The Sandbox and the Railroad

[Lanefan]

If you put your quarter in Pac-Man, don't expect to get the high score on Dig-Dug.

Given my uselessness at Pac-Man, getting the high score on Dig-Dug would be just as likely in my case.

 

[pemerton]

Your whole discussion on authoring fiction etc... is orthogonal to this discussion. I'm sure someone who wants those types of approaches in his game is likely not running a strict linear adventure path but some sort of open sandbox style, if the DM allows authoring of fiction by players in his campaign then it's entirely fitting. But the discussion is about railroad vs sandbox so for this discussion your digression is a red herring.

A discussion about cars vs trucks, that assumes there's no such thing as motorcycles - let alone (say) air, rail or water transport - might sometimes benefit from noting that those other possibilities exist out there, and that the discussion is not covering the whole of the field of motorised road transport, let along transport in general.

Also,, these discussions suffer badly from an excessive reliance on metaphor and hyperbole rather than literal descriptions.

Eg "the characters can do anything" doesn't tell us whether a game is a railroad, a sandbox or something else, because it tells us nothing aout who decides what the characters do.

But "the players can do anything" is obviously false in any RPG. Even if we confine it to "the players can establish whatever fiction they like", it's obviously false - eg a player in the opening session of KotB can't just declare "I'm in Geoff fighting giants" or "I'm on the starship Warden chatting with my clone pals!"

And "the players can explore whatever they like" is also obviously false. Eg for a player to just pick up the GM's notes and read them is, at many or even most tables, cheating. If the fiction specifies that a player's character is in place A, and the player wants to know what is happening in place B, there are quite strict rules that govern how the player is able to learn that information (assuming that they are not allowed to just stipulate it).

So the meaningful discussion is about who gets to author what elements of the fiction, under what conditions, at what time relative to play, etc.

 

[Emerikol]

A discussion about cars vs trucks, that assumes there's no such thing as motorcycles - let alone (say) air, rail or water transport - might sometimes benefit from noting that those other possibilities exist out there, and that the discussion is not covering the whole of the field of motorised road transport, let along transport in general.

Also,, these discussions suffer badly from an excessive reliance on metaphor and hyperbole rather than literal descriptions.

Eg "the characters can do anything" doesn't tell us whether a game is a railroad, a sandbox or something else, because it tells us nothing aout who decides what the characters do.

But "the players can do anything" is obviously false in any RPG. Even if we confine it to "the players can establish whatever fiction they like", it's obviously false - eg a player in the opening session of KotB can't just declare "I'm in Geoff fighting giants" or "I'm on the starship Warden chatting with my clone pals!"

And "the players can explore whatever they like" is also obviously false. Eg for a player to just pick up the GM's notes and read them is, at many or even most tables, cheating. If the fiction specifies that a player's character is in place A, and the player wants to know what is happening in place B, there are quite strict rules that govern how the player is able to learn that information (assuming that they are not allowed to just stipulate it).

So the meaningful discussion is about who gets to author what elements of the fiction, under what conditions, at what time relative to play, etc.

Well the implied presumption is what the character can do in these situations. I am totally free in real life but I cannot just appear on the space shuttle when it's orbiting the earth. That has nothing to do with my freedom.

A lack of freedom would be to subvert my ability to act in ways that affect the outcome of events. It's nothing to do with whether I can make up things that become real in the world. That is a valid playstyle but that is not about the freedom we are discussing with regards to railroading. That may be authorial freedom but again it's a different thing.

I know that people who enjoy games where players author fiction in the world like to claim that people who don't do that have no agency. It's a redefining of terms. Just as I have agency in this world, the characters have agency in theirs with perhaps a limitation on the sandbox but again that is a temporary limitation. If the PCs are hellbound on going to a particular large city outside the sandbox the DM will eventually devise a new sandbox around that city.

It's like this new style of game your playing is the answer to everything in every thread. Can we not just discuss a topic without it degenerating into a discussion about whether authoring or directoring is allowed or encouraged?

 

[Yaztromo]

I think it also depends on the players' education and on "fashion", that is something that changes in time. For example, I noticed that when I reach a point in the adventure where the possible ways forward are huge and open to unexpected ideas ("you reach a city where someone is hidden and you want to find that person" or something as open ended as that), I can see my players going blank and waiting for a hint on "the best course of action" from me. Thirty years ago I'm quite sure a normal group wouldn't blank like that.
Clearly "fashion" changed in the meanwhile and nowadays many players are expecting some kind of support / railroad that perhaps some time ago wasn't expected.

