Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Campbell]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION],

I think there are some substantive differences in approach, especially when we consider elements that are unique to the system, rather than just the GMing techniques.

• When MCing player intent never enters the picture and character intent seldom does. The Apocalypse World cares about what you do, not what you want.
• Apocalypse World utilizes task resolution rather than conflict resolution for the most part.
• The way moves tend to snowball resembles fail forward in effect, but differs in application.
• If you do it, you do it means that when a move applies you must roll the dice and accept the result. There is no saying yes or saying no. Always say what the rules demand.
• There is no stake setting. You follow the fiction and make a move that fits.
• Prep has a say in a way it does not in Burning Wheel and Cortex+ where it is all in potentia. Always say what your prep demands. It's a very particular sort of prep with room for gaps though.

When I'm running Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, or Masks I tend to follow things pretty strictly. Dungeon World is looser in its demands. When I adopt their techniques to other games I tend to focus on the more transferrable principles and adopt them to the game. If I ever find anyone willing to play Burning Wheel I'm probably going to run it fairly strict. It's a lot easier to print off some playbooks, grab some people, and get gaming in 5 minutes.

 

[Emerikol]

I think in my own approach, the players are constrained in similar ways to people in the real world. We are free actors in this world but that doesn't mean we can do anything. The laws of physics prevent me from just floating around at 10000 feet. In D&D, there is the campaign reality which for me is a combination of the rules system and that state of affairs in the world. The players really are free to affect the world however they like and are able with their characters but the world as it stands is a given at the start of the campaign. I try in fairness to have a lot detailed out in advance before the players even choose their class.

I tend to prefer the treasure hunter, kingdom (in the broad sense) builder, motives to the save the universe motives. That doesn't mean bad NPC's are not up to no good all the time. I never create a motivated NPC though that I can't have winning. The players may just choose to ignore him. The world continues to move off camera in my campaign. Kingdoms go to war, weather wrecks cities, monsters rampage, the world is a living breathing place or at least I try my best to make it seem that way. And a lot of it is driven my randomness, I admit.

 

[Campbell]

I think in my own approach, the players are constrained in similar ways to people in the real world. We are free actors in this world but that doesn't mean we can do anything. The laws of physics prevent me from just floating around at 10000 feet. In D&D, there is the campaign reality which for me is a combination of the rules system and that state of affairs in the world. The players really are free to affect the world however they like and are able with their characters but the world as it stands is a given at the start of the campaign. I try in fairness to have a lot detailed out in advance before the players even choose their class.

I tend to prefer the treasure hunter, kingdom (in the broad sense) builder, motives to the save the universe motives. That doesn't mean bad NPC's are not up to no good all the time. I never create a motivated NPC though that I can't have winning. The players may just choose to ignore him. The world continues to move off camera in my campaign. Kingdoms go to war, weather wrecks cities, monsters rampage, the world is a living breathing place or at least I try my best to make it seem that way. And a lot of it is driven my randomness, I admit.

Thank you for this. I mean it. It's really nice to get some perspective. I think I would enjoy playing in your game, even if the heavy prep involved would make running a similar game pretty difficult for me. I think in many ways my most preferred approach sits somewhere between yours and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s. Pemerton, please correct me if I misspeak. My primary interest is following around the PCs and making sure they live meaningful lives full of interesting decisions, but I want to make sure they absolutely live on solid ground and we are following the established fiction to its natural ends. I leave a lot unestablished, and only really do so as needed to enable meaningful decision making. However, my fronts are very much real and have a life of their own. If engaged with or ignored there will be consequences. They are part of the fiction which we all follow.

Here's the agenda I follow in Apocalypse World, which can easily be adapted to other games:

• Make Apocalypse World seem real.
• Make the players' characters' lives not boring.
• Play to find out what happens

Everything you say, you should do it to accomplish these three, and no other. It’s not, for instance, your agenda to make the players lose, or to deny them what they want, or to punish them, or to control them, or to get them through your pre-planned storyline (DO NOT pre-plan a storyline, and I’m not ing around). It’s not your job to put their characters in double-binds or dead ends, or to yank the rug out from under their feet.

