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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 2961909" data-attributes="member: 18280">Agreed.Disagree.Players should be granted legitimate choices.  However, the DM has the right to put legitimate constraints on those choices.  This can be due to setup (no warforged ninjas in this world) or due to circumstance (paralysis due to ghoul, charm spell cast by foe, sliding door that blocks egress, death).  Under no circumstances does the game devolve to a position where the players are allowed limitless choices or it's a railroad.Players liking or disliking a circumstance as it occurs is not sufficient either.  Players may not like the taxman trying to collect, but that doesn't mean that they don't get enough compensation when they finally get to put the screws to the officious little weasel.No player likes to have his character enthralled by an enemy.  Nonetheless, an enemy with that capability will certainly use it rather than be slain.If a ghoul hits you and you fail your save, you're paralyzed.  Sure, it sucks.  Too bad.  The game doesn't bend because otherwise you'll go pout in the corner.You can claim that "Wanna help me playtest this adventure?" is a railroad, but I don't believe that is what is meant by the term when 99% of the gaming public uses it.  It is certainly not what is meant when I use it.And there's the difference between the definition of "fluid" (which is very constrained when set off against an alternative, such as "gas" or "solid") and this sort of definition of "railroad":  to some degree, player choice is curtailed within the game system because of the nature of the game itself.  Unless you define what sort of limitations on player choice constitute railroading, every game is a railroad.  There is nothing in opposition of that term.  With nothing to compare and contrast against, the term becomes meaningless.The connotation of "railroading" is negative, and therefore one assumes that the limitations implied must also be negative in as universally acceptable a way as possible.  In other words, railroading is not simple limitation but illegitimate limitation.  Again, this may not be the definition that you use, but it is the definition that is commonly used.`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected. `When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.' `The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.' .... `Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. `I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'Now, we may argue about what limitations are legitimate, and which are not, and that might be fruitful.  But suggesting that any limitation is railroading is, IMHO, useless.  Even if "lots and lots of players" shared that definition, I would only DM for the few who did not.RC</blockquote>

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