Sigh. I can't do Warhammer. How's about Iron Kingdoms?

[BadMojo]

Does railroady necessarily mean "not fun", though?

Usually, yes. IMO, there's nothing worse as a player than knowing that your actions won't have any impact on the course of events in an adventure, no matter what you do. You can come up with the most ingenious, "outside the box" solution to a problem and the adventure still chugs along as written (unless your friendly neighborhood DM adlibs).

 

[Henry]

Railroading, like all things, has its place in moderation. Most people think, "Railroaded adventures", and go to the extreme, but even something as simple as offering choices that ultimately guide players down one of a couple of predefined paths isn't a bad thing, as long as the illusion of free will is preserved, and that their actions DO have consequences good and bad.

 

[Desdichado]

I agree the person who seems to be upset by someone named 'Mark' - stay as far as humanly possible from the Witchfire Trilogy. If someone gives it to you, give it back.

Eh. It runs on rails and has some pretty bad deus ex machina moments, but it's still a goldmine of great ideas about what the setting can be about.

Don't give it back; read it and run it, just be a good DM instead of running it exactly straight out of the book.

 

[Desdichado]

Iron Kingdoms is not like Warhammer.
It's different
- as a mix of mechanika and magic not a mix of radioactive decay and dark fantasy
- and not as original, not so full of interesting places in the world, not so consistent.

I'm honestly not sure what either of those statements mean. The Warhammer Old World is far from a consistent setting; it's--like Howard's Hyborian Age--a jambalaya of elements from the real world thrown together without any regard for how they'd interact with each other logically, given a very, very thin coat of paint, and set loose.

Exactly how we have neighboring countries that are German Hanseatic League slash Holy Roman Empire next to King Arthur's England except all with French names with Vikings to the north, Di Medici style Italian city-states to the south, etc, Medieval Russia to the northeast, etc. that somehow apparently all coexist without any dramatic influence in defiance of how they appeared in the real world is beyond me.

The Warhammer Old World is a fun setting; don't get me wrong--but it's one of the farthest things from a consistent setting, and much of the interestingness of it is how it directly mimics disparate eras of our own real world history.

Iron Kingdoms is much more original and consistent both.

Oh, and the Warhammer Old World is poorly described as a mix of radioactive decay and dark fantasy. Huh?!