Go chasing after any of those, you’ll wind up with a boring game that makes Apocalypse World seem contrived, and you’ll be pre-deciding what happens by yourself, not playing to find out.

I think the primary differences between our approach are that for you it is probably not enough to make the world seem real and it is the players responsible in your game to make their characters' lives not boring. I think we both play the world with integrity, even if I tend to do more building as time goes on and involve my players when I feel like it. One of my principles in most games I run is Think Offscreen Too. However, when I do so my primary interest is in exploring how what the players are doing through their characters is impacting what we're not seeing and thinking of new ways to make their lives not boring. Although, sometimes it's just to bring in details that make the world seem real.

 

[Campbell]

I never really responded to why I feel like thinking in terms of character arcs is counterproductive. When I play I want everyone's attention focused on the moment. As much as possible, we should all be present. I don't want us to play for the fiction, I want us to play in the fiction. I want us to care very deeply, like in our bones deep, and have hopes for the future. Then I want us to push that aside and find out what really happens. We need to let go and follow the fiction, not influence it. The primary reason why I play is emotional immersion in the current situation. We cannot really have that as a group if anyone at the table is pushing for a given trajectory. For me, the output of play is not all that important. It's the experience and tension at the table.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I never really responded to why I feel like thinking in terms of character arcs is counterproductive. When I play I want everyone's attention focused on the moment. As much as possible, we should all be present.

The character in the present is shaped by his past, and usually has some concern for his future. Awareness of backstory & events to date gives context, and when 'arcs' come together bringing those elements to a climax, that drama happens in the present, as well.

The primary reason why I play is emotional immersion in the current situation.

Immersion got over-used for a while around here, particularly as a reason to tell everyone how to play ("we can't have THAT in the game! oh! My Immersion! It's breaaaakiiing....."). At least it's a little easier to imagine emotional immersion happening around a table - y'know without postulating a Mazes & Monsters psychotic break - but, I also see a lot of dramatic value to story arcs. Nor, for that matter, do I have anything against a campaign that's more episodic...

 

[pemerton]

Mechanics that allow the players to significantly reframe the ingame situation (eg teleportation; some forms of "rocket tag" combat) can tend to produce play where players avoid the "hard questions" rather than actualy engage the ingame situation via their PCs.

Don't follow that one...

If the GM is trying to frame the PCs into situations that will put them (and thereby their players) under pressure, and the players have the ability to defuse or cancel the situation rather than actually engage it (eg by teleporting home; by rocket tagging all opposition; etc) - what is, in effect, an ability to reframe the situation so that it doesn't put any pressure on them - then it can be hard to run a game that is all about going where the action is and asking provocative questions.

 

[Campbell]

The character in the present is shaped by his past, and usually has some concern for his future. Awareness of backstory & events to date gives context, and when 'arcs' come together bringing those elements to a climax, that drama happens in the present, as well.

I absolutely agree that characters are shaped by their history and their aspirations for the future, and I totally want players to concern themselves in that way. That context is fundamental. For me, it's just a question of where the primary interest is. I totally understand that for some people there is a certain joy in seeing everything come together in a beautifully crafted arc that they work with the GM to fulfill. I am just not one of those people most of the time. I tend to like things messy, fairly simple, and raw. The GM style I prefer most of the time is aimed at arriving at a particular type of narrative without trying too hard to get there - deeply personal stories where we find out what the characters really value. As a group, we're finding this out together. Being audience and participant at the same time makes this enjoyable for me. It's a set of techniques, but not like the only set of techniques. Some of these techniques and principles are also fairly useful in other contexts.

This advice, although primarily meant for a GM's NPCs describes the approach I take to playing a character as well.

