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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7057548" data-attributes="member: 42582">From the OP:I didn't try to assign any definitions. I used a word, made it clear how I was using it, and noted that other posters might use it differently. I then gave some examples (one actual, one hypothetical) of GM judgement calls, explained how I thought they related to railroading as I characterised, and invited discussion.That's all.Maybe, although I think people who are happy to toss around phrases like "Quantum Roleplaying", "Schroedinger's brother", etc might be expected to take it as well as they dish it out - I mean, clearly those aren't meant to be descriptions of endearment!Or to look at it another way, which I think responds to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s plea for analysis: I've explained how I think that the process of authoring fiction at the table is distinct from the ingame process whereby events in the fiction cause one another, and hence how I take it to be possible that something is the case in the fiction although no one has written it yet, and hence no one can know it until the writing takes place.Similarly, other posters are free to explain what it is that they value in player input into the shared fiction, and what it is that they prefer the GM to control (including by way of judgement call). Given that those values are probably different from mine, in some cases at least, it naturally follows that they'll have a different (often narrower) conception of what counts as a railroad.Because the number of people who change their preferences due to internet discussion, while not necessarily zero, is fairly small, I don't think attempts to argue why one's preferences are sensible ones (eg that they are truer to D&D tradition) are likely to get very far. I think that actual accounts of techniques, or pointing out in particular episodes of play where (say) player and GM influence were felt and how they interacted to yield some outcome that mattered to the participants at the table, is likely to be more fruitful. As a general rule you don't have to like something to be able to understand and analyse it.</blockquote>

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