Quote from: One Horse Town;925898Blimey.

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No one's 100% anything, so sometimes you can have a conversation, but...yeah.

Quote from: One Horse Town;925901If you can tell me what that quote in your signature is in relation to i might be able to answer. Bit creepy that you've carried it around for years tbh.

This here.
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?21777-Why-did-4e-fail&p=721820&viewfull=1#post721820

Quote from: CRKrueger;925909No one's 100% anything, so sometimes you can have a conversation, but...yeah.

This here.
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?21777-Why-did-4e-fail&p=721820&viewfull=1#post721820

Right. I still don't give a fuck about what outsold what according to whom.

Quote from: Skarg;925906For one thing, staying clear and truthful and keeping agreements about what a group of people is doing. For another, getting to play a game about the game situation, and not one about pretending to be playing a game about the game situation, but really having the GM force the course and results according to things that have nothing to do with the situation, thus making it no longer a game about that situation. For another, the challenge of facing dangerous, interesting, challenging, otherworldly and wild situations and make decisions that actually relate to those situations, and see what happens, as opposed to seeing what the GM forced to happen because he thinks his notions of what's cool or fun or dramatic or clever are better than the situation supposedly in play, often without even telling the players which is which. For another, not having to wonder whether what you do or how you do it actually has any particular effect on the outcome. For another, not having to figure out how to work the GM since you know that's what you're really doing.

Also there's the situation I described above, where I'd been GM'ing by the rules & dice for years, and then I once saved a player by deus ex machina fiat, and it called into question for me everything I'd done up till then. I wasn't sure what I'd've done if it happened earlier, or what I'd do in future, and that seemed to invalidate the whole idea of playing a game as opposed to playing make believe.

Of course it's subjective, but when players and GMs actively deny there's any value or difference in not fudging and deceiving about what's going on, and/or almost never play otherwise, I wonder how they'd know.

Also I wonder when people feel this way, what the motive is to conceal it and act as if there were no deception or fudging? Is it not that they too feel there would be value in there being a real detailed & consistent game world to explore that has logic that isn't just being dreamed up by the GM according to what seems cool at the moment? And/or that ideally they wouldn't have to fudge die rolls because all results were interesting and fun?

For me, both as GM and as player, when there is a consistent world and rules in play it's an entirely different kind of game that involves entirely different mindsets, versus the GM making things up and changing results. To me, it remains a game up to when the GM alters results and situations (or railroads), at which point there's an intermission and a new game situation gets presented... When the GM hides or is unclear whether the rules and situation are really being used or not, the players don't know if they're playing a game (where there choices result in consistent effects), or if the game is actually being altered by the GM. I'd rather stay in an actual game situation as much as possible. I don't want to be trying to actually understand a situation that isn't really there because the GM just has predetermined events in mind that'll happen whether I do something clever or stupid. I don't want to figure out what to do to survive a deadly tactical situation, only to realize the GM is going to let us all live and triumph even if we just say nonsense about how we do cool surreal nonsense we saw in an anime.

I usually prefer to play a game with consistent cause & effect and chances of things happening that reflect the situation as if there were no GM/gods/rule-o-cool/egotists/dramatic-sensibilities/genre-conventions/TV-show-directors/whatever altering what happens for reasons that are not about what exists in the game situation.

Personally, I'm annoyed by lazy films and TV shows where it's painfully clear that things happen and people are being killed or not based on drama and other nonsense, to the point that there is no illusion of the situation being something worth much thought or even the actors behaving like the danger isn't really there, and the way they act is based on the TV logic rather than anything that makes sense. Even comparing to what I consider much less lazy and better done films/TV/books/plays, there is often what seems to me a severe laziness, apathy, and low quality that shows the glaring symptom of seeming forced and inauthentic. In really well-done drama, I can get sucked in even though there is a script because the author, director, and actors developed things enough, take them seriously enough, that it is about the experience of being in the actual situation and facing the uncertainty and choices of those situations as if they were real and their outcomes not known nor controlled in favor of main characters or genre conventions or whatever "meta" considerations that are outside the drama and should not from character perspective exist or have any weight at all. Seems like a parallel sort of thing to me.

And yet, all the while you are being sucked by or in to that drama you are watching you know there is a script, a pre determined order of scenes, a finite outcome. This doesn't ruin the show for you of course because despite knowing the above, you aren't familiar with the specifics. This character might die, this ploy may fail, the bomb might go off etc. There is a bit of difference between this and a game where you actually have input but as far as uncertainty, there is no more or no less than if a heavy handed GM is running the show. You really cant enjoy one and not the other.

Kind of funny. When Hilary gets caught with her pants down on some embarrassing political issue revealed by a wiki link, she starts screaming Russians! Around here Trolls are the goto when you're out of ideas. LOL

Quote from: rgrove0172;925916You really cant enjoy one and not the other.

Why, yes I can.

For the simple reason that *games* are interactive, while *TV* is not.

When watching a TV show, I have no expectation that I can impact what happens in any way.  When playing RPGs, I do.

