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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6109580" data-attributes="member: 42582">I still stend by my earlier comment. A plane like limbo is &quot;amorphous&quot;. An ochre jelly is &quot;amorphous&quot;.A situation in which neither the players nor the GM know what would happen until it was improvised does not entail an &quot;amorphic world&quot;. It is just a different technique from pre-prep for settling the content of the gameworld.That's not quite how I see it. In classic D&amp;D, for instance, the stakes in a perception roll (listening at a door, or searching for a secret door) are &quot;Do I hear whatever is to be heard on the other side of the door&quot; or &quot;Do I find any secret door that is there to be found?&quot; It is presupposed that the GM already knows what is there to be found.The idea of the GM making something up because the player made a good roll and the GM think it would be interesting to run with it is not really consistent with Gygaxian &quot;skilled play&quot;.If you're suggesting a contrast between &quot;playing D&amp;D&quot; and playing &quot;a narrativist game&quot; then I don't accept the contrast; D&amp;D can be played in a vanilla narrative way.But I don't see what you're describing here as core cases of playing an adventure path.&nbsp; [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] was not just descrbing a game in which details of setting are present before play. He was describing a game in which the GM knows what is relevant and what is not before play. It's the second element that (i) distinguishes what he described from a sandbox, and that (ii) led me to characterise it as a railroad.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6109580, member: 42582"] I still stend by my earlier comment. A plane like limbo is "amorphous". An ochre jelly is "amorphous". A situation in which neither the players nor the GM know what would happen until it was improvised does not entail an "amorphic world". It is just a different technique from pre-prep for settling the content of the gameworld. That's not quite how I see it. In classic D&D, for instance, the stakes in a perception roll (listening at a door, or searching for a secret door) are "Do I hear whatever is to be heard on the other side of the door" or "Do I find any secret door that is there to be found?" It is presupposed that the GM already knows what is there to be found. The idea of the GM making something up because the player made a good roll and the GM think it would be interesting to run with it is not really consistent with Gygaxian "skilled play". If you're suggesting a contrast between "playing D&D" and playing "a narrativist game" then I don't accept the contrast; D&D can be played in a vanilla narrative way. But I don't see what you're describing here as core cases of playing an adventure path. [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] was not just descrbing a game in which details of setting are present before play. He was describing a game in which the GM knows what is relevant and what is not before play. It's the second element that (i) distinguishes what he described from a sandbox, and that (ii) led me to characterise it as a railroad. [/QUOTE]

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