Quote from: CRKrueger;935051Give your cheating narrative fuckery a legitimate in-setting explanation, then it ceases to be cheating narrative fuckery.

This. This. This.

Quote from: trechriron;935108I hate it when NPCs take the cake.

Maybe the NPCs really like cake?

Quote from: Old One Eye;935122You do not see a distinction between a DM thinking, "Hmmm...players went north...I think a wizard tower would be fun."

And

"Hmmm...players went north...what makes sense to be there...I have already established that wizard's are outcasts who do not live in town in this milieu...road north goes toward barren wilderness...makes sense a wizard would have built a tower in the general area."

Now repeat that process for every single decision the DM makes over the course of a campaign.  And since you populate the map, what you think is fun is going to play a large part in the campaign.

The former rewards players for guessing from the basis of "what does my DM find fun".

The latter rewards players for guessing from the basis of "what do I know about the milieu".

In the singular instance, I agree to there being virtually no distinction.  Over the course of a campaign is where fruits are born.  (I only run open-ended campaigns, never one shots or closed-ended.)

Either way, there's a fucking wizard tower there, and, as a player in your campaign, I'd would likely not give a shit how it got there. It's there. I'll either investigate, or I won't.

It's a fucking intellectual exercise. If the tower is to the north, it's to the north. If the players know its to the north and decide to go east and then you plonk the wizard's tower there instead for your precious 'story', then you're a dick and your players will know it. If they don't know the tower was originally meant to be to the north and they travel east and still encounter the tower for your precious story, you're a dick and your players won't know it. If your players agreed with you beforehand that they'd like to explore the wizard's tower, it makes no fucking difference where it is and no-one is a dick and everyone knows it.

Yeah I don't see it as a complicated issue. Basically, if it becomes obvious that the GM is "forcing" the players to make a specific decision, or to end up at a particular location or conflict no matter how much they try otherwise, it's shitty railroading.

If the players are at a metaphorical train station and pick the AWESOME TRAIN GOING TO AWESOME TOWN of their own free will and volition, then the rails don't really matter.

Complicating the picture is that even in a sandbox players can voluntarily subject themselves to situations that differ little from the classic railroad. For example joining the military and placing themselves under a higher authority.

Quote from: estar;935160Complicating the picture is that even in a sandbox players can voluntarily subject themselves to situations that differ little from the classic railroad. For example joining the military and placing themselves under a higher authority.

That's a good point, but "voluntary" is the key word. The players chose to enlist. If the DM forced them to, despite efforts to avoid such a fate, well...

But, for the setting to be consistent, sometimes the PCs may not have choice, and the player's won't have chosen that path, but it's important that comes from the setting, not randomly.  If the player's get captured by ninjas, at some point their choices should have placed them in a place where they could be captured by ninjas, not just randomly as they rounded a corner.

Setting consistency is everything.  Without that, what does player choice even mean or get you?

Quote from: CRKrueger;935175But, for the setting to be consistent, sometimes the PCs may not have choice, and the player's won't have chosen that path, but it's important that comes from the setting, not randomly.  If the player's get captured by ninjas, at some point their choices should have placed them in a place where they could be captured by ninjas, not just randomly as they rounded a corner.

Setting consistency is everything.  Without that, what does player choice even mean or get you?

Also good points.

But there's a logical consistency to that (eg.: evil army captures the PCs and forces them to do missions for them). There's an in-setting and situational reason for this to happen. As a player, I'd respect that unless those rails suck and are boring.

edit: "suck and boring" as in breaks the campaign's established expectations of theme and tone. That can be OK, but sometimes it's been lame, in my experience.

Quote from: Necrozius;935159Yeah I don't see it as a complicated issue. Basically, if it becomes obvious that the GM is "forcing" the players to make a specific decision, or to end up at a particular location or conflict no matter how much they try otherwise, it's shitty railroading.

If the players are at a metaphorical train station and pick the AWESOME TRAIN GOING TO AWESOME TOWN of their own free will and volition, then the rails don't really matter.

I think the distinction between a linear adventure and a railroad is important to make here.
A railroad is where the characters decisions are irrelevant. "Forcing" as you say. There is no good railroad. There is no good reason to railroad.
A linear adventure, on the other hand, can be just fine. I think this is what you meant by the metaphorical awesome train.

Quote from: One Horse Town;935150It's a fucking intellectual exercise. If the tower is to the north, it's to the north. If the players know its to the north and decide to go east and then you plonk the wizard's tower there instead for your precious 'story', then you're a dick and your players will know it. If they don't know the tower was originally meant to be to the north and they travel east and still encounter the tower for your precious story, you're a dick and your players won't know it. If your players agreed with you beforehand that they'd like to explore the wizard's tower, it makes no fucking difference where it is and no-one is a dick and everyone knows it.

