Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
And I don't need to "inform the players" that there's "more to the world" by narrating irrelevant stuff either. I've never had any trouble conveying the scope of the world in my games when I've wanted to.
Sure, the scope of the world is say, 7. You narrate 7, conveying the scope. We tell them 2+2+2+1 = 7, conveying depth about that scope, which gives it a different feel.
This assume we're playing a wargame or something similar. But otherwise there's no reason to spend time on this stuff if it's not interesting.
"You make your way through the Underdark for several arduous weeks before arriving at a lava-filled cavern that looks like the one the dwarves described to you. Every make a DC 20 Endurance check - if you fail, you're down a healing surge when you arrive."
That's enough to convey a dangerous and challenging journey through the Underdark, if it's not where the action is going to be.
I've played 1e, 2e, 3e and 5e and never played a wargame when I did so. Not once.
And I can frame as many challenging scenes in Tokyo as I can in a voyage thereto. Which give the players just as much opportunity to play and advance their PCs.
Sure, but you do it without the same depth of scope that our style has. Fast forwarding from one major even to another has the effect of diminishing depth of the world in order to enhance depth of character. I'm not yet convinced that the trade-off is worth it. Our style can get some very good depth of character without sacrificing depth of world.
It is if you deprived them of the chance to approach stealthily by giving them about .5 seconds between you leave the dwarves and you are spotted. I personally don't care to play "Guess what the DM will do to us if we don't prepare for every contingency before we leave." I don't have information about what the area the giants live in is like, so I can't properly give you those sorts of instructions in advance. If you then play my PC and bypass the approach to the giant's territory and cause me to be spotted, that's a railroad. I should be given the chance to see what the approach is like in order to convey to you what I would like my PC to do on that approach.I'll go further: it's not railroading to tell the players that their PCs have been spotted by sentries.