Treat your NPCs like stolen cars.

Think of the characters you play as stolen cars. You’re in control of them for a time, but you don’t own them and you can’t really keep them. You hold onto them for as long as they’re fun and useful, and abandon them when they become dead weight.

The other players, they own their characters and are loyal to them. That isn’t the case for you. Joyride your characters. Play them recklessly, and play them knowing that they aren’t going to last. If you do so, you’ll have constant drama, constant sex, constant violence, and constant chaos. That’s ideal.

Immersion got over-used for a while around here, particularly as a reason to tell everyone how to play ("we can't have THAT in the game! oh! My Immersion! It's breaaaakiiing....."). At least it's a little easier to imagine emotional immersion happening around a table - y'know without postulating a Mazes & Monsters psychotic break - but, I also see a lot of dramatic value to story arcs. Nor, for that matter, do I have anything against a campaign that's more episodic...

Yeah. There definitely is a danger in going overboard. Everyone's emotional safety and consent becomes more crucial when you are playing hard. It helps to do check-ins and take breaks. Building and maintaining trust is also crucial. It's also not for everyone. For some or even most people these games are mostly diverting past times. Not everyone is fit for every game, and you don't always want full bore emotional immersion all the time. Sometimes it is okay to step back and let a fight just be a fight. Moments of catharsis are just as important as moments of high drama.

There's a reason why I don't always play Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Urban Shadows, or Vampire - The Requiem. Sometimes you just have to stomp on some orcs. Games like Dungeon World, Masks, and Blades in the Dark allow you to break up the serious stuff with some more catharsis while employing a lot of the same techniques in different ways. Sometimes I also enjoy dungeon bashing in B/X , exploring a sandbox in Stars Without Number or Traveller, or more mythic, violent and visceral 4e play. [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has sometimes accused me of being a bit too serious in my play, and he probably is onto something.

 

[pemerton]

My point is such that the DM judgment required to determine the DC for the perception check to notice the bowl is probably the equivalent of the amount of DM judgment to simply say yes. So I really don't see one as being more player driven and one being more railroad.

<snip>

I would assume based on the focus you are giving this idea, that it can also come up in circumstances that can have a more profound impact on the game. Would you say that is true?

With respect to the first of the two quoted passags: here seems to be some confusion here.

I replied to this somewhere upthread - the issue with "saying 'yes'" rather than calling for die roll, in the context of looking for a vessel, is not to do with railroading. In fact, in the OP I try to articulate why I think that setting a DC, rather than just "saying 'yes'", is not railroading.

The reason for calling for a dice roll is drama and pacing. As I've already posted a couple of times (in reply to you, and to [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]), by setting even low DCs at key moments a certain sort of tone is established (grittiness); over the life of the game it allows for moments of failure (perhaps black comedy) even when the risk of failure is low; it reinforces a certain "ritual" element to the game (this matters, and we're going to stop in play and acknowledge that, by setting a DC and calling for a check and picking up the dice); etc.

This relates to the second of the quoted passages: what makes this a moment that is worth emphasising in the course of play is because the PC - having lost the opportunity to take the living mage to his dark naga master - has determined to take the blood instead. So the availability of a vessel is the "crunch" moment for that goal.

Do you have examples of each of these? You've given me "what", but not "how"...

See my reply above to [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] for "player reframing".

Divination and similar abilities: if these are adjudicated in the traditional way, they require the GM to already have backstory authored (so that s/he can report it to the player using the divination magic). This tends to push againt generating backstory as part of framing and narrating consequences. (In terms of the history of the game, this sort of divination is a legacy as a game aimed at "beating the dungeon" - [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s "free kriegspiel".)

Mechanics that drag attention away from the action, and push towards an ingame-causal-logic-driven continuous narration, can include rest and healing mechanics; resource mechanics; etc. If a PC needs to spend X ingame days or weeks healing, then how is the GM going to go to the action? If the archer PC runs out of arrows, X miles from town, how is the GM going to go to the action?

