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

[hawkeyefan]

Huh in both of the quoted statements I'm saying it's my experience, so I'm not sure where in there you are reading that "someone else's preferences aren't as good as" mine.

Nor do I understand why you are calling me out for trying to re-state my preferences in a new way, when pretty much everybody in this thread...including you...has done the same thing many, many times.

From my point of view this thread has been a gang pig-pile on Crimson Longinus and I with accusations of of inconsistency, hypocrisy, one-dimensional roleplaying, power-gaming, etc. etc. etc.

Because the first quoted post wasn’t really about you reiterating your preference. It was basically pointing out how someone with a different preference wasn’t enjoying RPGs to the extent they can be enjoyed. That their preferences don’t have anything to do with why RPGs are different from other games. Then, you go on to compare what people are saying to a board game.

That’s the difference. You’re describing the preferences of others. And yet you admit you don't get their preferences. So people correct you.

So, when you express bewilderment on why people push back on that… why it’s been a “gang pig-pile on @Crimson Longinus ” and you, that’s why. Because you’re not clarifying your view… you’re describing the views of others. Poorly.

So I’m not calling you out… I’m attempting to explain something that you said you don’t understand.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ummm...ok? I'm not sure what you think I was saying (or not saying but thinking?) such that this is meant to....something. I'm confused.

I'm just saying I'd think whether you want to be telling people who play different than you and have different priorities that you don't think they're playing an RPG when you're describing playstyles that have been in the hobby for a half century. I realize you said "doesn't feel like it to me", but I don't think that qualification does as good a job of not being exlusionary to others as perhaps you think it does.

The phase "Doesn't operate in the part of the RPG hobby I find worthwhile" would have expressed much the same concept without, essentially, dismissing other people's playstyles.

That may come across as more sharp than is strictly necessary, but I think there are few people who've interacted with you in this thread who don't know what your preferences--nay, let's call them "requirements"--land. But at some point its like Micah's simulationism; if you keep repeating it too many times, in reaction to other people, it doesn't come across as an explanation--which we've all gotten by now--but as an objection. And that becomes a problem with any useful conversation going forward.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The comparison of the play of games like CoC, Pendragon, Burning Wheel etc to boardgames is quite bizarre. Look at how people actually play those games, the way they establish characters, etc. The idea that players of these games are proponents of "hack and slash" play, or "roll dice because I don't care about the integrity of my character" play is completely ridiculous!

Where did somebody make that comparison?

 

[Bill Zebub]

Because the first quoted post wasn’t really about you reiterating your preference. It was basically pointing out how someone with a different preference wasn’t enjoying RPGs to the extent they can be enjoyed. That their preferences don’t have anything to do with why RPGs are different from other games. Then, you go on to compare what people are saying to a board game.

That’s the difference. You’re describing the preferences of others. And yet you admit you don't get their preferences. So people correct you.

So, when you express bewilderment on why people push back on that… why it’s been a “gang pig-pile on @Crimson Longinus ” and you, that’s why. Because you’re not clarifying your view… you’re describing the views of others. Poorly.

So I’m not calling you out… I’m attempting to explain something that you said you don’t understand.

You mean where I described what my experience would be like playing a horror themed board-game, where I'm not really playing a character but just responding to dice rolls and card draws?

If so, you are wildly extrapolating. I was reacting to other people saying that they don't want to personally feel any horror when playing a horror themed game, so I described how I might enjoy the same sort of thing as a board game, but that's not what I'm looking for in an RPG.

Where in that was I talking about other people's experiences?

 

[Bill Zebub]

I'm just saying I'd think whether you want to be telling people who play different than you and have different priorities that you don't think they're playing an RPG when you're describing playstyles that have been in the hobby for a half century. I realize you said "doesn't feel like it to me", but I don't think that qualification does as good a job of not being exlusionary to others as perhaps you think it does.

The phase "Doesn't operate in the part of the RPG hobby I find worthwhile" would have expressed much the same concept without, essentially, dismissing other people's playstyles.

That may come across as more sharp than is strictly necessary, but I think there are few people who've interacted with you in this thread who don't know what your preferences--nay, let's call them "requirements"--land. But at some point its like Micah's simulationism; if you keep repeating it too many times, in reaction to other people, it doesn't come across as an explanation--which we've all gotten by now--but as an objection. And that becomes a problem with any useful conversation going forward.

...which is exactly what is happening in the other direction as well.

I guess somebody is going to have to drop it and let the other team have the last word. May as well be me. Happy gaming.