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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 3277940" data-attributes="member: 3192">I'm glad you wrote back after I wrote that entire response.  My intention was not to talk down to you and I apologize for the way I came off.  I've just seen far to many folks who are willing to live with another's story or style of play because an enjoyable freeform game is believed impossible.  I may be misreading what you originally stated.  It's sounds like you are saying railroading is inevitable.  With that I disagree.Here are a couple of responses, which I hope will clear up some other points:I could have been clearer here.  I was agreeing that an adventure where only one action (like a special key to open a special door) is not railroading.  However, if a DM runs only one adventure at at time (the "or else we don't play") and that adventure has a plot requiring said door to open, then it is a railroading adventure design.Yep.  I admitted I have needed to fudge NPC reactions so I don't overwhelm my players.  I believe that is a problem with the system I am running.  I run it for the players who enjoy it.  To say I don't railroad and other DMs don't either isn't to say I have never done so or would never do so.  Certainly almost anyone who's ever run a convention game has done so.  Now on to the good stuff:It's odd to me that you call this railroading.  I can understand the old James Bond cliches of not killing Bond when one has a chance.  But what you describe above seems more like a Simulationist method.  Kings and Queens don't know pesky adventurers will later topple the crown.  They deal with each problem in kind in a way they believe will effectivly deal with the situation.  If the PCs prove very capable, well, they should watch out.  Gaining too much notoriety can be as much a bad thing as a good one.  (of course then they can use their fame to their advantage, if they're smart)This is true and probably the strongest argument I can think of against a pure simulationist roleplaying style.  To define railroading as anything that isn't pure simulation of the real world is tough to counter.  I don't think this is why the term came about in the first place, but here's an answer: In the case of "sometimes there is no way out", it's time to roll up a new character.  PCs die and or get stuck and can't get out.  The key is: don't give up hope.  As a player I'm hoping there is a way out of any situation I get my character into.  As a DM I'm looking for those ways out too (albeit with wider vision).  If no one can determine one, than I can always opt out.  In my original response above my 2 players could have lost their characters, if the other new characters had not successfully found them.A world full of adventure that never has the adventure affect the people in that world isn't fulfulling the definition for me.  I agree our own world is dangerous and fantastic.  I don't agree that if I was a hero I couldn't go out and stop muggings though.  Real life heroes already do that all the time.  Being a hear in a RPG is just safer.  I don't know City of Heroes, but it sounds like a poor design.  You don't need to have implausible "hero tasks" on every street corner.  Just have plausible NPCs.  The players will involve themselves in their plots, they will create their own, or they will remain farmers.  Plots are not for the DM to create for the PCs.  They are for the NPCs.  The players plot their own PCs course.  Story is just the end result you can tell your buddy afterwards.In case this sounds potentially dull (I know I'm explaining RPGs again), I'd like to say our own real fantastic world affects us all everyday.  We just don't take up the adventure.  Of course, neither are we all endowed with hero-like abilities.Well... not exactly.  A lot of the older modules had no synopsis or storyline.  They were simply modules where adventure was ripe.  It isn't just randomness all the time, but that randomness could easily be tied to adventures going on in the vicinity...  just like the real world.You seem quite determined to label me a railroading DM no matter what I think.  Well, not just me, everyone.  I agreed with you above that my fudging is a form of forcing players, but I'm trying hard to determine a way out of it.  The system can be changed.  And no, I'm not arguing this is different than other forms of railroading.  The key is when I wasn't fudging the system was screwing up.  Until I get a handle on the rules I'll fudge a little.  It's the least I can do.This last point (I put your last one at the start) is sort of strange.  How is a world ripe for the taking not one of consequence?  (By the way, I think it's consequential now I think about it.)  Is it not simulationist enough?  Is the real world more mundane?  I just want to clarify.</blockquote>

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