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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 5583101" data-attributes="member: 1210">Your definition of "railroad" is MUCH bigger than mine, and I always thought that I was the poster child for "smacks of a railroad" hate with the ability to sniff out even hidden tracks. Sure I can. To me, your "elementals vs. angels" scenario above is highly incomplete.If a player wants to explore the intersection of virtue and freedom, then he has a LOT of opportunities. Interacting with humans or demihumans, or (especially) with humanoids that are traditionally thought of as "evil"; his own actions in regards to things like the kobolds enslaved by the goblins; his interactions with government, religion, etc in the campaign setting; the way he deals with prisoners; there are a million opportunities. Just because the dm says, "All monsters of type x are evil" doesn't suddenly invalidate the player's desire to explore the interaction of good and freedom. That's like suggesting that telling the player "All mind flayers are evil" is a railroad as soon as he meets mind flayers with a chain of slaves. The railroad in your scenario would come if the pc went to attack the angels and the dm said, "Whoa there, you can't do that!" Only when a dm controls the path the players are on by forcing some pc actions or refusing others do I see a railroad.  Setting decisions are NOT a railroad, although it's easy to build a setting that strongly promotes railroad style gaming; but a setting is not a railroad in itself.Your post implies giving a great deal of control over the campaign to the players, to the point of letting them rewrite the world's mythic backstory, changing religion and political elements, etc. If a player wants to do that- if he needs that level of control over the setting- he needs to assume the dming chair. And run his own campaign. Not try to tamper with my milieu.And what happens when one player wants to explore blah blah blah so you can't say "all elementals are evil" and another wants to explore blah blah complex religion stuff blah blah so you have to say "No religion is evil"? What happens when one pc wants to explore stuff that requires that orcs all be evil while another wants to explore stuff that requires that not all orcs are evil? Are you suggesting you have to simultaneously accommodate all of them or else you're railroading?Yeah- I'm not seeing the rails here. Your definition of meaningful player choice seems to disparage hard decisions and devil's choices, which (at least in my playstyle) are a good part of the fun.</blockquote>

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