There are alternative approaches: divination can be handled like the old UA Portent spell, where the player rolls a die to see if the omens are good or bad - and so the casting of the spell shapes the narration of the backstory, rather than vice versa - but that is often controversial. Likewise one can use somewhat abstract resource attrition and resource recovery mechancis (BW has these) but D&D doesn't tend to have these. (Rather, it tends to use magic and magic items - LTH, Quiver of Ehlonna, etc.)

I don't know if you need a device for that. My game does that....we just let the unfolding game and our desires shape that stuff. Works well.

Well, that is a device for doing it - a method or system.

The additional rule that BW adds (for one of its systems, around Belief) is that the GM is entitled to delay a change by a player if s/he thinks that the player is trying to duck a difficult choice by rewriting the Belief. The player has to resolve the situation with the existing Belief before being allowed to change it. It's an anti-squib rule.

I don't know if bounded accuracy is a big concern on this

To the extent that bounded accuracy tends to make PC build and player resource expenditure less important, because they get swamped by the die roll, it can potentially reduce the responsive of resolution to player choice and commitment.

I'm not saying it's an insuperable obstacle. But I don't think that it supports player-driven play. As I've posted a couple of times, I think the use of inspiration and hence having advantage as a player resource might be enough of a "solution" to the issue, because spending inspiration to gain advantge is a player resource choice that will tend to dominate over the vagaries of the dice.

I don't know how the XP system is an obstacle

If the main way to get XP is fighting monsters, but one wants the game to be all about following the players' leads into action that engages their PCs' beliefs, ideals, goals, etc, then I think a tension in player motivation can emerge pretty easily.

Well, I see the "railroad" issue as arising at (1) and at (3).

If, at (1), the framing is always reflecting the GM's priorities and not the players', then it is the GM driving the game.

If, at (3), the resolution draws upon the GM's pre-authored conception of the situation ("secret backstory"), then it is the GM driving the game.

But why are you assuming that it's always reflecting the GM's priorities and pre-authored conception? Who is advocating for that?

I'm not assuming anything.

I've stated the conditions under which I would regard a game as railroad-y: if at (1) [ie framing] and/or at (3) [ie resolution], the GM introduces fiction in accordance with his/her priorities and/or pre-authored conception of the situation.

Of course those are not the only ways one might do (1) and (3). I've explained how I approach it; I've also sketched my conception of how classic dungeon-crawling or Traveller-style world discovery can approach it. Neither of those is railroading as I conceive of it.

Whether any other poster in this thread runs a game that is railroading in my sense is not something I'm in a position to know.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has sometimes accused me of being a bit too serious in my play, and he probably is onto something.

I don't remember that!

I'm certainly ready to admit that my game is mostly low-brow. My models are Claremont X-Men, with the occasional aspriation to echo films like Excalibur and Hero.

The primary reason why I play is emotional immersion in the current situation.

This is an instance of an alternative goal for play to puzzle-solving. I prefer it.

A couple of comments on immersion:

(1) It is quite compatible with the fiction being authored (by player or GM, depending on context) as part of the context of resolution. I know this to be so from experience. Here's one example, from a few years ago now:

The paladin PC in my main 4e game was subject to an effect from an evil cultist - turned into a frog and therefore unable to attack or use powers until the end of the cultist's next turn. The player of the paladin therefore missed a turn in the combat - he didn't want his frog-paladin to move - and muttered about not liking it very much while the rest of the table made jokes about not stepping on the frog as the other PCs moved in to confront the cultist and her flunkies.

The cultist's next turn duly ended, and the paladin was the next character in the turn sequence. I told the player of the paladin that his PC turned from a frog back to himself. The player then declared his action, which was to move into melee range with the cultist. And he said, in character, something to the effect that the cultist was now going to get it (while laying down a Divine Challenge as a minor action). The cultist replied something along the lines of "I don't think so - after all, I turned you into a frog!". And without pausing, the player of the paladin responded (in character), "Ah - but the Raven Queen [the paladin's divine patron] turned me back." And the paladin then proceeded to beat up the cultist.

