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Most of the methods I have in mind are about sharpening the situation, by having the players - whether via PC build, or some aspect of play (eg Apocalypse World first session) - contribute core concerns for the starting situation. But for a D&D-ish sandbox, there is the method that Mythic...

What do you do when someone cheats at cards? When people break the rules of the game, it's time to step outside of the game and fix things up. I think the idea that seems to come up in relation to RPGs, that the GM can fix rules breaking by making moves within the game is a pernicious one.

I'm not a very big fan of this. It's like the GM playing the game with themself.

To me that sounds like a bad game. Instead of the GM railroading, why not have a better way of getting the game off the ground? It's not like there's a shortage of methods in the contemporary RPG world.

I think by using really open setting as the contrast with railroad, you are building in an assumption that at least some RPGers - eg me - don't share. When I play, and in most of the games that I GM, setting is not all that important. It is a backdrop, and a way of coordinating various events...

I don't really see how it becomes the GM's prerogative to tell a player how to play their PC. If (say) a low INT is an aspect of the character, then why can't the player play that? When we play Classic Traveller, we expect the players to play their PCs' INT and EDU. That's just part of what it...

Great minds, and all that . . . It seems that in some cases - even many cases - the GM's reason is to preserve a pre-authored conception of setting and events within the setting. This can be a way of disclaiming decision-making. But if that stuff is mostly opaque to the players - so that they...

I still have to read the write-up - but as a BWHQ fan, I could not let this go past without comment. (Admittedly I've not played Mouse Guard. But I've played plenty of Burning Wheel, and plenty of Torchbearer - two of my favourite FRPGs.)

I thought of it because, in a Trickery conflict in my last Torchbearer session (i) some Gremlins were trying to steal weapons from the PCs, and (ii) one of the PCs equipped a (useless in combat, because) blunt sword as a prop (which gives a bonus on a certain sort of action declaration in a...

My general view is that if the GM is establishing the stakes, establishing the situation, establishing the theme and establishing the (meaningful) consequences, it's clearly a railroad. As per one of @hawkeyefan's posts upthread, a lot of module-esque play falls under this description. Start...

Most of my RPGing involves me GMing. So my response to @bloodtide was from that perspective.

My solution to this problem is to not play with bad players.

This article influenced me a lot. I don't think I've ever used GM-adjudicated alignment since reading it.

The gap between Paragon and Epic is particularly notable. But you're right that even Paragon tier PCs are remarkable in power. Well, in 4e D&D at least Paragon and Epic tier PCs don't normally travel on bandit-infested roads. As per what I quoted upthread, they "travel more quickly from place to...

Railroading is not about the agency of the characters. It's about the agency of the players. A simple example: if my PC is possessed by a demon, my PC has no agency. But if I, as a player, get to decide what actions the demon compels my PC to take, then (everything else being equal) I have...

I don't understand. A 1st level Wizard can't memorise and cast a Wish spell. But an Archmage can. A 1st level fighter can't hope to thrust his hands and arms into the forge without being horribly burned and maimed. But a paragon tier fighter can. I'm lost as to why you are lost.

I don't know what you mean by "meta-explanation". I mean, all RPG gameworlds are authored, and so all have a "meta-explanation" in that sense. But the reason that Paragon and Epic Tier PCs find the things they're trying to do hard is because they're trying to do hard things - things that 1st...

The only game I've played recently that is like this is Mythic Bastionland. I guess it's literally static. But if changes/developments in the PCs' fictional position open up new possibilities for what they can achieve, then the fictional consequences that flow from those rolls change over time...

Which systems are these? I've not encountered a system like this. At least in 4e D&D, the point of both scaling DCs and levels is to structure the way the game progresses through the fiction. So scaling DCs don't defeat the point in gaining levels. They're part of the methods the game uses to...

That seems like it should be some sort of "luck roll", or maybe a flashback mechanic. Or are you saying that that's actually what Arcana skill is - that rather than a representation/model of your character's knowledge, it's a tool for working out what they had the opportunity to learn in the past?