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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6642568" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm not sure what you mean by a "set scenario . . . but the ending is fluid".I think the questions you want to ask depend a bit on what sort of information you're trying to find out.Another thing to take into account is that many people don't have a very good vocabulary for describing what they do in abstract or general terms, so it can be more helpful to ask about details or concrete instances. A non-RPGing example: I am an academic, and if you ask me, or any of my colleagues, whether we make our lectures "engaging" the answer will be "yes". But given the regular student complaints about boring lectures, we can't all be correct in our self-evaluation! So to learn about our lecturing approaches, you'd want to ask more specific questions, eg "How many students answer questions in your typical lecture?"In an RPGing context, if you ask a GM if that GM runs a railroad the answer will typically be "Of course not!" Here are some more specific questions that I would want to ask a GM to work out whether or not his/her game is too railroad-y for me (I'm assuming that the game itself is D&D or some similar fantasy adventure RPG):* Who decides who the "big bad" is - the players or the GM? * Who decides what is acceptable behaviour for a cleric of a given god - the player of the cleric, or the GM playing the god as an NPC? * What consequences would you impose on a paladin who negotiated some sort of deal or compromise with the orcs raiding the village? * When a PC dies, do you discuss with the player whether or not s/he wants to keep playing that PC, and if s/he does work out a way to bring the PC back into the game? * How do you manage the interaction between "PC sidequests" and the main action of the game?That's not a definitive list by any means, but it touches on some elements of game play that are important to me, and where I've encountered clashes with GMing styles both in play, and in discussions on these boards.</blockquote>

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