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The Best Thing from 4E
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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6594937" data-attributes="member: 6775031"><p>Not all railroading requires player choice to be negated. If I recall, that was part of our definition of <em>Illusionism</em>, which is related but not identical to railroading. </p><p></p><p>You could say that it is a matter of degree, of how <em>much</em> force the GM needs to exert over the game world - how much strain to place upon the suspension of disbelief - in order to contrive that these events happen. Common events are more likely to happen, so it's <em>less</em> of a railroad when the GM say that they <em>do</em> happen.</p><p></p><p>1. At 6pm, the Big Bad grows weary of interrogating the victim, and has him killed. </p><p>2. At 6:30pm, the body is disposed of in an abandoned building.</p><p>3. At midnight, when the barrier between worlds is weakest, a hungry demon crosses over to this plane.</p><p>4. At 1:00am, the demon finds the corpse, and begins consuming it.</p><p>5. At 2:00am, the demon finishes eating, and leaves.</p><p></p><p>If the players are searching through the abandoned buildings between midnight and 2am, they are likely to hear it. If not, then they don't.</p><p></p><p>Which is why I suggested the second thing, about rolling for likely disruptions to likely events. The goal is to honestly emulate the reality of the game world, while mitigating the effects of GM bias.</p><p></p><p>And given the other conceits required for the game to be playable, such as the non-complication of serious injuries, modeling <em>only</em> the most-likely and first-most-unlikely events <em>should</em> be sufficient in terms of "realism".</p><p></p><p>In a <em>role-playing game</em> where a <em>player</em> takes the <em>role</em> of a character, the <em>player</em> has the same agency <em>within</em> the game world as the <em>character</em> does.</p><p></p><p>Unless you're doing something funky, and trying to exert player agency <em>beyond</em> what the characters wield. That's nothing to do with any game I would ever want to play, though. That's Dungeon World type stuff.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 6594937, member: 6775031"] Not all railroading requires player choice to be negated. If I recall, that was part of our definition of [I]Illusionism[/I], which is related but not identical to railroading. You could say that it is a matter of degree, of how [I]much[/I] force the GM needs to exert over the game world - how much strain to place upon the suspension of disbelief - in order to contrive that these events happen. Common events are more likely to happen, so it's [I]less[/I] of a railroad when the GM say that they [I]do[/I] happen. 1. At 6pm, the Big Bad grows weary of interrogating the victim, and has him killed. 2. At 6:30pm, the body is disposed of in an abandoned building. 3. At midnight, when the barrier between worlds is weakest, a hungry demon crosses over to this plane. 4. At 1:00am, the demon finds the corpse, and begins consuming it. 5. At 2:00am, the demon finishes eating, and leaves. If the players are searching through the abandoned buildings between midnight and 2am, they are likely to hear it. If not, then they don't. Which is why I suggested the second thing, about rolling for likely disruptions to likely events. The goal is to honestly emulate the reality of the game world, while mitigating the effects of GM bias. And given the other conceits required for the game to be playable, such as the non-complication of serious injuries, modeling [I]only[/I] the most-likely and first-most-unlikely events [I]should[/I] be sufficient in terms of "realism". In a [I]role-playing game[/I] where a [I]player[/I] takes the [I]role[/I] of a character, the [I]player[/I] has the same agency [I]within[/I] the game world as the [I]character[/I] does. Unless you're doing something funky, and trying to exert player agency [I]beyond[/I] what the characters wield. That's nothing to do with any game I would ever want to play, though. That's Dungeon World type stuff. [/QUOTE]
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