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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5572957" data-attributes="member: 42582">In a game in which (i) the exploration includes GM-determined evaluations, and (ii) the main aim of the players is to address some particular thematic/evaluative concern, then yes - or, at least, a common prelude to railroad.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.When I GM, I want to see what my players think about the relationship between freedom and virtue. Or between heroism and expedience. Or between suffering and obligation. And to express those thoughts through play. In order to do that, I need to offer up a gameworld in which the answers are not pre-given. And I need to offer up situations which (in light of the game's action resolution mechanics, the known interests of the players including as expressed via their PC builds, etc) both open up space for a range of potential responses and place pressure on the players to make some sort of decision.This is why not all choices about the gameworld, and about what sorts of consequences will follow from a PC's action, are neutral as between opening up room for players to make meaningful thematic choices. If every choice to free a slave, for example, will result in the player's PC being killed by a bolt from the heavens (because that's how the GM has decreed the game works) then that particular domain of thematic exploration, and meaningful decision-making, has been pretty much excluded.EDIT: To tie this back to the main question in the OP - should the GM replace the loot? A lot of people have responded, No, because that would negate the consequences. But this answer is true only if the main meaningful consequences for the players in question are the acquision or losing of loot. If the main meaningful consequence for the players are that (i) a necromantic object was destroyed, and/or (ii) that a fellow party member went behind the back of his comrades, then replacing the loot doesn't negate those consequences at all. Those consequences stand because the dwarf PC did what he did.So what counts as a railroad, or as negating consequences or opening up the space for consequences, depends on what the players' basis is for getting satisfaction from the game. What is their concern in engaging with the gameworld? This leads me to reiterate - designing the gameworld, and deciding what possibilities are open to the PCs, and what consequences in the gameworld (eg NPC reactions, or finding more loot) will follow from various PC decisions, may or may not be railroading depending on what the interests of the players are.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.</blockquote>

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