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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7757722" data-attributes="member: 42582">Well, the PCs aren't actually making decisions either - the players are, just like the writers of Indiana Jones.For a RPG to happen, the PCs have to find themselves in some sort of situation that gives the players the opportunity to declare meaningful actions for those PCs. There are two basic options for who decides what the situation is: the players, or the GM. And within those options, their are sub-options.It's relatively uncommon for the players to be able to establish their own situations out of whole cloth; in classic dungeon-crawling D&amp;D the GM has prepared a dungeon or wilderness, and the players get to choose what area(s) their PCs tackle and also the conditions (stealth, gear, etc) under which that tackling happens.If the GM is establishing the situations, the GM can do that independently of what has gone before and/or without significant regard to past player actions - inevitably an AP is going to look quite a bit like this, given that it is pre-authored - or the GM can establish situations on the basis of what has gone before.I don't think the GM using coincidence, or &quot;narrative logic&quot;, in establishing situations has to be railroad-y. Presumably you don't think your Conan game was a railroad! I don't think that D&amp;D has to be wildly different in this respect. Classic dungeon-crawl or hexcrawl D&amp;D is wargame-y, but I'm not sure that that's the main way of playing D&amp;D these days.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7757722, member: 42582"] Well, the PCs aren't actually making decisions either - the players are, just like the writers of Indiana Jones. For a RPG to happen, the PCs have to find themselves in some sort of situation that gives the players the opportunity to declare meaningful actions for those PCs. There are two basic options for who decides what the situation is: the players, or the GM. And within those options, their are sub-options. It's relatively uncommon for the players to be able to establish their own situations out of whole cloth; in classic dungeon-crawling D&D the GM has prepared a dungeon or wilderness, and the players get to choose what area(s) their PCs tackle and also the conditions (stealth, gear, etc) under which that tackling happens. If the GM is establishing the situations, the GM can do that independently of what has gone before and/or without significant regard to past player actions - inevitably an AP is going to look quite a bit like this, given that it is pre-authored - or the GM can establish situations on the basis of what has gone before. I don't think the GM using coincidence, or "narrative logic", in establishing situations has to be railroad-y. Presumably you don't think your Conan game was a railroad! I don't think that D&D has to be wildly different in this respect. Classic dungeon-crawl or hexcrawl D&D is wargame-y, but I'm not sure that that's the main way of playing D&D these days. [/QUOTE]

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