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

[CreamCloud0]

But what is the point of playing, say a horror game, if it is not scary? Do people not want to be at least a little bit scared while watching a horror film too?

i'd say no, they don't want to be scared, a game is not a movie and people engage with them in different ways, what i believe that people want from a horror TTG, rather than to be scared as such, is to invoke the tropes and scenarios of a horror movie onto their characters, whether they end up rising above the challenge and being the few survivors at the end who get to go back to their lives or to see them fail, becoming the ones who spiral into insanity and die hideously.

 

[Bill Zebub]

i'd say no, they don't want to be scared, a game is not a movie and people engage with them in different ways, what i believe that people want from a horror TTG, rather than to be scared as such, is to invoke the tropes and scenarios of a horror movie onto their characters, whether they end up rising above the challenge and being the few survivors at the end who get to go back to their lives or to see them fail, becoming the ones who spiral into insanity and die hideously.

I sort of get that....but it just doesn't feel like an RPG to me. Or, at least, it wouldn't seem to have anything to do with why I enjoy RPGs and find them different from other games.

I can imagine myself playing and enjoying a horror-themed board game, where you roll dice and move pieces, and turn over cards with cool artwork that describe tropes from the horror genre. "You witness a nameless thing from another dimension. Lose 1d6 Sanity." And that would be fun, and I would both laugh and fake groan when my character goes crazy and has to go to the Insane Asylum section of the board until whatever game mechanic gets me out again. I would play that game.

But it wouldn't feel like an RPG.