The Invisible Railroad

[Dannager]

Also, it's worth noting that D&D4 does give the players some important narrative control (action points, arguabley some power use, rerolls) that goes outside their own characters.

This is very rare; action points do not let them have power beyond their character, nor do rerolls (aside from the Epic Trickster's ability to make the DM reroll a die). Narrative power for a player, in D&D, is generally assumed to be bounded by their control of their character.

I'm not sure we are, actually. In general, a GM should not expect to reach the expected, planned for endpoint to the campaign. Sure, they should plan one, since if the players are lumps, it's good to have something to shoot for. But expect the actual goalpost to be somewhere else.

I think that if that were the typical expectation, companies would not waste their time writing part six of a six-part adventure path.

 

[Incenjucar]

I don't know why he thinks he's not trying to "lead them by the nose"; that's what it sounds like he's doing to me, though I guess he leaves open the chance that they might do something more interesting than what he's planned.

Interestingly, this is how video games do it. Some modern video games specifically have replacement characters in case you kill an NPC too early.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes he is. One of the reasons (one of the more charitable ones out of a lot of not so nice ones) is that not infrequently, malicious plot-derailer got early and repeatedly stuck in a game that didn't have the kind of experience I'm talking about, and that's all he wanted. So seeing through the illusion, he started poking holes in it.

I'm sure it doesn't make the DM feel any better, with a pit bull jaws wrapped around his forearm, to know that the pit bull only got that way because someone was beating it with a stick earlier. And it doesn't change that it would be better for all concerned if the pit bull stopped. It does change the perspective a bit to learn that the guy getting bit was one of the guys with the earlier stick.

But beyond that, I say that with that opening statement, your definition of "meaningful plot choices" is too narrow to match the expectations of most of the players in my experience, and too limited on what constitutes narrative.

Look, let's take it from the hindsight perspective. Let's say that we had a game earlier this year where Brave Sir Robin was in a climatic situation, and confronted with a nasty choice. He could hold off the orcs at the gate, given his friends time to escape, but probably die himself. Or he could run with his friends, run a very real but smaller risk that they will all die--and this goes against the nature of the character he has been portraying.

That is a bit of the rough narrative, after the fact. Merely from that, we don't know how the game was run. This whole thing might have been a blatant railroad. Heck, Robin's player might have asked for it be contrived this way, just so that he could react to it. Or it might have simply been a situation that came up organically, through Robin's and the other players' choices. Or their bad luck, misunderstandings, etc. Or any number of things. But simply from the narrative, we don't know.

Now, make some assumptions about what the players wanted.

A. The players were primarily interested in doing characterization while being involved in a story. Robin's player had background or other hints that emphasizes that he wants to wrestle with doing what is honorable and risky in character, versus what is expedient as a player. He wants to be put into situations very much like the one above. The DM plots out a Moria-style dungeon, overwhelming odds, and narrow places to be held. Or if he knows the players are fine with this, he might even do a climatic encounter near the end of this dungeon, and manipulate things so that Robin gets to make his choice.

Robin makes his choice. Either way, we are going to have some survivors at least, to continue the story that is being told.

This is a meaningful choice for Robin. It is not a meaningful choice in the outcome of the narrative. It is a meaningful choice in the characterization of Robin by that player. A very meaningful one--and one he has explicitly planned on making. In fact, it is so explicit that the DM, if he has any sense, has probably included in his plot ways for that choice to ripple a bit. (He has expected that Robin may die at a key moment, or alternately may be consumed by doubt having fled such a challenge.) But Robin's player, when he makes his choice, as far as the plot is concerned, is picking between the door on the left and the door on the right, with no clue what is behind either door.

B. The players were primarily interested in making meaningful choices that change the results of the story. As it happens, Robin's player in this version still wants to do some of the same kinds of characterization, but this is secondary to changing the trajectory of the story itself. The DM may or may not provide that same dungeon. It doesn't matter. Wherever Robin goes, there are monsters and NPCs that are going to push him, so that he will be granted opportunities to make those kind of choices.

So Robin gets put into situations like this on a regular basis. If he keeps going all heroic, chances are he eventually dies. His dying may save the rest of the party. Or it may doom them, should he pick a moment poorly.

The characterization has happened all along. The characterization was not a meaningful choice. Run now and doubt, you'll get another chance tomorrow to stand and fight, perchance to die or narrowly escape. In the story, the choices have all been meaningful.

Finally, note that while I have leaned on the possibility of death to make this (I hope) clear, such distinctions are not limited to dying or not. It is not terribly difficult to make monsters with goals and motivations such that the PCs want to oppose them (or at least investigate that possibility) without directly fighting them. Therefore, it is not difficult to build a web of monsters that, over time, will spark some real conflict.

