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

[Bill Zebub]

You're apparently under the impression I think completely disconnecting them from character abilities is okay either. I don't.

Not, not at all. I was assuming the opposite: that you are fine having players roll Int (or maybe Riddle, in TOR) to "solve" a puzzle.

(And if you're going to go to the all-or-nothing "I guess we don't need to even play then", save it. Character abilities matter in combat in most games, but I don't expect those to be all one thing either, so I don't see a reason it needs to be so here, either).

I agree about that: I think players should be free to declare any actions they like in combat, even if they know (or think they know...) monster weaknesses. But when the GM adjudicates the outcome of those actions it is based on character abilities, not player abilities.

There was this story...entirely apocryphal, because he never did bite anybody's finger off...where a reporter asked Mean Joe Greene (60s and 70s football player) "Hey, Mean Joe Greene, why did you bite his finger off?" Greene (supposedly) replied, "Anything on the outside of the mask is his. Anything on the inside of the mask is mine."

This is kind of like my RPG philosophy: anything the character thinks, and thus what actions the character attempts to perform, belong to the player. The outcome of those attempts, their impact on the game world, belong to the GM.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is kind of like my RPG philosophy: anything the character thinks, and thus what actions the character attempts to perform, belong to the player. The outcome of those attempts, their impact on the game world, belong to the GM.

The problem is, you appear to be good with mental and social actions to be all about the player's play, and not about the character's capabilities, and apparently that the inverse is true where NPC abilities in these areas are irrelevant to what the character percieves or decides. I don't think they should be all about those abilities, but I think there should be an effect there.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The problem is, you appear to be good with mental and social actions to be all about the player's play,

No, not at all. The character still has to implement the player's plans. If I come up with an idea that I think will persuade a guard, it's still my character who has to make the Charisma roll. If I come up with a brilliant plan to build a giant wooden horse and leave it in front of the Steading of the Hill Giants, the characters still have to build the thing (and hide inside, presumably.)

Likewise, I decide where to position my character to have the maximum effect in battle, but my character still has to swing the sword.

and not about the character's capabilities, and apparently that the inverse is true where NPC abilities in these areas are irrelevant to what the character percieves or decides. I don't think they should be all about those abilities, but I think there should be an effect there.

There was a thread some time ago about whether an orc chieftain should be able to "use Intimidation" on PCs. My response was that if a GM wants my character to be intimidated by an orc chieftain, they should start designing monsters and encounters that are a real threat. If I don't know what the orc can do, but I know that fights are deadly serious in the game, then I'll be plenty intimidated, which means I'll play my characters that way. Which is much more fun than pretending to be intimidated.

I play with asymmetry between PCs and NPCs (meaning that, for example, a PC can "use Intimidation" on an NPC, but not vice versa) because GMs have perfect information, players don't. As a GM, I know too much about the game world, including the PC's abilities and their goals and plans, to really inhabit all of my NPCs. I don't want to be making decisions for them the same way that players, who know only a tiny bit about my game world, make decisions for their characters. So players make their own decisions, but dice make decisions for NPCs.

Which, by the one, is one reason I really like Dragonbane: I don't decide which attack the monster is going to use; I roll on the table. I love it. But I can't imagine playing an RPG where the players also had to roll on a table to determine their characters' attacks. For the same reason I can't imagine playing an RPG where players have to roll to see what their characters believe.