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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8437342" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I feel you've missed the point almost entirely.Here's the thing. If the rolls are hidden, then you are much more able to manipulate the results one way or the other. Would you agree with this basic fact?If the rolls are made in the open, then it becomes significantly more difficult to manipulate the results. The die is right there for all to see.Now, take this very basic idea of transparency....where things are openly shared and not hidden from players....and apply it to the game in other ways.The result is less chance for the GM to steer things in some way.Only if you want the players to be operating under similar conditions to their characters....that they can trust what they know of the world and what their senses tell them.What's to be gained by keeping them in the dark about it?I mean....do you want to see some PCs fight the kraken and try to save the father and daughter, or do you want the players to have to perpetually tease information out of you?I'd have to ask [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] to be sure, but I think the way he used "Soldier" was more about the type of NPC rather than about specifically being a soldier in the fiction, although certainly the NPC could be both.The fact that the NPC was a trained combatant was likely clear from his gear and use of a weapon, and the fact that he'd so far managed to keep him and his daughter safe from the kraken's tentacles. Why would you assume he's some bumpkin under those circumstances?I don't see what light this sheds on anything.If you're meaning that sometimes situations may not be what they appear to be, that's fine, and you can still portray that. There's nothing that stops you from doing so if that would make for an interesting situation or challenge.In the case of the example being discussed, it would seem that possibility wasn't really a concern. The GM wanted to present the PCs with a potential call to action, and so he described the situation and the stakes.This has come up a few times now, from a few different people.Why is subtle force okay but unsubtle force is not? It implies that the important matter is how deftly the GM applies it.If you have two players and one blatantly alters his dice roll....like, he just reaches across the table and turns the die from a 3 to a 20 and yells "I CRIT!" that's bad. But the second player rolls his die on a book and then pokes the book to get the die to roll to another number, that's okay because it was sneakier?No....they're both cheating.Okay. When? Do you have a specific example from play where railroading the players improved things?</blockquote>

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