say something like "and it really helps game play if those interesting things tend to happen when the PCs are around to notice and-or interact with them, rather than always happening somewhere else.".Further, it's close to impossible to contrive a coincidence before the game starts unless it's intended to happen in the first session.  Let's say your idea is to plan a coincidence that in two years (i.e. time enough for the party to gain levels enough to deal with this) on midwinter's night they will see what looks like a meteorite crash into the side of Mount Steepsides, and if they follow it up you'll run them into Expedition to the Barrier Peaks - but tell me, at campaign start do you as DM have any idea where your party will be on midwinter's night two game-years hence and will they even be on the same continent/world/plane as Mount Steepsides?No.  That meteorite is gonna crash into whatever mountain the party can see at the time, and if they're nowhere near any mountains on midwinter's night it'll stay in orbit for a few days/weeks/months until they are.The other option is to leave it baked in as is: the meteorite hits Mount Steepsides on midwinter's night no matter what, and half a year later when the party wander by again all they hear is "Oh yeah, something crashed into the mountain last winter.  Too bad you guys weren't here - I heard the group that went up to investigate made a fortune at it!"  Yeah, how much fun is that? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Lanefan</blockquote>

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