As part of emotional immersion in, and "inhabitation of", the PC, the player of the paladin has introduced content into the fiction - the reason why the spell ends (as per the mechanics, which make it an "end of next turn" effect) is because the Raven Queen frees her servant from the cultist's evil magic.​

(2) As a GM, it's really exciting and rewarding to see a player, who might have been taking a bit of a back seat in a scene while some other players (and their PCs) are driving things, suddenly sit up and declare some action with passion and determination, because the player cares about where the fiction is heading, or cares about how his/her PC will be placed within the fiction.

There is a widely-described category of player who care mostly about fights - "Wake me up when there's a combat." I think one reason for this is that combat is a place where the stakes matter, and hence players get immersed. I think if that is expanded to other areas of the game, more players can get immersed in more parts of the game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If the GM is trying to frame the PCs into situations that will put them (and thereby their players) under pressure, and the players have the ability to defuse or cancel the situation rather than actually engage it (eg by teleporting home; by rocket tagging all opposition; etc) - what is, in effect, an ability to reframe the situation so that it doesn't put any pressure on them - then it can be hard to run a game that is all about going where the action is and asking provocative questions.

So, if they can trivialize a challenge?

That's a much more familiar issue and one that happens a lot in a lot of games. It's usually a matter of the GM deciding how to present things taking into account that some things are going to be trivial.

If a character can teleport anywhere in the world at-will, then, "How do I get there" is never 'action' nor a 'provocative question.' OTOH, it's never an impediment to 'going where the action is,' either. Isn't giving the players an ability like that (or not) part of a larger sort of framing? Perhaps at the system or campaign level.

For instance, in M:tA, having the basic 1 dot in a sphere gave you some pretty crazy ability to perceive related things. With matter 1 life 1 you could see how thick a wall was, what it was made of, and whether anyone was hiding behind it (or anything living inside it). You can't make a big deal out of searching for secret doors. You can, OTOH, pull the PCs into a scene based on that ability to notice things 'sleepers' cannot.

For another, D&D is full of spells or magic items that will trivialize certain things. Those things stop being important, but they might make other things more important, or draw them into challenges they couldn't have had anything to do with before.

Divination and similar abilities: if these are adjudicated in the traditional way, they require the GM to already have backstory authored (so that s/he can report it to the player using the divination magic). This tends to push againt generating backstory as part of framing and narrating consequences.

Well, divination about the future (like time travel) can get pretty problematic. But divination can also (as as I found running M:tA for years) move stories along, generate plot hooks, and suck players into challenges they didn't know existed. And you don't need the backstory authored. You can make it up on the spot, filling in the world ahead of them, which can be surprising and fun for the DM, too.

Mechanics that drag attention away from the action, and push towards an ingame-causal-logic-driven continuous narration, can include rest and healing mechanics; resource mechanics; etc. If a PC needs to spend X ingame days or weeks healing, then how is the GM going to go to the action?

"X weeks later..."

If the archer PC runs out of arrows, X miles from town, how is the GM going to go to the action?

Typically, in D&D, you recover about half your non-magical arrows after each encounter, so running out isn't a common event. A PC could always use survival to make arrows from available materials. It shouldn't take much table time.

There are alternative approaches: divination can be handled like the old UA Portent spell, where the player rolls a die to see if the omens are good or bad - and so the casting of the spell shapes the narration of the backstory, rather than vice versa - but that is often controversial.

Or the divination can just give a benefit that the PC evokes later "I knew that was going to happen!"

To the extent that bounded accuracy tends to make PC build and player resource expenditure less important, because they get swamped by the die roll

Nod. And, by the same tokens, it prevents large bonuses from trivializing a challenge.