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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7326602" data-attributes="member: 37579">Now, we are talking about a stripped down foundational level. The skeletal framework of the story, when you pull away everything but the basics of scene-scene-scene. The stuff built atop adds a wealth of complexity that changes the dynamics. With that in mind, a spatial map can totally have dependencies. Finding a locked door and then finding a key is functionally the same as seeing the butler but not finding the brandy. And just like you can skip the brandy scene by confronting the butler early, you can skip the key scene by picking the lock or casting knock. And, yes, the big difference is that you can't go backwards in a plot like you can in a dungeon. Kinda… often in a story you can return to a location or individual and resume a scene. Which is both creating a new scene but also carrying on where a prior scene ended. It's functionally the same thing as returning to a room and represented in the flowchart not by a new box but an arrow going back to an old box. Right. But that's an illusion. To the players, there is only a single path: the one they took. They may not explore all the choices in a mystery anymore than they may discover every secret treasure room in a dungeon. A plot lacks physical walls, but it has virtual ones. Scenes are enclosed in the location they take place, effectively bounded by the walls of the stage. And while you could theoretically go anywhere, often times your choices are effectively limited by the realistic options that get you to your goal. As for the railroading aspect, if they wander off the rails, they're still creating a scene. You effectively add a new box or two to the chart, hoping to bridge them back into the main story seamlessly. (Again, assuming the players *want* to be in the plot and aren't trying to escape…)While the above seems unlikely in a dungeon, it's actually rather not. You can get a similar effect with teleportation, shaping stone, becoming ethereal, polymorphing into badgers and digging through the walls, and the like. Situations where the players skip over one set of rooms for another. When the cosmetic elements are stripped away, the flow chart pattern remains.</blockquote>

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