At least in early D&D, characters are so quick to generate that if one is hopeless and dies, or gets bitten by something poisonous in Basic D&D and dies, creating a new one does not take very long.
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Originally Posted by DeadParrot
What I do miss is the feeling that the characters have some control over their lives. Many of the modern 1-20 adventure paths seem like poorly disguised movie scripts where most of the action is pre-determined. "After accepting the mission to rescue the prince, the PCs exit town to the north until scripted encounter 1. After defeating the encounter the PCs continue until scripted encounter 2. After defeating the encounter and finding the key, the PCs soon arrive at the dungeon.... ".
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That bothers me about Robin D. Laws' using Hollywood screenwriting to proscribe how to write games and adventures ... a film director controls everything you see and hear, a GM is lucky if he can get everyone in the same room within half an hour of start time!
That said, I have seen some CoC adventures like that ... I think railroading marks GMs who have not learned how to use more sophisticated ways of designing adventures. Stringing fight scenes between transition scenes is easy, whatever the system!