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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5422189" data-attributes="member: 42582">For those still following this thread - an actual play example of a railroad and the ensuing player/GM meltdown can be found <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/299266-3-5e-module-train-wreck-opinion-thread.html" target="_blank">here</a>.From my point of view, the problem here isn't the lack of sandbox - that is, the GM presenting a detailed situation with which the players are expected to engage via their PCs - but with the GM trying also to dictate the form that that engagement will take, leaving the players little to do but make local tactical decisions and roll the dice.This also sheds light, for me, on the &quot;4e is a dice rolling exercise&quot; notion. As the example shows, a 3E game can also reduce (for the players) to nothing but tactics and dice. It's just that in 3E it is harder than in 4e to describe tactics and dice rolls without using language that also engages with the gameworld, whereas in 4e this is possible using almost entirely the metagame rules vocabulary.But to my mind this doesn't make a game like the one described in that post more of a roleplaying game. It's just a dice-rolling exercise with colour.4e, then, might be seen as a system that makes railroading harder because it makes it harder to cloak the railroading in the colour of roleplaying - the fact that it's nothing but tactics and dice becomes transparent. (For the same reason, 4e will make the drift from roleplaying game to self-evident wargame/boardgame easier.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5422189, member: 42582"] For those still following this thread - an actual play example of a railroad and the ensuing player/GM meltdown can be found [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/299266-3-5e-module-train-wreck-opinion-thread.html]here[/url]. From my point of view, the problem here isn't the lack of sandbox - that is, the GM presenting a detailed situation with which the players are expected to engage via their PCs - but with the GM trying also to dictate the form that that engagement will take, leaving the players little to do but make local tactical decisions and roll the dice. This also sheds light, for me, on the "4e is a dice rolling exercise" notion. As the example shows, a 3E game can also reduce (for the players) to nothing but tactics and dice. It's just that in 3E it is harder than in 4e to describe tactics and dice rolls without using language that also engages with the gameworld, whereas in 4e this is possible using almost entirely the metagame rules vocabulary. But to my mind this doesn't make a game like the one described in that post more of a roleplaying game. It's just a dice-rolling exercise with colour. 4e, then, might be seen as a system that makes railroading harder because it makes it harder to cloak the railroading in the colour of roleplaying - the fact that it's nothing but tactics and dice becomes transparent. (For the same reason, 4e will make the drift from roleplaying game to self-evident wargame/boardgame easier.) [/QUOTE]

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