Plot Railroading: How much?

[Darth Ultron]

I think I've just hit the point where I can no longer consider you,

I don't agree with you so I'm wrong...got it.

This doesn't surprise me whatsoever considering the political post you tried to bait us with earlier, but you seem to lock onto particular "trigger" words in other people's posts and then spout off about how you disagree with whatever you see those words meaning, rather than anything the other poster has talked about. From my experience, this is a common sort of behavior from the type of people who enjoy "triggering" others. It's all projection.

What bait? I'm a civil war enthusiast and re-actor, so I have a ton of civil war stuff. I do disagree that a word only has the meaning one person says it does. I do tend to ignore insults and the like, but otherwise comment line by line.

For example, sandboxes are not "random". Not by your definition, DU, nor by anyone else's. You just have such a horribly skewed view about what they look like that you refuse to even grok the arguments that people are putting forth so you can rag on them. A decently designed sandbox is a setting with a number of different moving parts that interact with each other independent of the players. The campaign comes from introducing the players into the setting and having the setting take them into account when deciding on their actions. There's nothing inherently "random" about that. But you won't read anything I've written. You will pretend that I've said something entirely different and argue against that strawman for paragraphs.

I've said a game without a plot is random. Though ''sandbox'' is a trigger word for many as most think it is ''a super cool way to play: period!'' Few people do play in pure sandboxes, as they would just be a random mess....most people say ''sandbox'' and then have order, structure and a plot like any normal game.

...?

I have heard literally nobody say that a GM can't improvise. In fact, I've seen Improvisation generally agreed upon as a key GMing skill.

Yes, everyone does agree to this in theory.

In practice though, an improving DM can railroad...so that is a problem for many people. Like the Pc's attack the bad guy, but the DM wants the bad guy to live so the DM ''improvises'' and says he has a teleport thingy. Many people would then cry ''railroad''.

And this gets into the endless spin. The DM can defend themselves from the hostile players and say ''oh well it makes sense for the bad guy to have an escape thingy and try and get the players to agree it is ''ok''. Though the players might want to be problems and say they demand ''agency/control'' over the game and the Dm ''can't'' do things they don't like. And then it is spin that the DM ''can't'' just ''make up stuff on a whim'' and the DM ''must'' make up stuff before the game and just ''use it like a player has too''. And then you get into reading the DM minds and finding out why they ''did'' something...if it was ''random'' or ''makes sense to the players'' then it is ''ok''. But if the DM dared to ''want or wish'' any thing that is badwrongfun railroading.

In the lazy sandbox, I only develop details as needed. If you never go visit the king, the king never has stats. But he does have general drives and goals to inform how the Duke - who, if you are interacting with, does have stats - feels about the king.

Still even in a sandbox, you don't make up whole paragraphs for NPC's you will never use. It is very pointless for a DM to write out a paragraph or two about 200 towns folk...when the Pcs will only meet and interact with like seven of them.

But that's not a jerk player so much as just a natural outcome to being railroaded.

It is about as natural as anyone that complains and shuts down when anything does not go their way.

Can you interact meaningfully with those of us who aren't interested in narrative authorship / changing reality?

Can you agree that just as you post something your not automatically always right? Can you agree to have at least say a dozen posts to has out any one thing and not just make an ''I'm right post and don't want to ever post about this again!"?

So, uh, I'll probably regret asking, but can you define this term that even our resident Lawful Evil paragon sends leery of? And, perhaps more importantly, whatever it means, can you stop using "railroad(ing)" as a synonym, and start using a more standard definition of the term?

DM Agency: When the DM forces an event to happen during the game play to further the plot, story or accomplish a goal for the good, fun enjoyment of the game for everyone(aka both the Dm and the players).

So your saying ''I must agree with you'' about Your Standard Definition? See how that does not help any sort of talk or debate for you to just say ''I am right, agree with me".

And that's your good. Why don't you talk more about this?

Well, I think this type of game play is the worst. It is reducing an RPG to a board game. The best part about an RPG is the immersion where you are fully in the fantasy world. The OOC Game is a board game/video game. ''Ok, your characters move into location six to have encounter six..oh and guys I was too lazy so make up any treasure for this room so don't search for any in location six."

But I can make a ''Why the OOC Game type is the worst game type ever thread...

My way of explaining it is, it's when the GM changes the logical outcome of player actions. There's more to it than that, granted, but that's the big one.

There is a big 50/50 problem here though:
50% of the time it depends on whose ''logic'' you use
50% of the time it is not ''logic'' but option or viewpoints.

A mess? Is a tree "a mess" if it isn't professionally pruned?
Some of us can enjoy natural beauty without telling Mother Nature that she needs to manicure her lawns.

Yes, most of nature is a random mess...but that is it's beauty.

Getting him to acknowledge the distinction between that concept and improvising like, "there aren't rules for playing Marbles in D&D - how do we determine who won?", or that from "the GM can change any rule on a whim" seems outside the realm of the possible.

So are you saying improvising is only A)Making up new rules to only fill holes in the game or B)Homebrewing subsystems for a game?

Seems a bit limiting.