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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8995008" data-attributes="member: 4937">I mention this possibility at the end of my original post.  There is more than one way to play with the curtain up so that the players can see the illusion, in which case it probably isn't really illusionism.  I don't know if I would go that far, but in my original essay on railroading techniques (linked to in my original post) I note that there are times you can railroad players in order to increase player agency because without the initial rails they don't have enough information to make an informed choice anyway.You hardly have to say any more.  I don't agree with Wick over most areas of game design and even less so on GM technique, but Wick is probably the best railroader in the business, both in terms of his ability to do it and in terms of using it artfully to accomplish some goal.I got to admit that even I'm a bit impressed.  That 'flashback' technique is not even a technique I listed in my techniques on railroading, but it's a masterful bit of metagame directing.  Like I said, whatever else you can say about him, he can conduct a railroad like Tom Hanks aboard the Polar Express.Examples please.See, I don't buy this.  I own the Great Pendragon Campaign, and like the Chronicles of the Dragonlance campaign, I suspect it plays better if the conductor is willing to let the game go off the rails.  In particular, I would consider it almost a requirement of running the GPC well that the players are allowed and even encouraged to replace the standard Knights of the Round table families and knights as major players in the story.  I saw a post a few weeks back by a GM running the game whose knight was angling to replace Lancelot as Guinevere's lover, and while that's an interesting choice, that's precisely the sort of bold move that I think a storyteller should be allowing in that campaign.  Indeed, I'd be running the game very open ended, with the possibility that not all of Arthur's heirs die or that Camlann (if it even happens at all) might not indeed by a pyric victory only.  Probably things would happen like in the story to a large extent, but the PC's could steer things in ways that contradict Mallory.  I certainly don't agree that players highly familiar with Mallory gain more agency in the story if they know that whatever they do, things will always play out exactly the same.  On the other hand, I agree that just because the story is on rails, doesn't mean the group isn't going to have fun.  I fully understand that many groups like to and want to ride a railroad to some foreordained conclusion and that if there is a table agreement to lean into that, that that is a functional style of play.  It's quite possible for a group with a strong table contract to play an RPG the way you might pass a notebook around a table and jointly compose a story, each writer adding to the story in turn.  And there is nothing at all wrong with that if everyone has fun.  I'm certainly not here to say something like "Railroading bad" or "Illusionism bad".   What I'm really trying to say is, "Know what you are doing and what the consequences of it are and why you are doing it."  I do feel that for the majority of players and the majority of aesthetics of play, railroading techniques and illusionism are like spices where a very little goes a long ways, or like salt or vinegar were a little can enhance a dish but too much ruins it.  But that doesn't mean that I think other ways of playing are bad or that you are wrong for liking a very salty and vinegary dish if it is to your taste.</blockquote>

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