NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 3698893" data-attributes="member: 30001">I think gaming style is going to be relevant to any thread that discusses where the RPG hobby ought to go.  Folks are going to want the direction, and products created, to support their gaming style.  "Railroading" does have an extreme connotation - the metaphor suggests it.  I don't think the metaphor is an appropriate one for something in the gray area of DM control of the situation.  It's like saying that the word "maniac" has acquired a ridiculous extreme-end-of-the-spectrum connotation.  Well...yea.  "Story telling" puts in the mind of the DM a priority that IMO is at odds with what the game is about.  The traditional game has strong elements of "adjucating the situation" to it - rolling dice behind the screen, deciding on NPC reactions based on versimiltude, etc.  There are very few places, if any, in the core books where the assumption is that the DM will decide outcome based on his arbitrary notions of what makes for an interesting story, and yet that's what "story telling" denotes, and ultimately encourages.  Deciding that the BBEG is an uncle of one of the PCs is NOT story telling - I don't have a problem with that.  It's the DMs job to define the elements the game world, and how they relate to each other - and choosing interesting elements with dramatic potential is fine.  As long as the DM doesn't determine how the events unfold by going beyond the rule set and versimiltude and just making up something that sounds good.Granted, this is all gaming style opinion, but IMO it's at the core of what it means to develop the hobby in a direction because you first have to figure out what RPGs are all about.  If you want to use DnD as a story telling vehicle, or to teach math skills, or whatever then that's fine too in a broad sense - I'm just not going to advocate for that approach because ultimately it will create a product that I'm not interested in buying.</blockquote>

Verification