What is *worldbuilding* for?

[Ovinomancer]

I haven't said that anyone is "guilty" of railroading. I've described a particular approach to play, and why I regard it as railroading.

Oh, for goodness sake, have the courage of your convictions. This is painfully dishonest.

 

[pemerton]

Exactly, that's why it seems off in some way if you've been thinking like that for 30 years.

But, you're still not being told, or telling, even cooperatively, a Story. A story worth hearing may or may not result, and finally be told, when you recount what 'happened.'

Story has two uses. One is "a series of events with a theme/premise, rising action towards a climax, the climax itself, and ensuing resolution."

It also just means "a fiction that someone tells to someone else".

Tokien's narration of the Old Forest in Book 1 of LotR is a story in the second sense but not the first. Likwise, the typical case of a GM narrating of the gameworld as the players describe their PCs moving around through it.

 

[Maxperson]

This is (ostensibly) a reply to a post which actually set out (part of) the role of the GM in DitV.

I think it's very telling that once the role of the GM is not to manage secret backstory, but rather to establish situation and play the opposition within that situation, you describe the GM as "useless".

What you call the "useless" GM is what I call the non-railroading GM.

What's really telling is that you felt the need to twist what I said......again. It's indicative of not having a valid counter argument. Not only did I not mention backstory at all with that post, backstory wasn't even backstory for it.

If the player is going to describe exactly how a success plays out, and exactly how failures play out, the DM doesn't need to be part of that game. The player through his actions and intent is going to dictate where in the world everything he needs is going to be and where his PC is, and not only IF there are enemies, but who those enemies are. The DM can literally choose nothing according to the rules you posted there. For when the player dictates that an NPC is present, the player on the right can make decisions for the NPCs and roll the dice. The DM has no necessary role in this game. He might as well not be there.

If what I just said is not correct an the DM can choose things other than what the player dictates, then the player is declaring actions to get the DM to say stuff.

 

[Maxperson]

In contrast, if a DM is faced with a PC who's 'too good' at finding secret doors, he just stops placing secret doors - they're just doors at that point, anyway.

This is the only thing I don't agree with in this post. I don't place secret doors for the PCs or as a challenge to the PCs/players. I place a secret door because it makes sense to put one at that location. It makes no difference to me if they find every secret door, no secret door, or a combination of the above, or if it's reaaaaaaaly easy or hard. I'd never stop placing secret doors if a PC was "too good" at finding them. Good for him, really. Players like to see their investments pay off.

 

[Tony Vargas]

. I'd never stop placing secret doors if a PC was "too good" at finding them. Good for him, really. Players like to see their investments pay off.

You can put a S on the map, but if he can't miss it, it's just a door as long as he's in the campaign.

 

[Maxperson]

You continue to misunderstand how Story Now, player-facing games work. Of course, if the PC fails the roll the GM dictates the conditions of the failure, including the very real possibility that the PC fails the roll because there is no secret door to find! Now, some "fail forward" iterations of the game might consider that a weak judgment by the GM, but it's absolutely in play as one possibility.

Not according to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]. See, doing what you just described is getting the DM to tell you stuff in response to your action. In an effort to avoid being the victim of his own propaganda, he insisted this morning that the DM makes no choices like that and the player determines everything.

 

[Maxperson]

It similarly seems that Maxperson would not enjoy GMing a game where the GM is what he calls "useless" - ie has the job of framing, embellishing success, and adjudicating consequences for failure, but does not have the sort of authority over outcomes that he seems to favour. But, again, that doesn't seem to be a problem as he is not being forced or even (as far as I know) asked by anyone to GM such a game.

No. What I think is that you paint yourself into corners with misleading statements like "It's choose your own adventure" and "The player is just declaring actions to get the DM to say stuff" and "It's a railroad." After you say something like that, I point out to you how your style does essentially many of the same things, and then watch you twist and turn and stretch credulity with your responses so that they don't apply to you.

The thing is, these things aren't even bad for the most part. Your style does them. My style does them. They just do them in slightly to majorly different ways, and with different goals in mind. If you took a step back, you'd realize that these things aren't bad for either playstyle, and then you could focus on the important things like the different methods and goals our styles use.

 

[pemerton]

Oh, for goodness sake, have the courage of your convictions. This is painfully dishonest.

Three intial things.

First, it's neither my job nor my place to draw inferences from general propositions to individual posters' games. Even if I could (and few posters in this thread have posted many actual play examples), that's really up to them.

Second, railroading is a relational property - of a game to its participants. If I was to play in [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s game, I suspect I would find it railroad-y. But I don't. Presumably his players emjoy it, and don't find it railroad-y.

I even posted a definition to this effect upthread of your post. Did you read it, do you disagree with it, or are you just "dishonestly" ignoring it?!

Third, there is the use of guilty. Running games I wouldn't emjoy is not a crime.

Now to pull back a bit - Lanefan and Maxperson clearly think I run a game that is degenerate in some sense. That's fine - it's their prerogative to dislimke someone else's creative endeavour. My response is to respond to their posts and further explain whatever techniques I thinik they are misunderstanding or misdescribing.

It's clear that those two posters, and probably some others, think that a game in which a player is free to declare "I search for a secret door" is not a railroad, even if the GM has already decided there is no secret door to be found, because the player got to choose what action to declare. My view is that it is a railroad, because the outcome of the choice has already been determined by the GM, and - assuming (as I am) that there is something actually at stake in the situation (such as avoiding capture by pursuers) - the range of options available to the players in responding to the situatoin has been narrowed by an unrvealed element of the GM's framing.

(If the game was a puzzle-solving game, where the whole idea is to guess the GM's unrevealed secrets, then things would be different. Railroading doesn't really have application in that context, I don't think. As best I can tell, this puzzle-solving element is a bigger thing in [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s game than [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]s's.)

This is not a disagreement over the definition of railroad. It's a disagreement over what should be the meaningful dimensions of player choice in RPGing. But "should" here is obviously not a universal moral judgement. We're discussing hobby gaming, not the fate of humanity. It's a type of aesthetic should. but also connected to the enjoyment of RPGing. I take that to be sufficient to show that it is relational in the way I described above.

 

[Maxperson]

Now to pull back a bit - Lanefan and Maxperson clearly think I run a game that is degenerate in some sense. That's fine - it's their prerogative to dislimke someone else's creative endeavour. My response is to respond to their posts and further explain whatever techniques I thinik they are misunderstanding or misdescribing.

Speaking for myself, I don't think that at all. I just think that your game is different than mine. Where we clash is in your portrayals of my playstyle in degenerate terms. Railroady, choose your own adventure, declaring actions in order to get the DM to say stuff, etc. Not only are you way off base with these mischaracterizations, but they can also be applied to your game if I really try.

It's clear that those two posters, and probably some others, think that a game in which a player is free to declare "I search for a secret door" is not a railroad, even if the GM has already decided there is no secret door to be found, because the player got to choose what action to declare. My view is that it is a railroad, because the outcome of the choice has already been determined by the GM, and - assuming (as I am) that there is something actually at stake in the situation (such as avoiding capture by pursuers) - the range of options available to the players in responding to the situatoin has been narrowed by an unrvealed element of the GM's framing.

The outcome of a choice does not a railroad make. I have to be forcing you or your character to do something for it to be a railroad.

 

[Sunseeker]

You can put a S on the map, but if he can't miss it, it's just a door as long as he's in the campaign.

Well, he doesn't have to tell anyone else about it.