Then traditional play can't inherently be a railroad. Under that definition, no agreed upon playstyle can be.
I have no idea what you are talking about. I don’t see the connection you’re making between a GM and player being on the same page about the PCs role and theme, and whatever it is that you think that says about trad play and railroading.
If the GM and player both understand what “Cunning Expert” should entail in
@pemerton ’s MHRP hack, that says nothing about trad play.
You’ve made some leap somewhere, and I fear it was off a cliff.
Yeah, that's not the case. It will rarely lead to railroading, because you will rarely find that odd bad DM out there. The claim of often is bupkis.
It depends on how one views railroading, clearly. There are degrees of it, I’d say, and most of us have been guilty of it at least sometimes. But
@pemerton has much less tolerance for it than many others. I probably have more tolerance to it than he does, but less than you do.
Meaning he might feel railroaded before I do in a game. And I might before you. Again, I’m not talking about the mythical mustache twirling railroader that you think I am… I leave that schtick to
@bloodtide .
I’m talking about instances of play. A single GM decision or maybe a couple back to back… that’s enough to bother some folks. Maybe not you, maybe not your players, but plenty of folks.
So far I've only seen your call out of @Lanefan which doesn't say what you think it does. That he feels that strongly about it for his own game, and likely wouldn't play in a game that has it, that comment does not say you shouldn't be doing it.
He cannot even comment about the kind of game for fear of moderation.
It comes up when people start panicking about DM authority and accusations fly. It rarely comes out on its own.
Seems like a wise way to get people to think you’re not likely to railroad.
But what about my question. You sit down at a con game, and that's the first thing the GM says. “I can override your action declarations, force you from the game, and then use your character as an NPC.”
This wouldn’t register in any way to you as alarming? No warning bells going off at all, huh?
Ah, the old canard about the slippery slope of GM authority leading inevitably to the dark pit of railroading. I guess railroading GMs exist, millions of people play RPGs after all, but to me it's always been pretty much the gamer version of Satanic panic. Lots of smoke, no fire. The bad GMs I've had would have been bad GMs with just about every system.
Well, again… we have
@bloodtide commenting that he’s a proud railroader right here in this thread. He seems to be a great example.
But again, it doesn’t even need to go that far. Look at how strongly many of you guys reject anything that’s not the trad way. Look at how you guys rationalize the examples and instances of similar mechanics and processes in trad play.
I would expect play in the games of many folks in this thread to feel at least a bit railroady at times. Many others may not feel that way… but your clear need to be responsible for the creation of all the fiction and all the resolutions to obstacles and the stakes of play and so on… it’s just gonna make me feel that way at times.
As far as "quantum" I haven't used it since someone complained about it. Altering reality? Well a player deciding that the runes were a map did alter the reality of the fiction. If the rules of the game and the rest of the people at the table are okay with it, why is it a problem to state what they are doing? It's their game, let them do what they want.
As has been explained many times, there is a difference between changing something and establishing something. If the players ask the GM “what’s to the west of Capitol City?” and the GM decides “the Argost Mountains”, he's not changing anything. He’s establishing something.
Now, explanation aside… I personally don’t care if you use the term quantum or describe something as altering reality… I just think it’s wrong, or at least misguided.
