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Judgement calls vs "railroading"
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7052952" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>This is strange. LotR isn't the output of a RPG session. There were no players, no GM, no railroading and no "changes" to the plot.</p><p></p><p>If we want to imagine some parallel thing that might be an RPG, we've got to ask questions like "Who decided to make the ring the focus of the game" (as per my post 87), "How was it determined that Shelob stung Frodo", "How was it determined that Frodo lived or died, and who knew that at what moment of play?", "What parameters governed Sam's picking up of the ring?", etc.</p><p></p><p>We can't tell anything about railroading or RPGing techniques just from being told a story of what happened.</p><p></p><p>Here is a concrete example that addresses some of my questions: Frodo's player fails at some sort of check or extended contest that has the result of betrayal by Gollum; it's already established at the table that one of Gollum's "traits" is Servant of the Mistress of Cirith Ungol; hence the GM frames Frodo into conflict with Shelob; Frodo loses suffering both a "poisoned" and a "webbed" complication; some sort of 4e-style "death save" system applies for sheding conditions, although over a longer in-fiction time-line; Sam's player declares that Sam takes the ring; Frodo's player makes the save vs poisoned but not vs webbed; Frodo's player invokes a "last ditch" mechanic to trade a loss of gear (mail, cloak) for not losing the game (all the orcs kill one another fighting over the gear); the GM frames Sam into a conflict with the last couple of orcs in the tower; Sam's player wins the conflict and so Frodo is freed of debilitating conditions and the two are united. Sam's player chooses to hand back the ring to Frodo.</p><p></p><p>Notice how there's no "plot" that the GM allows to be changed. There is just framing, action declaration and/or spending of player resources, and resolution.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7052952, member: 42582"] This is strange. LotR isn't the output of a RPG session. There were no players, no GM, no railroading and no "changes" to the plot. If we want to imagine some parallel thing that might be an RPG, we've got to ask questions like "Who decided to make the ring the focus of the game" (as per my post 87), "How was it determined that Shelob stung Frodo", "How was it determined that Frodo lived or died, and who knew that at what moment of play?", "What parameters governed Sam's picking up of the ring?", etc. We can't tell anything about railroading or RPGing techniques just from being told a story of what happened. Here is a concrete example that addresses some of my questions: Frodo's player fails at some sort of check or extended contest that has the result of betrayal by Gollum; it's already established at the table that one of Gollum's "traits" is Servant of the Mistress of Cirith Ungol; hence the GM frames Frodo into conflict with Shelob; Frodo loses suffering both a "poisoned" and a "webbed" complication; some sort of 4e-style "death save" system applies for sheding conditions, although over a longer in-fiction time-line; Sam's player declares that Sam takes the ring; Frodo's player makes the save vs poisoned but not vs webbed; Frodo's player invokes a "last ditch" mechanic to trade a loss of gear (mail, cloak) for not losing the game (all the orcs kill one another fighting over the gear); the GM frames Sam into a conflict with the last couple of orcs in the tower; Sam's player wins the conflict and so Frodo is freed of debilitating conditions and the two are united. Sam's player chooses to hand back the ring to Frodo. Notice how there's no "plot" that the GM allows to be changed. There is just framing, action declaration and/or spending of player resources, and resolution. [/QUOTE]
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