What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

[Thomas Shey]

Exactly!

In my opinion the insistence upon relying on dice implies a lack of trust in the players. That if players are left to simply choose their own actions/reactions, without imposing dice on them, they will only choose what is the most optimal without any regard for the story and the setting. That fear/complaint has been voiced many times, even in just this thread.

While I think disregarding the tendencies in that direction is overly blithe, I'd argue its more that this also factors in elements that exceed the bandwidth and management capability of same.

As I've said before, lacking trust in people's intentions and their judgment are not the same thing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Great point!

Using D&D as the common starting point, the rules clearly lay out circumstances in which characters (PC and NPC) go unconscious.

The rules also lay out some clear circumstances in which characters (PC and NPC) become paralyzed with fear.

Interestingly, neither of those circumstances are connected, even tenuously or indirectly, with the skill system.


My response to your overall post is that everything you say makes sense, but it leads to playing Torchbearer, and that is just not the experience a lot of us want.

Now, all you can really say is that's not an experience you want, to be fair

 

[Micah Sweet]

Over and over and over again in this thread, people (maybe not you) have said that if you don't put some kind of restrictions around it, players will just choose the thing that is best for their player. E.g., refusing to be intimidated, not believing the lie, etc.

Sounds like lack of trust to me.

That is definitely a temptation. One I'd hope Players try to avoid in my games. I can definitely see the logic in placing restrictions to legislate against this, and would support it in some circumstances, but generally I try to play with people for whom such things are unnecessary.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Now, all you can really say is that's not an experience you want, to be fair

Well, I think "a lot" is broad enough it can be viewed as accurate, or presumably more people would be playing Torchbearer. They didn't say "most" or "all" after all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

...I should respond to the rest of it, too.

I don't understand how the die roll adds any color compared to my suggestion: his own guards tremble and blanch. Heck, have one of them pee himself. To me that's a LOT more evocative than, "And he rolled a 19!"

I would be fine with that providing the same method applied to PCs attempting to intimidate NPCs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, I think "a lot" is broad enough it can be viewed as accurate, or presumably more people would be playing Torchbearer. They didn't say "most" or "all" after all.

He did say, "a lot of us" though. Who is "us" in this scenario?

 

[Thomas Shey]

He did say, "a lot of us" though. Who is "us" in this scenario?

Presumably him and others who don't want to play Torchbearer. Its still not an obviously excessive assumption, given the market.

 

[Bill Zebub]

There are certainly games that don't wall off the effect of social skill rolls as only applying to NPCs. Some of them have more formalized structures than others about that (but then, the less formalized ones do when applied to NPCs, too). In either case, the "social skills only apply to NPCs" is far from a universal.

Yes, so there's both what playstyles do I enjoy and, therefore, which games should I play?

 

[Bill Zebub]

You'd think so, but often I've seen it go a different way. We don't choose our table mates exclusively for playstyle compatibility. Sometimes we don't choose them at all.

Ok, well in that case, if we're talking about real life scenarios that show lack of respect, I would include a GM making up a mechanic that doesn't exist in the game (e.g., "Using Intimidation" on a PC in D&D 5e) and then expecting the player to roleplay their character the way the GM would roleplay their character, if it were their character, which it isn't. I would find that very disrespectful. Thankfully I haven't experienced it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Now, all you can really say is that's not an experience you want, to be fair

Pretty sure it's a lot. Even 1% of all D&D players is a lot of people. But I'm not really interested in defending it with empirical evidence.