NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7054982" data-attributes="member: 42582">Suppose you invite all your friend around to play a dungeon crawl. But then, just before they turn up, you discover that what you've prepared is actually a hex-based Classic Traveller sub-sector. The I guess you're screwed!Well, maybe; but the number of times anyone ever accidentally prepared a sub-sector when they were meaning to write up a dungeon level is probably pretty low.Given my preferences for GMing, world-building etc, why would I inadvertantly do the thing I don't want to do. (Qv my comment upthread that certain sorts of prep aren't very useful for a "say 'yes' or roll the dice", "let it ride", "fail forward" approach to RPGing.)Furthermore, suppose it happens that (i) I do conceive of this strange flash-flood idea, and then (ii) I abandon it for the reasons I suggest. Why am I screwed because [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] (I think it was) wouldn't approve? He's not at my table, so why would I care that he characterises what I'm doing as railroading?The notion of "accusation" seems out of place - it's not a courtroom, and no one who isn't at my table is answerable to me. (And vice versa.)But yes, I regard that as railroading. That's why I don't do it. I know that others' take a different view. That's why I noted, in the OP, that others would take a different view.I've consistently agreed with [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] about the Marquis example. Whether or not it is railroading depends on whether the death of the Marquis is an outcome - ie an event of significance relative to the commitments, goals, etc of the players and their PCs - or is part of the framing of a situation. If it's an outcome, then it's railroading whether or not it happen onscreen - and the corollary of this is a motto I've often posted before, nameluy, "No failure offscreen". If it's framing, then it's framing whether the PCs witness it or whether they hear of it (eg in my Dark Sun campaign the PCs heard of the death of the Sorcerer-King of Tyr as the opening moment of the campaign - that's an example of framing).Then you talk about it and reach a resolution of some sort. That's a social problem. It's not an adjudication problem; and I don't really see the appeal of trying to solve the problem of inconsistent preference by covertly negating certain player choices and amplifying others.</blockquote>

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