 

[Emerikol]

I think it also depends on the players' education and on "fashion", that is something that changes in time. For example, I noticed that when I reach a point in the adventure where the possible ways forward are huge and open to unexpected ideas ("you reach a city where someone is hidden and you want to find that person" or something as open ended as that), I can see my players going blank and waiting for a hint on "the best course of action" from me. Thirty years ago I'm quite sure a normal group wouldn't blank like that.
Clearly "fashion" changed in the meanwhile and nowadays many players are expecting some kind of support / railroad that perhaps some time ago wasn't expected.

But every group is probably conditioned in how they react to their DM. I'm not arguing against the idea that nowadays perhaps groups tend to lean on DM guidance more than they used to. Personally I don't know.

I do know that groups can learn patterns of behavior through experience. So if the DM in that scenario, forces the group out of their comfort zone, they may try several approaches at an investigation. In time they will "learn" what works in that world. If the rogue moving through the underworld making streetwise checks works they'll try that again. Same for a variety of other approaches. Players do what the DM rewards in many cases.

 

[Yaztromo]

So if the DM in that scenario, forces the group out of their comfort zone, they may try several approaches at an investigation.

My problem is that in very open situations quite often they just stop and wait, expecting somebody else to take the initiative.

 

[pemerton]

Well the implied presumption is what the character can do in these situations.

<snip>

Just as I have agency in this world, the characters have agency in theirs

If the GM decides at every point what the PCs do, that doesn't show the PCs lack (imagined) agency in the (imaginary) gameworld, but it would seem to indicate that the game is a railroad!

 

[GrahamWills]

I think there is a very negative concept of railroading which is commonly considered. The one where the DM basically forces a set outcome no matter what the players try to do ... To me this form of railroading is at the far extreme of a continuum. On the opposite extreme would be the sandbox with no real development that is random encounters every week. Both extremes for me are bad. But there is room in between to discuss where you fall on that axis.

I'm with Emrikol; it's a continuum, and he describes the (bad) edge cases very well. One way people review a good boardgame is to ask how many meaningful choices a player can make each turn. If it's too low, the game doesn't need skill to play. At the extreme is Chute (Snakes) and Ladders. At the other extreme are super-complex games which only dedicated players can enjoy because they require too a lot of work.

"Railroading" essentially means "too little choice". There is no pejorative word associate with too much choice, but maybe "completely random" would work. This is not rocket science -- people like to make choices, and they like to have information to make those choices. If you have a game without a plot or structure, you do not know how your choices will work out. A bad sandbox (and I've played in a couple) gives you no idea of what consequences are because the GM has not established any structure. A bad railroad (and i've actually never experienced this outside of one-offs) leaves you not caring to make a choice because you know the consequence will not change.

The best campaigns I have played in, and the ones my players enjoy the most, are ones where there is a clear structure and a solid plot (a
"road" or "path" if you like). However, the players can change it. It's not a railroad, because it can be changed. It's not a sandbox, because there is a premise with which to be engaged. It's just a good style of running a game.

 

[pemerton]

I'm with Emrikol; it's a continuum

<snip>

The best campaigns I have played in, and the ones my players enjoy the most, are ones where there is a clear structure and a solid plot (a "road" or "path" if you like). However, the players can change it. It's not a railroad, because it can be changed. It's not a sandbox, because there is a premise with which to be engaged. It's just a good style of running a game.

Your best campaigns sound interesting, but I'm not seeing how they sit on any sort of continuum between two other ways of RPGing.

 

[Fauchard1520]

Your best campaigns sound interesting, but I'm not seeing how they sit on any sort of continuum between two other ways of RPGing.

Continuum is an odd word here. It implies an either/or, where I think it's more of a matter of degree. You want structure and your want meaningful choice in EVERY game. The proportions are a matter of taste, but I think that you need both. That's what I was getting at in the OP when I described a loop: information and freedom to react to information. I think that folks are looking at the proportion of those two things--I prefer less structure or more structure--and describing that as a continuum.