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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6303393" data-attributes="member: 17106">No, that's not the definition. Railroading implies taking choices (or apparent choices) away from players through restriction or subversion, which you can't do if they never had (or reasonably believed they had) those choices to begin with.That's one of the reasons I picked the whole audience with the king example in the first place. A reasonable player would not expect success from this action (barring some extraordinary circumstances; it's a generic example), so he's not being railroaded if he tries something like that and quite predictably fails. Nor is a fighter being railroaded if he asks the DM to cast a spell and the DM tells him he fails, nor is a rogue being railroaded if he attempts to climb a wall of solid ice and fails. Sometimes, things just aren't possible.If there's a mismatch of expectations such that the player and the DM had a genuine and substantial difference on how reasonable they thought the action was, that's what talking is for.As I noted above, the player will generally not know when or how his successes and failures were determined.But even setting that aside, the contrary is an impossibility. Many, many things are pre-determined in everyone's games. Assuming you play D&D, that includes yours. Most likely, you're simply habituated to your own style of DMing enough that you don't see how many things you've dictated in the game, but unless you run a game with no plans whatsoever, you are predetermining quite a few significant outcomes.Which, of course, is not what we're talking about.We're talking about a game where the umpire has decided that he will call pitches about an inch below the strike zone as strikes, and pitches within the top of the zone as balls. The batter takes a pitch, thinks it's low, and gets a call against him, and complains to the umpire. And then the umpire calls it again the next time. And the next time. For both teams. Sure the umpire has predetermined the strike zone for that game, but he hasn't determined its outcome at all. The players still determine where the pitch is thrown, and what happens as it crosses the plate, and what happens on the bases and while the ball is in play.In case you're not familiar with baseball, this is exactly how it is played. A strike is not defined by the ball being in the location that the rules describe as a strike, it's defined by an umpire calling it a strike. Despite the rules being as they are, every umpire has a different strike zone, and various other quirks to the calls he makes (hopefully consistent and fair to both teams, but sometimes not), and players are always complaining about it. And just like in D&D, they lose. And just like in D&D, it generally works out fine.And that's exactly what I'm doing when I'm DMing: calling balls and strikes.A game where the outcome is determined would be more like a published plot-driven adventure, or a game that strictly follows encounter building guidelines (though even then, there is some wiggle room).</blockquote>

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