(To repeat what others have said, some people enjoy railroaded games where they're more passive until combat breaks out, and good for them!  I'm not one of them.)

Quote from: robiswrong;925921Why, yes I can.

For the simple reason that *games* are interactive, while *TV* is not.

When watching a TV show, I have no expectation that I can impact what happens in any way.  When playing RPGs, I do.

(To repeat what others have said, some people enjoy railroaded games where they're more passive until combat breaks out, and good for them!  I'm not one of them.)

To the hyperbole! How can you make any reasonable choice if everything is dictated by some random chart?

Quote from: rgrove0172;925917Kind of funny. When Hilary gets caught with her pants down on some embarrassing political issue revealed by a wiki link, she starts screaming Russians! Around here Trolls are the goto when you're out of ideas. LOL

Someone also out of ideas or arguments supports anyone who even tangentially seems to be on their side, bringing them selves down to the Team Jersey level.

Quote from: Sommerjon;925926To the hyperbole! How can you make any reasonable choice if everything is dictated by some random chart?

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here, unless it's some asinine claim that the only options are "railroad" or "everything from a random chart".

Quote from: robiswrong;925960I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here, unless it's some asinine claim that the only options are "railroad" or "everything from a random chart".

It's Sommerjon, that IS what he's saying.  There's no middle ground (despite, you know, there is.)

Quote from: rgrove0172;925872I completely understand and agree there is value in every approach, completely hands off included.

I really appreciate you having an open mind, rgrove. :rolleyes:

But seriously, who wants to bet on how many posts it is before he tells someone that it's impossible for them to like and dislike the things they prefer?

Quote from: rgrove0172;925916You really cant enjoy one and not the other.

Trick question, folks. The answer was one post.

Quote from: estar;925352For example, it help to know how to run an interesting railroaded adventure even though you are running sandbox campaign. This is because often the players will accept missions from NPCs to further their own goals. These missions have limited means of successfully achieving them. Learning how to run railroaded adventures well allow you, as a referee, to make these type of adventures interesting.

Your premise is flawed. I don't need to railroad my players in order to run these scenarios.

Quote from: Lunamancer;925862You are correct, that if you take any one of your examples in total isolation, I doubt any player is going to detect the cheat if the GM hides it well. But to even examine things in this way entirely misses the point. When the GM has an agenda, there is a cluster of cheats in the same direction. That's when a pattern becomes discernible to a highly perceptive player.

Exactly. People are claiming that you can never statistically detect a loaded die from a single roll. That's true. It's also largely irrelevant.

Can we imagine a GM who railroads rarely, randomly, and without any agenda? Or a GM who scrupulously only railroads each player once in their entire lives? Sure. But while we're furiously humping these spherical cows, I'm left wondering what the point of these hypotheticals are supposed to be.

Quote from: robiswrong;925960I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here, unless it's some asinine claim that the only options are "railroad" or "everything from a random chart".

Why is it asinine?  You have dipshits here trying to claim if you change a single die result it automatically goes to "Oh my fucking wad, you railroad loving muthafucker.  Why even bother rolling dice, just tell your shitty story"

Quote from: Christopher Brady;925966It's Sommerjon, that IS what he's saying.  There's no middle ground (despite, you know, there is.)

There's a middle ground?  Here?  I think not.  You should reread this whole thread there fella.  This whole place lives and breathes hyperbolic statements and OTWisms.

Quote from: Sommerjon;926115Why is it asinine?  You have dipshits here trying to claim if you change a single die result it automatically goes to "Oh my fucking wad, you railroad loving muthafucker.  Why even bother rolling dice, just tell your shitty story"

Thankfully, I'm not one of those dipshits.

So you can either take the high ground, or wallow in dipshitness.  And when someone tries to talk about the middle ground, you can either use that as an opportunity to move the conversation towards a more reasonable area, or you can use it as an excuse to make asinine arguments and polarize the conversation further.

Your choice.

Quote from: robiswrong;926122Thankfully, I'm not one of those dipshits.

So you can either take the high ground, or wallow in dipshitness.  And when someone tries to talk about the middle ground, you can either use that as an opportunity to move the conversation towards a more reasonable area, or you can use it as an excuse to make asinine arguments and polarize the conversation further.

Your choice.

Are you sure you're not one of them there dipshits?

If evrything that happens in your game is not the result of a random dice roll on a table, you are railroading. Unless you are storygaming swine. The only acceptable alternative is to prepare an extensive map and key with timetable ahead of time and not shift anything ever, or make anything up. If it's not on the key it doesn't exist.

In any case if you and your players are having fun you are doing it wrong.

Quote from: robiswrong;926122Thankfully, I'm not one of those dipshits.

So you can either take the high ground, or wallow in dipshitness.  And when someone tries to talk about the middle ground, you can either use that as an opportunity to move the conversation towards a more reasonable area, or you can use it as an excuse to make asinine arguments and polarize the conversation further.

Your choice.

That's about par for the course around here. If you concede even a little, in the interest of calming down the shit storm and move things back toward helpful discussion its viewed as weakness and you are instantly shit on. If you do read through this trainwreck thread youll see it like 20 times.