Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8658419" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think 'railroad' is a pretty slippery concept and there are many degrees of 'railroading', and I prefer to use the term in this form, as a verb. I think part of the problem is that a LOT of what goes on in classic 'Trad' play (ala 2e or 5e seemingly preferred paradigm) is effectively the same techniques that are used in hard railroading, but generally softer in effect, and potentially leading to much more open-ended play. So it becomes extremely hard to draw any sort of line because what most of us would do if we run, say, a 5e campaign using published material, would use techniques that are called out as 'railroading' pretty often. Yet we would probably not feel that the overall tenor of play we were seeing had the feeling of being 'a railroad' in any overall sense. Speaking for myself, when playing in a game of this type, and that reasonably fairly describes at least some of my 5e play, I don't expect something else. I know what it is, and when I, for example, make a decision about what my character is going to do next, I make that decision with the apparent overall structure of the adventure in mind and where it is likely 'wanting' us to go. I see this with players too, and in fact its a hard thing to overcome when you run Story Now for people that have played WotC D&amp;D for the past 20 years.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8658419, member: 82106"] I think 'railroad' is a pretty slippery concept and there are many degrees of 'railroading', and I prefer to use the term in this form, as a verb. I think part of the problem is that a LOT of what goes on in classic 'Trad' play (ala 2e or 5e seemingly preferred paradigm) is effectively the same techniques that are used in hard railroading, but generally softer in effect, and potentially leading to much more open-ended play. So it becomes extremely hard to draw any sort of line because what most of us would do if we run, say, a 5e campaign using published material, would use techniques that are called out as 'railroading' pretty often. Yet we would probably not feel that the overall tenor of play we were seeing had the feeling of being 'a railroad' in any overall sense. Speaking for myself, when playing in a game of this type, and that reasonably fairly describes at least some of my 5e play, I don't expect something else. I know what it is, and when I, for example, make a decision about what my character is going to do next, I make that decision with the apparent overall structure of the adventure in mind and where it is likely 'wanting' us to go. I see this with players too, and in fact its a hard thing to overcome when you run Story Now for people that have played WotC D&D for the past 20 years. [/QUOTE]

Verification