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Judgement calls vs "railroading"
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<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 7050441" data-attributes="member: 19857"><p>As an aside - I think that this is WAY too broad. By my read this would include, for example, plots where there's a time limit where an event is going to happen and there's nothing the PCs can do to stop it, but they can mitigate its effects. It would also include any GM-run NPCs having plans and counter-plans that take into account possible interference to keep their plans on track. In fact if the PCs are up against a big bad mastermind then by the definition that you give here any adventure against him/her would be a railroad as they react to the PCs' actions to get their plans back on track. And given that your post uses "railroad" as a derogatory term for "roleplaying through a narrative", I assume that you didn't mean either of those things to count as a "railroad".</p><p></p><p>My definition of a railroad requires that there is one linear path through the adventure that the PCs must follow. A narrative that the PCs are working through is just fine as along as there are choices along the way that allow them to affect the story in a meaningful way. But if there's really just a single narrative path that they are allowed to take and the "choices" that they make just drag them through the same scenes they would see regardless of what choices they make, then it's a railroad. It's the linearity that makes it a railroad. And railroads aren't always negative things - certain groups of players are just in the game to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and if that's the case they like to have the story laid out like breadcrumbs that they can follow to get to the next ass kicking session. Nothing wrong with that if that's how you like to play the game.</p><p></p><p>Anyway - onto your example:</p><p></p><p>By my definition of railroad, neither choice would be "railroading". You could decide there was a cup there, you could decide that there wasn't and in no way would either choice be forcing the PCs onto some linear path through a storyline.</p><p></p><p>By your definition of railroad above, I don't think either answer is "railroad" either, so long as the GM didn't have a pre-determined narrative in mind at all for the PCs' course of action. The GM could just think through the inventory of the room, decide that there's no reason that a cup would be there, and so say no. Or they GM could shrug and not care and just say yes (my preferred method when players ask me "is there an X here in the room" is to say yes unless it's ludicrous, in which case they get a raised eyebrow and a "what do you think" response). Or the GM could decide to do as you did and leave it to the whims of chance and throw some dice to decide. </p><p></p><p>But the point is that none of these choices as a GM affects whether the scenario is a railroad or not. In this particular case I can take any of the choices and use them later on my railroad scenario - if I want to make it a railroad, then I can say no and not worry about it. Or I can say yes and then later, when they try to use the blood to do something in the story, I could either say "doesn't work" or I could say "it works!" and let them use that as their "plot key" to move from one station on the railroad to the next station. Or I could roll some dice to decide whether it'll be the plot key that works to move from one scene to the next. This particular choice has no bearing at all on whether it'll be a railroad or not - it's what happens downstream that matters. Likewise I can justify all three possible choices in a sandbox environment as well.</p><p></p><p>So to the bigger question - GM judgment calls absolutely relate to "railroading", but only when deciding how the PC's actions will shift the storyline. If the GM's judgment call consciously neuters the PC's actions to keep them on the one path that the GM has in mind for the story (by either cutting the PCs off and saying "no" or by saying "yes" but the yes just takes them to the next station in the railroad that they were going to get to anyway) then it's railroading. Otherwise it's just a judgment call. (And bear in mind that a decent "say yes" GM can make a railroad feel like a sandbox to the players. I know that I've run more than one "investigative horror" scenario that is actually a fairly linear scenario of using clues as plot keys to get from scene to scene where the players involved have told me that it felt like they are playing in a far more open sandbox than they actually had in front of them.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jer, post: 7050441, member: 19857"] As an aside - I think that this is WAY too broad. By my read this would include, for example, plots where there's a time limit where an event is going to happen and there's nothing the PCs can do to stop it, but they can mitigate its effects. It would also include any GM-run NPCs having plans and counter-plans that take into account possible interference to keep their plans on track. In fact if the PCs are up against a big bad mastermind then by the definition that you give here any adventure against him/her would be a railroad as they react to the PCs' actions to get their plans back on track. And given that your post uses "railroad" as a derogatory term for "roleplaying through a narrative", I assume that you didn't mean either of those things to count as a "railroad". My definition of a railroad requires that there is one linear path through the adventure that the PCs must follow. A narrative that the PCs are working through is just fine as along as there are choices along the way that allow them to affect the story in a meaningful way. But if there's really just a single narrative path that they are allowed to take and the "choices" that they make just drag them through the same scenes they would see regardless of what choices they make, then it's a railroad. It's the linearity that makes it a railroad. And railroads aren't always negative things - certain groups of players are just in the game to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and if that's the case they like to have the story laid out like breadcrumbs that they can follow to get to the next ass kicking session. Nothing wrong with that if that's how you like to play the game. Anyway - onto your example: By my definition of railroad, neither choice would be "railroading". You could decide there was a cup there, you could decide that there wasn't and in no way would either choice be forcing the PCs onto some linear path through a storyline. By your definition of railroad above, I don't think either answer is "railroad" either, so long as the GM didn't have a pre-determined narrative in mind at all for the PCs' course of action. The GM could just think through the inventory of the room, decide that there's no reason that a cup would be there, and so say no. Or they GM could shrug and not care and just say yes (my preferred method when players ask me "is there an X here in the room" is to say yes unless it's ludicrous, in which case they get a raised eyebrow and a "what do you think" response). Or the GM could decide to do as you did and leave it to the whims of chance and throw some dice to decide. But the point is that none of these choices as a GM affects whether the scenario is a railroad or not. In this particular case I can take any of the choices and use them later on my railroad scenario - if I want to make it a railroad, then I can say no and not worry about it. Or I can say yes and then later, when they try to use the blood to do something in the story, I could either say "doesn't work" or I could say "it works!" and let them use that as their "plot key" to move from one station on the railroad to the next station. Or I could roll some dice to decide whether it'll be the plot key that works to move from one scene to the next. This particular choice has no bearing at all on whether it'll be a railroad or not - it's what happens downstream that matters. Likewise I can justify all three possible choices in a sandbox environment as well. So to the bigger question - GM judgment calls absolutely relate to "railroading", but only when deciding how the PC's actions will shift the storyline. If the GM's judgment call consciously neuters the PC's actions to keep them on the one path that the GM has in mind for the story (by either cutting the PCs off and saying "no" or by saying "yes" but the yes just takes them to the next station in the railroad that they were going to get to anyway) then it's railroading. Otherwise it's just a judgment call. (And bear in mind that a decent "say yes" GM can make a railroad feel like a sandbox to the players. I know that I've run more than one "investigative horror" scenario that is actually a fairly linear scenario of using clues as plot keys to get from scene to scene where the players involved have told me that it felt like they are playing in a far more open sandbox than they actually had in front of them.) [/QUOTE]
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