So by your assessment if they players go north and I arbitrarily plop down a tower I avoid dickness but if I instead take a tower from the world elsewhere and move it there (them not knowing of it) I will embrace dickness even though the experience would be exactly the same for the players?

Quote from: Necrozius;935159Yeah I don't see it as a complicated issue. Basically, if it becomes obvious that the GM is "forcing" the players to make a specific decision, or to end up at a particular location or conflict no matter how much they try otherwise, it's shitty railroading.

If the players are at a metaphorical train station and pick the AWESOME TRAIN GOING TO AWESOME TOWN of their own free will and volition, then the rails don't really matter.

The key point in your post to me is the phrase " no matter how much they try otherwise". Obviously if the players announced they were avoiding towers at all costs and asked around specifically to avoid encountering any in the area, only a really shitty GM would force them to find one anyway. That has never been the issue. It lies however with the situation in which the players are not aware or particularly concerned and wander into whatever the GM provides... and in the interest of minimizing prep time, wasted game time doing nothing etc. he moves, alters, arranges the circumstances to expedite the adventure.

As others are saying in various ways - it's about internal consistency. You can do Zero-Prep with ease, if you as a GM know what your world is about, what the NPC's that inhabit it are all about, and why it all works the way it does. When you start changing the consistency of those dynamics to suit your desires despite whatever the PC's do, well you're now creating a railroad (and as I've said in all your other threads - if that's what your players LIKE - who cares what we think? Play on.)

You don't have to tell the players what/why/when you're doing things - their characters should, imo, discover all that in game. But the onus of creating that consistency is on you as the GM - by whatever means it takes you to get there, be it railroad, improvisation, PC exploration or RP or a big glorious mix of all of the above.

I generally find it a bad move to create some kind of orthodoxy of thought when it comes to using a toolset. But I also stipulate that if you really wanna use a claw-hammer to put in a screw... then have at it. heh

Edit: With this seeming concern you show over whether "railroading" is legit or not vs. improvisation within/without a sandbox - and often these idea get very muddled for you (at least it seems that way by dint of your response), I find a lot of your questions seem to revolve around the idea of how much "prep" is too much prep and hairsplitting. Have you ever tried setting up your campaigns a different way than what you normally do?

I think a nice method for you, if you haven't looked might be the Plotpoint Campaign idea from Savage Worlds. It might let you let go of some of your preconceptions and let you answer your own questions without even trying.

Quote from: CRKrueger;935175But, for the setting to be consistent, sometimes the PCs may not have choice, and the player's won't have chosen that path, but it's important that comes from the setting, not randomly.  If the player's get captured by ninjas, at some point their choices should have placed them in a place where they could be captured by ninjas, not just randomly as they rounded a corner.

Setting consistency is everything.  Without that, what does player choice even mean or get you?

Some of you are forgetting the original question. Player choice is very important of course...but what difference does it make if that choice presents a brand new, conjured up on the fly, situation or one the GM planned for later and maybe elsewhere but moves it?

Lets say the players just reached a small village. The Improv GM has no plans for it at all. He decided as the players travelled it looked like a good place for a settlement due to a river and some nice looking farmland. He starts describing the place - probably rolling randomly for various features I would guess, mixing in what he finds to be logical given his understanding of the area, culture etc. Ok, that's fine.

The players are looking for an inn. He rolls a couple dice and describes a building, presents an innkeeper NPC in a fun way, basing their personality on a character he recalls from a recent TV show. The players stay the night and nurse some wounds. Good stuff.

Another success for the Improv GM.

Another GM whips up a village and an Inn weeks before the game. He places it on the map - here- near a forest road. He expects the players will head that way and generates some businesses and NPCs for the place. They however decide to head another direction, towards a river. Not having anything planned that way, but seeing no harm in it as the players are relatively ignorant about the region, picks up the village, its inn and keeper, and plops it down next to the river with a few tweaks, turning it into a farming village instead of woodcutting.

He is a dirty railroader?

Wouldn't be guilty of no more than economy of prep work?

That's my main question here. Nobody is going to argue (Well maybe someone, but not me) that moving something around in front of the players, no matter how hard they try to avoid it, if fair or desirable. But if confronted with a Y in the road, and with no knowledge whatsoever of what lies down either path, how is it wrong to let the players choose then provide an adventure down the one they travel - regardless?

Quote from: rgrove0172;935212Some of you are forgetting the original question. Player choice is very important of course...but what difference does it make if that choice presents a brand new, conjured up on the fly, situation or one the GM planned for later and maybe elsewhere but moves it?

Consistency. If it's consistent - then it doesn't effectively matter (and to us as outsiders - nor should it). The implications of your question are that some part of you doesn't really care that player choice matters. Or at least you place less importance on their choices for their PCs than your own choices for their PC's. That small difference extrapolates to a whole lot of issues downstream in my experience.