pemerton said:It is correct that a per-encounter model discourages "encounters-for-the-sake-of-encounters" which do nothing but soak resources. But it is quite arguable that this is a sensible design goal (although to an extent it does push D&D away from its roots).
"Encounters for the sake of encounters" directly contradicts the latter part of the same sentence that suggests that the encounter soaks resources. That very well may be it's purpose. That being said, has anyone suggested that the "per-encounter resource' model actually increases the possible number of dimensions of interest? Any reason that an encounter is interesting in "per-encounter 4E", it's interesting in 3E. All the 4E resource situation does is eliminate operational consequences. It may do this to try to accomplish a number of things (like added staying power) but AFAICT one thing it *does not* appear to do is increase the possible reasons why an encounter would matter (the "dimensions of interest" or whatever we're calling them)
pemerton said:Gizmo33 and I discussed these above in a number of posts. He concluded that he does not enjoy this sort of "storyteller" game. That is fine - I get the sense that you don't either - but it has nothing to do with railroading. And it is a style of play which per-encounter abilities may better suppot.
Thematic exploration and railroading are unfortunately inter-twined in a lot of people's experiences, including my own. Talking to folks like yourself over time I've evolved what I think is a fairer assessment of the situation. People of my disposition (whatever we're called, I usually say "game oriented" vs. "story oriented") tend to look for variation in certain key areas when we don't find it, it's easy to conclude that railroading is going on. I think storyteller gamers are more inclined to focus on the variability of the events within a certain framework. (This was my conclusion from our discussion of what "open ended" meant.)
The way I'd try to explain it to someone like myself is to remind the "game oriented" player that a certain amount of railroading is necessary for the PCs to have joined together in an adventuring company to begin with. The players implicitly understand and accept this situation, and the DM uses it to establish the game in a way that everyone will have fun. I basically believe the same thing is going on with "story telling" gaming. It's just a different framework that superficially seems to intrude into the player's choice - but the players voluntarily choose to give up those choices (as they do when a game-oriented DM tells them "you meet in a tavern") in return for a more meaningful game experience. Good luck.

(And I still am skeptical that per-encounter resource management does anything to help story telling games, but story-teller gamers are in a better position to make that judgement I suppose.)