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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7732828" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm familiar with the acronym. That doesn't tell me what you think a "RAW discussion" is, or how the notion is relevant to this thread.Well, when it comes to leisure activities like RPGing, we don't have to do much of anything. And you're not obliged to post in this thread. It's just the question I'm asking.So it seems that the answer is that it's railroading, and the GM should be trying to keep the moments of railroading secret from the players.Cheating is a social problem. But presumably we're talking about playing a game in accordance with the rules and guidelines.There is no plot in Moldvay Basic or BW until play actually occurs (in Basic, it's a side effect; in BW, having play generate a plot is an important goal of play).If the GM in a Moldvay Basic game changes things in his/her notes without telling the players, that's cheating. Gygax has a lot of discussion of this sort of thing in his DMG - for instance, he contrasts the GM exercising control over content introduction, which he thinks is permissible in certain circumstances, with the GM exercising control over action resolution, which he opposes except for a narrow case of a skilled player having his/her PC die unluckily - and then the exercise of control Gygax permits will be overt to the player, as the GM will narrate death from hp loss as maiming or coma instead.If a GM in BW sets a difficulty, and then tells a player whose dice roll beats it that nevertheless s/he doesn't get what s/he wants, well again that's overt and the player will know that the GM is not following the rules.The particular method that you set out in your post that I've quoted depends upon a whole lot of practices - eg a player can succeed on a check to find the map in the study and yet not get what s/he wants (instead, the GM gives the player some clue). There are plenty of RPGs that use different practices (of the ones I GM, Burning Wheel, Classic Traveller and Cortex+ are different; and 4e can be played in the same (different) way which is how our group plays it).a</blockquote>

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