LostSoul
Adventurer
I can just imagine it:
No, I really don't think you can.
I can just imagine it:
This to me seems like judging the PC's far more harshly than any in game judgment is likely to be.
"Ok, that's it, you aren't playing the game [I envisioned], so either get back to playing the game [I envisioned] or we quit.", is simply applying the moral judgment of the players actions at the metagame level.
I can just imagine it:
"What do you mean your terrorist/freedom fighter PCs like killing people? You're supposed to be agonising over the moral consequences of blowing up minor political officials of a regime you regard as oppressive, not enjoying it! Get out of my group!"
That's also known as a sophist.I'm a professional philosopher.
Really?
I point to the paladin as a prime example of the game enforcing a specific moral point of view to the degree of pretty much destroying the character if you stray from that moral point of view.
Yeah, this gets back to the idea of "don't play with douchebags".
A player who decides that his amoral sociopath character fits into a game based around the theme of morality...
is no different than the player who brings in Sir Killsalot to the high RP court intrigue game, or any other player who brings in a character that just doesn't fit into the game.
Celebrim's example of the player who abuses the system and brings in his psychopath to DitV, pretty much by definition "doesn't get the game".
To put it another way: if my aim, in play, is to explore the relationship between freedom and virtue; and the GM tells me that in his/her gameworld all elementals are evil because they wouldn't obey the dictates of the gods; then what is there left for me as a player to do in that game? I can move my PC through the GM's world and do whatever stuff I'm presented with opportunities to do, but how am I going to address my question, and express an attitude towards it, by playing my PC? The GM has already told me what the answer is: if my PC disobeys the gods, the GM's gameworld already tells me that I'm evil.
There's the prelude to the railroad.
And suppose me and my fellow PCs come across some angels fighting some elementals - who should we help? The GM has already told me what the answer is: on the (reasonable) assumption that we don't want to do evil or help evil, we have to fight with the angels against the elementals.
There's the railroad.
But you can't say it's not railroading just because the players (via their PCs) are free to explore whatever they like, if the upshot of those explorations frequently negates or undermines the very reasons that the players have for engaging witht the gameworld in the first place.
[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION]
That sounds alot like the contracts that require a gawd oath in KotD/Hackmaster.![]()
The same question could be asked of Hussar's terrorism-oriented game. Or of a typical D&D game - what happens if a player has his/her PC rob the merchants and slaughter all the villagers? In my view this is not a problem about the adjudication of PC action - it is a metagame/social contract problem. It's solved by finding out whether or not the player is actually interested in playing the game.
No, I really don't think you can.