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

[JiffyPopTart]

It looks like GM fiat, which is why I don’t do it.

You said a lot but didn’t really answer my question. Surely tuning forks can legitimately be stolen. How does a legitimate case of that look to the character as opposed to an illegitimate railroading case?

The player may not "see" anything. But behind the scenes and out of the players eyes the GM in fairness needs to construct a series of events that would lead up to the tuning fork being stolen.

Without knowing the OPs reasoning behind the "How was it stolen" question all I can do is offer some scenarios.

If it was a physical theft....the GM needs to establish questions like how did the thief know they had one? How did they overcome any special defences the play may have taken (magical chests or alert runes or whatever). Once the narrative of a theoretical plan is created then the GM needs to follow the rules of the game to enact them. This can be hidden die rolls of need be, but the roles need to be made and the players defenses need to be addressed.

Conversely if it was just "When you teleported in your tuning forks were all stolen magically" then the GM is using fiat instead of game mechanics. GM fiat is a tool in the box, but it's also a part of the railroad.

The character very likely wouldn't "see" anything of the fork was successfully stolen how were the player needs to be infirmed if the mechanics of the theft so that they can alert the GM to any special defenses or notes that might affect the success.

I have zero issue with a rogue making a stealth check to beat the characters passive perception scores and then making a successful sleight of hand to swipe the item....but the thief needs to have a narrative reason to know it's there.

I dont have an issue with GM fiat "Well, it's just missing" because of crazy world breaking magic" either. The issue for me is that the latter method is railroading in a traditional sandbox setting.

The extrapolation reasoning....let's say the crazy world spell method was used. What happens when the PCs defeat the creator of that spell and then being them back to the Prime Material and have them recast it but instead just say "Every time someone teleports to the plane I magically steal their precious gems". Sandboxes need to be logically consistent.

 

[Thomas Shey]

good to know but my question wasn’t whether you do ‘stolen item storylines’, it was how they would be done using the framework you suggested.

I'd guess its just a sort of event they avoid altogether. There's nothing that says certain sorts of events can't simulataneously be something that could logically/physically occur in the setting and still feel excessively railroady. Then it just turns into a case of priorities.

 

[TwoSix]

I’m just amazed you jumped on the - ‘your way looks like dm fiat’ without having a viable alternative to offer.

I did have an alternative; don't do that story!

 

[TwoSix]

I'd guess its just a sort of event they avoid altogether. There's nothing that says certain sorts of events can't simulataneously be something that could logically/physically occur in the setting and still feel excessively railroady. Then it just turns into a case of priorities.

Exactly. I could also have a realistic process for a random chance of the characters having incurable magical cancer, but I don't implement that because that's sounds horrible at the table, no matter how realistic it is.

 

[Bill Zebub]

HP are in part derived from your CON, which i think a high or low score in that attribute is a better indicator of the narrative of if a character is hale and hearty or delicate and sickly than the number of not-always-meat points they have, especially because there is not a good relativity for HP, they just go up, for instance, is a 1st level barbarian with max CON 'less sturdy' than a max level wizard with negative CON who rolled all 1's but still has more HP than them? but that barb and the wizard both having 20 CON tells the same narrative.

If your Con is 10 and you get lucky and roll max HP every level (kind of like getting lucky and rolling 3 6's) then you do have a significant ability to take damage, but you don't have noticeable resistance to things that require Con rolls.

Look, I'm certainly not arguing that has to be roleplayed, but the arguments I'm hearing that suggest ability scores must be roleplayed would apply to HP as well.

And if, as @Micah Sweet says, it's a matter of degree and HP are just below one's threshold, that's fine.

 

[Thomas Shey]

As "that poster", that is correct.

Like most things in life, it's easy to gloss over distinctions between things you're not particularly interested in.

Sorry if "that poster" sounded dismissive, its more that I have a talent for confusing and/or otherwise mangling people's handles so if I don't have it at hand I'll just refer to them indirectly.

 

[TwoSix]

Sorry if "that poster" sounded dismissive, its more that I have a talent for confusing and/or otherwise mangling people's handles so if I don't have it at hand I'll just refer to them indirectly.

Not a problem, just wanted to clarify I wasn't hopping into a topic about someone else. I'm happy to own my opinions.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Degree can matter quite a bit in things like this. Like I said, there's not even any halfway consistent model in what D&D-style hit points in particular represent. You can't even count on any two random people to agree whether it represents damage in any real way.

The meaning of Intelligence, Wisdom, and especially Charisma (in this very thread!) are debated the same way. They are abstractions meant to represent a lot of different, often unrelated characteristics. Just like HP.

I'm not arguing that if you require people to roleplay stats they should also be required to roleplay HP. Just using the comparison to illustrate how "roleplaying stats" is kind of fuzzy.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I'm with @TwoSix on this one: you don't have to have "viable alternatives" to enable story elements that you don't think are fun to include in the game?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If your Con is 10 and you get lucky and roll max HP every level (kind of like getting lucky and rolling 3 6's) then you do have a significant ability to take damage, but you don't have noticeable resistance to things that require Con rolls.

Yeah, that's weird. So don't roll the HP.