Exactly. There are all kinds of types of player control that don't involve arbitrary narrative control. There are also all kinds of goals players have and reasons for playing that don't necessarily involve having narrative control.

Honestly, in the vast majority of campaigns IME the players aren't particularly after deep narrative control. They aren't even necessarily after "make all my choices meaningful". They are probably more interested in "do I feel like fighting orcs tonight or negotiating with treants?" A campaign is a long drawn-out affair and few and far between are the players that are even keeping careful track of the plot. They're much more likely to simply have some short or medium term goals or styles of play or even just mechanics that they want to mess with.

The vast majority of DMing is like CJ says, if you put a bunch of plot hooks (or monsters specifically as you're putting it) out there then the players will sooner or later do X. X is convenient for the DM, the players probably don't care that much about X as an element of a larger plot, and everyone has their fun.

Where railroading becomes a problem is much more likely to be at a specific point in time where the DM has inelegantly decided A MUST happen because it leads to X, and shoves A in the player's faces. The players just look at it and don't like A for whatever reason and could care less about X. At that point Chris' advice is exactly cogent, because it just amounts to "be subtle about it, be patient, don't jam things down the players throats, sooner or later things will work out roughly the way you originally planned, and the players will CHOOSE to make it happen that way."

Honestly, I read players well. I have not had real derailment in a long time. Most players actually WANT the overall plot/theme/concept of the campaign to stay on target, as long as they've been having fun.

 

[KidSnide]

In my experience, players who are interested in making meaningful plot choices are perfectly satisfied with story-driven games, because the best story-driven games are flexible enough to bend with these choices and still deliver the story experience the DM is trying to provide.

The players who aren't satisfied with this are not the ones interested in making meaningful plot choices. Rather, their primary interest often lies in "I wonder what will happen if I throw this monkey wrench into the DM's plans!" They want to affect change for the sake of seeing how far that change will fly, rather than to see how it will improve the story. I'm sure there are exceptions to this (and I'm sure that some in this thread will call themselves exceptions to this), but the malicious plot-derailer is an established player trait with a long, long history.

This matches my experience as well. The people I've played with who want meaningful plot choices want strongly story driven games that take them (maybe on a railroad) to a place where they can make decisions that have a major impact on the game world. The folks I've played with who want full freedom tend to be less interested in "big decisions" and more interested in exploring how "little decisions" affect the game.

Speaking just for myself, I want a game where the most interesting and important part of the game is clearly labeled. I want to creative flexibility in how I interact with it, but I hate the idea of missing important information or opportunities because I didn't happen to make the right uninformed decision early in the game.

-KS

 

[S'mon]

Well, I think part of the problem may be what different people consider to be railroading. Personally, I don't necessarily think its railroading for the DM to keep his plot lines running per se so long as you are not forcing the party down a given path.

Take the evil baron vs. Sigil example above. The PCs have reason to believe that the evil baron is up to no good. However, they find a cool little trinket/ritual/whatever that lets them head off to Sigil so off they go. Now, the DM is left with three choices regarding said evil baron. Option 1) Make it so that the players really don't want to continue their planar adventures (i.e. "Ehhh, yeah there are a lot of people here, but there's a surprising amount of order here, nothing really for you to do, unlike back in Evil Baronville.") Option 2) abandon the baron plot line and come up with a new one that involves Sigil and the planes. Option 3) come up with a way to tie the planar adventures into the events going on in Evil Baronville.

Perkins is advocating Option 3. .

I think there's a major issue here. If the players know about the evil baron's plots and yet they all head for Sigil (or do something equivalent in a lower-magic campaign: take to the high seas, say), then they are making a strong statement that THEY ARE NOT INTERESTED in the evil baron, and/or they are scared of him and WISH to avoid him. As a general principle IMO it is poor GM practice - it is railroading - to then seek to force them back onto the 'evil baron' path.

The exception is with a published AP: with an AP the whole group should agree "We are playing this AP", that is the social contract, if the players do not wish to continue to play it they should talk to the DM, not try to sabotage it in-game.

But the social contract necessary for an AP to function is not a good approach for a homebrew campaign. Better for the DM to cannibalise unused bits and pieces of his evil baron stuff to use with what the players actually want to do.

YMMV (and probably does).

 

[S'mon]

Option 3 on the other hand, finds a way to combine the two and get the best of both worlds. Maybe the evil baron is being influenced by a powerful devil, or a cleric of Tiamat, or whatever. Maybe the PCs start to uncover a plot by Vecna-ites to kill the Lady of Pain and learn that one of the keys to the plan is securing an artifact located somewhere in Evil Baronville, etc. The idea is to have a basic framework for where the campaign is going, but to leave the "How to get there" in the hands of the players.

