Confession: I like Plot

[Ariosto]

I just finished writing a comparatively simple adventure ...

So I think that good, non-linear, situation based adventures are very hard to write and this is the reason we either get site based dungeons all the time or random sandbox style campaign settings where there is no plot.

It may also explain why we, as DMs, have come to think in these terms: because we have read alot of published modules that reflect this difficulty.

I agree that it is often the case. Sometimes the "railroad" concept is pushed as normative right in the rule-book. Sometimes people are predisposed to look for something like that, and having found it elsewhere simply reinforces their view that D&D should be the same.

Besides scenario "modules", the medium of computer games has undoubtedly been influential. That there is a separate category of "RPG" in that context, and that so many games seem inspired in one way or another by D&D (even down to licensing the trademark) could easily nurture certain expectations.

 

[Ariosto]

However, the cardinal rule is this: make your scenes connected by something that does NOT depend on the outcome of the prior scene or else you HAVE to rail-road, at least slightly. Do not take away the power of the players to choose what their characters do and how it plays. It is possible to have a plot and also to achieve this, it just requires a much more robust design in the first place.

Methinks you have that backwards (in a sense; a closer reading suggests a deeper confusion).

When what the players choose makes no difference, that is a railroad.

When what follows is a consequence of their choices (and perhaps chance), then they are playing a game if their choices are informed to an appropriate degree. Too little, and the "choice" is as random as every dice-dictated move in Snakes & Ladders. Too much, and the "choice" is trivially obvious.

It looks to me as if the reason these are "backwards" is that your view from the start encompasses NO significant player agency. You simply do not admit the possibility that a particular predefined "scene" might not automatically follow.

It is precisely the greater number of possible "next scenes" following from a greater number of real choices -- indeed, the geometric series of possible paths through scenario-space with any real choice at each step -- that creates the practical difficulty upon which you have remarked. Arbitrary limitation is a solution to that problem, but a problem in its own right.

 

[Hussar]

yet on the other hand you have failed to add 2 + 2 together and realize that degree of uncertainty is directly related to whether or not something is a game.

RC - my point remains and always has been, that not EVERY choice has to be in question in order to have a game. If there is only one choice, that's one thing, but, you can have all sorts of elements in question without having every element be up to random chance.

In other words, I can have a game where the initial point is known, the end point is known, but the middle bit isn't and still have a game. A video game with endlessly scaling difficulty is a good example. When you start the game, you know you will lose. You cannot win. How you lose is the interesting question of the game.

I think you are making very simplistic examples here. You're ignoring the much broader picture. Having a plot "Take the ring to Mt Doom" can give you a start point and an end point. ((Not that it has to mind you. There are most definitely several ways to play this out)) How you reach Mt. Doom becomes the question of the game.

 

[KidSnide]

Giving the players no meaningful choice is "railroading".

For the purposes of this discussion, I think this is a fair definition of "railroading". (I assume, for the record, that Ariosto intended to propose this as a definition and not just as an example.)

I will also add, because I think it is helpful to be explicit about terms, that I believe there is a continuum between "railroading" on one end (where the PCs have no meaningful choices) and what I'll call a "sandpile" (where the GM is religiously strict about guiding the PCs in any way). In other words, it's not a binary matter. PCs can be given some meaningful choices without being allowed to make all possible meaningful choices. I hope everyone agrees that there are many points along this spectrum, even if we disagree about where on the spectrum we like to play.

As someone who likes plot, I'll also say that I prefer a game in which the PCs are given meaningful choices. To that extent, I'll agree with Ariosto that railroading is bad, in the sense that RPG experiences are more fun when there is a possibility of making meaningful choices.

However, I also need to agree with CharlesRyan's assertion that a plot does not necessarily have to be a railroad. We've certainly discussed plot with branch points, and I've read modules (Freeport Trilogy, War of the Burning Sky, for example) that unquestionably have plot, but also include many branch points and advice about how to handle the game even when it veers away from the expected path. I assume that everyone agrees that these adventures exist. Does anyone think that they don't have meaningful choice? Does anyone think that they lack plot?

- - - -

I'll take another example from the session I just finished. One of my PCs (the paladin) recently sacrificed her sword (one of the party's better magic weapons) to destroy an evil artifact and the character is very disappointed with the ho-hum replacement. Two other PCs want to help her out, and both independently decided to steal the new sword, leaving a crap sword as a decoy so the paladin doesn't notice while they're having the ho-hum blade enchanted better. The players thought this was hysterical and want to play out the farce of having one PC steal the other PC's decoy.

So now I have to figure out (essentially at the player's request) a sequence of events that will result in the desired hilarity. The players of both "good thief" characters told me their character's plans, so that part of the game is totally under player control. Even the idea of spending a session on this silliness was the player's idea. But they leave it in my hands to figure out the order in which their plans come off so the whole group gets to watch the delightful confusion.

