Recent content by Celebrim

Yes. But, also fully applies to a sandbox or an improvisational game as well. The key point is the GM using some technique to steer the game how they want it to go usually with some form of illusionism - fudging, Schrodinger's map, false choice, obdurium walls, invincible/irresistible NPCs...

I think with present technology, all CRPGs are railroads. My favorite CRPG is Mass Effect 1. And it's very much on rails. There is a bit of illusionism going on that becomes apparent the more times you repeat the game where you realize none of your choices really matter or significantly alter...

I tend to agree. I write about railroading not as an attempt to set some standard that you can't break, because I break it myself. I write about railroading in order to inform people how to do it well and artfully if they find themselves having a reason to do it, and also to make people more...

While I tend to agree, I also think that if 99 out 100 roads lead to the same place, it's still a railroad even if it is subtle about it. Fudging things, even if just to correct mistakes you made in your prep, is usually considered a form of illusionism. For example, realizing you made the...

It's only railroading if the puzzle becomes absolutely required to solve. In other words, if the door to the puzzle is surrounded by obdurium walls, and there is a planar lock on the area beyond, and nothing can dispel the magic, and the puzzle has to be solved right now because the PCs can't...

Yeah, that's the Schrodinger's Map technique, and it's occasionally useful. A good example of where I would use it is the crossroads in I3 Pyramid, the first road the PC's take should always lead to the cave of the Efreeti, because the story just makes more sense if the PCs have a chance to be...

I can imagine some narrow definitions of it that wouldn't be just GMing, but I am struggling to find a middle ground for the term that doesn't mean either "fiat" or "railroading". I'm not convinced at this moment the term means anything, or that the people who are using it are using it to mean...

That is what I'm getting at. Because this "GM force" concept seems to me to put under its tent some highly varied things, from overt railroading techniques to basic improvisation from established facts of setting, to potentially ordinary prep to establish setting.

So, a couple of questions: a) Suppose I prep ahead of time a Stone Giant who lives in the mountain pass as a fixed encounter. Is that GM force? b) Suppose I prep ahead of time that as the party travels through the mountain pass they come across a besieged caravan fending off an attack by stone...

Honestly, I'm still lost because in the middle of what was already discussion of the definition of one term of art suddenly we were talking about yet another term of art "GM force" and I'm not in the slightest clear what is meant by the term "GM force" except that like railroading the fact that...

If the GM establishes nothing, then it's a rowboat world and none of their choices matter because there is nothing to do and no consequences. Someone has to be responsible for establishing something or there is no agency, and in my opinion the game becomes dysfunctional if the same person...

Ok, so what is it exactly? I could guess at what is meant by the term but I can't really answer questions about it without some exacting definition.

What do you mean by "GM force"? Is it a synonym for GM fiat?

I don't see how or why you would claim that. And I understand where you got that idea even less. Right. That's what makes it heavy handed railroading. The premise I would start with is probably more like, "Given this villain, what stat block would they have? What minions? What resources...

I not only have GM fiat at the heart of my definition, but since I don't really judge railroading on the basis of "good/bad", my definition is probably more expansive than yours. Any GM fiat which wasn't justified prior to play as part of an honest analysis of what the "reality" of the setting...