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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7625750" data-attributes="member: 4937">I don't understand what you mean by that.&nbsp; I don't believe I have addressed the &quot;Why?&quot; in this discussion much at all.&nbsp; Ok, so that sounds like answering &quot;Why?&quot;, but hitherto I've been mostly answering questions of &quot;What?&quot; and &quot;How?&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; I don't quibble with your examples of &quot;Why?&quot; someone might engage in &quot;railroading&quot;, though if we made a list we could probably list other ones.I suppose that there is, though I've never really thought deeply about the difference because in practice I've never really seen &quot;controlling what actions a character is allowed to make&quot; done by simple confrontation, and I suspect any attempt to do that would result in an immediate player revolt and you not getting asked to GM again.&nbsp;&nbsp; And secondly, while those two things are different, they are also an independent variable of the two motivations you outlined earlier.&nbsp; So for example, you could be trying to preserve your carefully prepared plot by either controlling player action or by preventing those actions from affecting the plot.&nbsp; I've seen a lot of railroading by negating player choice so that no matter what they choose the same thing happens,&nbsp; and I know of a lot of discussion of railroading techniques, and I know of players that are so sensitive to that on account of having been burned so many times in the past that the slightest whiff of railroading in the game will cause them to bristle and revolt.&nbsp;&nbsp; So typically, I've always treated &quot;No, you don't want to do that&quot; as simply a crude subcategory of railroading, so crude in application as to be ineffective and not really worth discussing because it's neither advisable, needed, nor something that can be addressed except by table contract. But, you know, I could be wrong.&nbsp; Are you asserting that it's a common technique that you encounter GMs employing all the time?I don't know which of the two distinctions you've drawn you are now talking about.You've lost me.&nbsp; What sleight of hand?&nbsp; What two different things?&nbsp;&nbsp; I'm trying to demonstrate that I can always protect my preferred plot and/or enforce my preferences on how the game should be played without resorting to telling the player what to do.&nbsp;&nbsp; Transferring agency from the player by negating his choice is for me the umbrella category of &quot;railroading&quot;.&nbsp; I'm asserting that &quot;No, you don't want to do that&quot;, what I call &quot;Metagame Direction&quot;, is a subcategory of railroading that is and different only in that it's so confrontational, overt, and clumsy that you hardly ever see it performed.&nbsp;&nbsp; When you do see &quot;Metagame Direction&quot; performed, it's usually done with a bit of slight of hand borrowing from &quot;False Choice&quot; techniques where the DM interrupts the proposition-&gt;fortune-&gt;resolution cycle to provide the stakes to the player ahead of time, and then asks in some manner, &quot;Do you really want to do that?&quot;And, honestly, there can be really good reasons for even doing that, for example the player is new to the system and is not correctly predicting for example how easy it will be for their character to leap over a 30' gap.&nbsp;&nbsp; That's railroading.&nbsp; You decide it won't be fun for the new player to leap to there own death in a jump they can't possibly make, so you negate their choice and explain to them the rules and the likely result of their proposition before saying, &quot;Do you really want to do that?&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; Probably justified.&nbsp;&nbsp; Do that all the time though, and you're running a (rather inept) railroad.Yes.&nbsp; But I did so because it wasn't clear that you agreed with me that &quot;sandbox&quot; wasn't the opposite of &quot;railroad&quot;, because you prepended those comments with conditionals that indicated you were only entertaining the idea and not yet decided on it.&nbsp; So I wanted to further persuade you by offering an example of how it could be done.&nbsp; I can offer more elaborate examples if that one is not satisfactory.&nbsp; Well, a bit of both, but more to the point, I'm debating with a peer and this inherently involves some degree of lecturing.&nbsp;&nbsp; Consider your own comments:&quot;Are you defining &quot;player agency&quot; to mean that player actions can affect/change outcomes? If so, I think you're describing the inverse of railroading, but railroading and player agency are not antonyms.&quot;Or even, &quot;Mmm...I think you're making some assumptions about why other people do things.&quot;These also have a lecturing tone, inevitable because they signal some degree of disagreement and a desire to correct my understanding.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7625750, member: 4937"] I don't understand what you mean by that. I don't believe I have addressed the "Why?" in this discussion much at all. Ok, so that sounds like answering "Why?", but hitherto I've been mostly answering questions of "What?" and "How?" I don't quibble with your examples of "Why?" someone might engage in "railroading", though if we made a list we could probably list other ones. I suppose that there is, though I've never really thought deeply about the difference because in practice I've never really seen "controlling what actions a character is allowed to make" done by simple confrontation, and I suspect any attempt to do that would result in an immediate player revolt and you not getting asked to GM again. And secondly, while those two things are different, they are also an independent variable of the two motivations you outlined earlier. So for example, you could be trying to preserve your carefully prepared plot by either controlling player action or by preventing those actions from affecting the plot. I've seen a lot of railroading by negating player choice so that no matter what they choose the same thing happens, and I know of a lot of discussion of railroading techniques, and I know of players that are so sensitive to that on account of having been burned so many times in the past that the slightest whiff of railroading in the game will cause them to bristle and revolt. So typically, I've always treated "No, you don't want to do that" as simply a crude subcategory of railroading, so crude in application as to be ineffective and not really worth discussing because it's neither advisable, needed, nor something that can be addressed except by table contract. But, you know, I could be wrong. Are you asserting that it's a common technique that you encounter GMs employing all the time? I don't know which of the two distinctions you've drawn you are now talking about. You've lost me. What sleight of hand? What two different things? I'm trying to demonstrate that I can always protect my preferred plot and/or enforce my preferences on how the game should be played without resorting to telling the player what to do. Transferring agency from the player by negating his choice is for me the umbrella category of "railroading". I'm asserting that "No, you don't want to do that", what I call "Metagame Direction", is a subcategory of railroading that is and different only in that it's so confrontational, overt, and clumsy that you hardly ever see it performed. When you do see "Metagame Direction" performed, it's usually done with a bit of slight of hand borrowing from "False Choice" techniques where the DM interrupts the proposition->fortune->resolution cycle to provide the stakes to the player ahead of time, and then asks in some manner, "Do you really want to do that?" And, honestly, there can be really good reasons for even doing that, for example the player is new to the system and is not correctly predicting for example how easy it will be for their character to leap over a 30' gap. That's railroading. You decide it won't be fun for the new player to leap to there own death in a jump they can't possibly make, so you negate their choice and explain to them the rules and the likely result of their proposition before saying, "Do you really want to do that?" Probably justified. Do that [I]all the time[/I] though, and you're running a (rather inept) railroad. Yes. But I did so because it wasn't clear that you agreed with me that "sandbox" wasn't the opposite of "railroad", because you prepended those comments with conditionals that indicated you were only entertaining the idea and not yet decided on it. So I wanted to further persuade you by offering an example of how it could be done. I can offer more elaborate examples if that one is not satisfactory. Well, a bit of both, but more to the point, I'm debating with a peer and this inherently involves some degree of lecturing. Consider your own comments: "Are you defining "player agency" to mean that player actions can affect/change outcomes? If so, I think you're describing the inverse of railroading, but railroading and player agency are not antonyms." Or even, "Mmm...I think you're making some assumptions about why other people do things." These also have a lecturing tone, inevitable because they signal some degree of disagreement and a desire to correct my understanding. [/QUOTE]

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