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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7401854" data-attributes="member: 42582">It's not solely preference, in the sense that railroad isn't a synonym for bad game or game I didn't enjoy.But preferences feed into judgements about railroading.I've bolded your central claim. It's not accurate. I didn't refer to such elements. These are a common part of framing.I referred to the GM using secretly-established setting elements to determine the outcome of a declared action. This is not wildly idiosyncratic, either - after all, a whole school of RPG designers (Vincent Baker, Paul Czege, Ron Edwards, Christopher Kubasik, etc) desgined their games to avoid railroading in more-or-less the sense that I am using the notion.And I don't think that the usage is that hard to understand: just consider how the GM goes about resolving the action declaration. If it involves setting a DC and the player making a roll (as per combat) - or whatever the equivalent is in some other system - then it is not what I am calling railroading. If it is the GM looking up some unrevealed aspect of the fictional situation that s/he established in advance - like a dungeon key that records whether or not a secret door is present; or a city description that tells us whether or not guards take bribes - then it is what I'm objecting to.There are marginal cases - an invisible foe on the battlefield; the example skill challenge in the 4e DMG, where the duke doesn't take kindly to attempts at intimidation - and I posted about where I think the boundaries lie a long way upthread.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7401854, member: 42582"] It's not [I]solely[/I] preference, in the sense that [I]railroad[/I] isn't a synonym for [I]bad game[/I] or [I]game I didn't enjoy[/I]. But preferences feed into judgements about railroading. I've bolded your central claim. It's not accurate. I didn't refer to such elements. These are a common part of framing. I referred to the GM using secretly-established setting elements to determine the outcome of a declared action. This is not wildly idiosyncratic, either - after all, a whole school of RPG designers (Vincent Baker, Paul Czege, Ron Edwards, Christopher Kubasik, etc) desgined their games to avoid railroading in more-or-less the sense that I am using the notion. And I don't think that the usage is that hard to understand: just consider how the GM goes about resolving the action declaration. If it involves setting a DC and the player making a roll (as per combat) - or whatever the equivalent is in some other system - then it is not what I am calling railroading. If it is the GM looking up some unrevealed aspect of the fictional situation that s/he established in advance - like a dungeon key that records whether or not a secret door is present; or a city description that tells us whether or not guards take bribes - then it is what I'm objecting to. There are marginal cases - an invisible foe on the battlefield; the example skill challenge in the 4e DMG, where the duke doesn't take kindly to attempts at intimidation - and I posted about where I think the boundaries lie a long way upthread. [/QUOTE]

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