Admittedly, how the next session ends is anyone's guess. But, in many ways, it's going to be very tightly plotted. I don't normally run many scenes in which everyone knows the conclusion, but there will need to be a lot of that to make the comedy reach its full extent. On the other hand, both the in-game schemes and the experience desired out-of-game came from meaningful decisions made by the players.

As far as I can tell, this is an example of a game with a lot of plot *and* meaningful decisions. I'm curious if anyone disagrees?

-KS

 

[pawsplay]

I think you are making very simplistic examples here. You're ignoring the much broader picture. Having a plot "Take the ring to Mt Doom" can give you a start point and an end point. ((Not that it has to mind you. There are most definitely several ways to play this out)) How you reach Mt. Doom becomes the question of the game.

What you seem to be resisting is the notion that for many people, if you are required to go to Mt. Doom, against all wishes, logic, and circumstances, you are not playing a roleplaying game as conventionally understood. Even with player buy-in on this premise, PCs need real choices along the way, however predictable they may be, or the roleplaying game evaporates and you are left with something else. Call it immersion (my preference), exploration (Big Model), what-have-you, if there is not genuine freedom, you don't have an RPG. Either you are literally playing and seemingly enjoying a storytelling game, or you are engaged in sleight of hand that potentially compromises player choice. Or you are not admitting cracks in your position that would admit a conventional definition of RPGs, because you are so intent on defending the idea of a preconceived ending point or a campaign that you not willing to consider corner cases where the ending point, logically, must change.

 

[KidSnide]

What you seem to be resisting is the notion that for many people, if you are required to go to Mt. Doom, against all wishes, logic, and circumstances, you are not playing a roleplaying game as conventionally understood. Even with player buy-in on this premise, PCs need real choices along the way, however predictable they may be, or the roleplaying game evaporates and you are left with something else.

I think Hussar is saying that you can have real choices along the way without it changing the ending. Imagine a Homeric adventure RPG in which "Mt. Doom" is replaced with "Hades". No matter how you play, eventually, your character dies and you go to Hades. You can get run over by a horse in the first adventure and go to Hades. You can conquer Troy and then go to Hades. You can wander the seven seas, eventually find your wife, kill dozens of suitors, live happily and then die and go to Hades.

I think everyone would call these meaningful choices and I think most folks would agree that this was an RPG under the conventional definition, even though all PCs experience the same beginning and ending of their characters' stories with absolutely zero choice in that particular regard.

This is obviously a hypothetical. But my understanding of Hussar's point is that although you may need some real choices to have a game, you can restrict some of the possible "real choices" and still have an RPG. (...at least as I've always understood the term.) And, as a corollary, that semi-restricted RPG might also be fun...

-KS

 

[pawsplay]

I think Hussar is saying that you can have real choices along the way without it changing the ending. Imagine a Homeric adventure RPG in which "Mt. Doom" is replaced with "Hades". No matter how you play, eventually, your character dies and you go to Hades. You can get run over by a horse in the first adventure and go to Hades. You can conquer Troy and then go to Hades. You can wander the seven seas, eventually find your wife, kill dozens of suitors, live happily and then die and go to Hades.

That's not an honest substitution. "You will go to Hades" is a fact. "You will go to Mt. Doom" is a mandate. If you go to Mt. Doom, you ain't going to Troy.

In fact, you could certainly engineer situations where people escape from Hades, if it turns out to be possible, however unlikely. The fact that everyone dies negates no meaningful choices, in fact, it enriches them. "You will go to Mt. Doom" in effect denies free will. Even if you make "You will go to Mt. Doom" prophetic, all you can do is ensure they will be there; you still can't make them go.

 

[KidSnide]

That's not an honest substitution. "You will go to Hades" is a fact. "You will go to Mt. Doom" is a mandate.

That's a reasonable distinction. I'm not sure what it has to do with the "honesty" of the substitution.

"You will go to Mt. Doom" in effect denies free will. Even if you make "You will go to Mt. Doom" prophetic, all you can do is ensure they will be there; you still can't make them go.

OK, accepting that there is a difference between a fact/prophecy and a mandate, do you really think that the existence of a mandate eliminates the existence of the game? Do you think it's impossible to have a meaningful choice on the way? Even if Frodo lives under the mandate that he must go to Mt. Doom (and has some sort of plot protection to ensure that he does), do you think it's possible for Frodo to have meaningful decisions concerning, say, whether the Nazgul slaughter Merry, Pippin and Sam in the process?

-KS

 

[FireLance]

Indeed. Removing all meaningful choices is one thing, but removing just one meaningful choice? As long as there is scope for other meaningful choices, it's enough to make it an RPG to me.

 

[Ariosto]

Does anyone think that they lack plot?

If they do not specify that something must happen to the PCs, then I would say that they lack plot.

I do not think I am the only one who has stated this very simple matter repeatedly in this thread and its fellow. Even recourse to a dictionary seems to make no dent in determined obscurantism.