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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 5123083" data-attributes="member: 2205">Err... no.  We're saying that it's already defined, and we've kinda moved past the definition phase of the discussion.I'm not sure what you're struggling with exactly here.You do realize, I hope, and can imagine how perhaps other people don't play the same way you do?In a railroad, what you just said is not true.  That's the whole point of a railroad.  And yes, a railroad is generally viewed as a "Bad Thing™" by most people.  But not by everybody.  And just because it's a bad thing doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of bad GMs out there who do it, or at least approach that condition.  Hence the definition.So I don't know why you want to insist that we not have these terms to define the endpoints on the spectrum of linear vs. non linear axis of playstyles just because none of your games have approached the endpoint.I've been in games that have approached the "railroad" endpoint.  I've been in games that approach the "sandbox" endpoint.  For my money, both are equally undesireable.  But that's my personal opinion, and I started this thread because I've percieved that there's a wave of support for the sandbox as not undesireable, and in fact, the way RPGs should be played.  I find this surprising.  Not terribly so if it's just a few people here and there who have niche tastes, but I percieve, whether rightly or wrongly, that it's more than just a few people, it's an actual disorganized movement or fad by now.Nobody in any discussion I've ever heard of, in gaming or literature, calls that a plot.  That's a "plot hook" or a potential plot.  Plot is either what happens when the PCs do something about it, or in a more railroady scenario, what the GM has already decided the PCs will do about it and how they will proceed, and if the PCs attempt anything else, it'll fail just because, that's not what was written beforehand.  Plot, in this case, does not take on a new definition that you've made up for it, but uses a very similar one to what plot in a discussion of a book or movie would also use.</blockquote>

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