Your example is not at all bad DMing BTW, and not something I would criticise (assuming the PCs aren't railroaded into fighting the Vecna-ites, getting the artifact etc). It's absolutely fine to create these kind of interlinks. If this happens after a reasonable interval I'd think most players would greatly appreciate the chance to return to their old stomping ground for a showdown with a familiar villain. If they don't want to do it, though, then fine - of course it's concommitant on the players to come up with something interesting to do. Eg the DM is not obliged to make the game fun for Turtle players who wish to play 'small business owner' - that's not an adventurer, that's a retired PC.

As an aside, why create a portal/access to Sigil in your campaign, if you don't want the PCs to go there? If I don't want Sigil IMC, there is no Sigil IMC!

 

[S'mon]

Now again though, I think the idea is to let your plot evolve with the player's decisions. The decision to go to Sigil needs to become important rather than "You fools, why are you going to Sigil?" Doing this, you can make the players feel as though they are driving the plot while you are subtly drawing them into yours (even if that plot is a bit different than it initially was). For me, this will create a much more compelling game than if I were to simply improvise based on the decisions the players make each session. Some DMs are able to provide great games in that context, but a lot are not. Without some direction, most plots will unravel fairly quickly imho.

I think it's absolutely fine for the DM to have DM-driven plots in the campaign. I think the key here is "even if that plot is a bit different than it initially was" - if the DM lets the players influence the direction of the campaign, then it's not a railroad. But Perkins was apparently advocating nudging the PCs back onto a predetermined linear AP-type rail-track (as in the pictures), not incorporating existing elements into the new player-set direction.

So we're probably not actually all that far apart in our actual DMing style, just in our interpretation of what Perkins is saying?

 

[S'mon]

I'm sure there are some DMs who are capable of extraordinary feats of on-the-fly storyweaving such that they are able to create an immersive story experience that is as nuanced and complex as something that a less talented DM might be required to plan out in advance.

But those DMs are few, and far between. And of those who believe they fall into that category, fewer still actually have those skills, as opposed to simply being able to salvage a mediocre/acceptable story out of a series of disjointed events brought about by the shifting whims of the table's group of players.

I would go so far as to say that a truly excellent story absolutely requires a great deal of forethought.

I do not seek to write a story.

Certainly not a novel. If my game seeks to resemble any kind of story in hindsight, it would be a collection of short stories, not a trilogy.

Edit: Re 'they are able to create an immersive story experience that is as nuanced and complex as something that a less talented DM might be required to plan out in advance' - IME the average DM cannot create a 'nuanced and complex' immersive story experience through pre-plotting. The more they try, the more player freedom is negated, the duller, less interesting, and more railroad-grindy the 'story' becomes. RPGs are just not a good medium for single-author storytelling.

 

[S'mon]

In general, a GM should not expect to reach the expected, planned for endpoint to the campaign. Sure, they should plan one, since if the players are lumps, it's good to have something to shoot for. But expect the actual goalpost to be somewhere else.

My experience has been that endpoints planned for ab initio tend to be pretty anticlimactic in practice. They never live up to the hype - whether it's the PCs' campaign-long goal (IMCs eg kill the Lich Devron at the bottom of the Barakus campaign-dungeon) or initially known only to the DM (IMCs eg defeat the Master of the Desert Nomads, the campaign villain who is the long-unknown source of the threat to their homeland Willow Vale).

Whereas IME a climax that arises naturally through play as the result of player choice tends to be much more satisfying and dramatic.

 

[S'mon]

Hmm. Lemme give an example, mostly because I'm curious about what people will think of it:

So, in 1995, at the Worldcon in Glasgow, I played in an adventure set in Marcus Rowland's "Professor Challenger" setting (based on the Doyle stories, using his PD Forgotten Futures rules), run by the epinomious author. This was a great no-combat adventure (pretty close to pure storytelling) -- our YA characters investigated Loch Ness, ran into a boy who claime that the Loch Ness monster was his friend, took the leap of believing him and setting out on the Loch in a small boat, and ended up befriending the monster, who became a now more open celebrity.

The thing is, as Marcus explained after the adventure was over, he'd not intended to the make the Monster friendly. In fact, he intended the boy's claims to be a complete fabrication, the Monster an unintelligent beast, and that the adventure would cumulate in a battle against the ancient pleosaur that had been turned in legend into Loch Ness' mascot to prevent it from destroying life and property.

So why'd he change it? Because by (to his surprise), going with the "the monster's my friend" avenue, we'd changed the narrative basis of the story. Unlike typical illusionism (where what the GM's going to do remains the same regardless of the player's actions), in this case, the only way to keep the story feeling like a YA adventure in the face of our optimism was to make the story, not about driving away or killing the Monster, but about discovering it and convincing the world that it was nominatively harmless.

Fundamentally, in this instance, we (unknowingly) derailed Marcus's plot, and rather than sticking to his initial ideas, he went with what we have instead of his original ideas.

What I'd like to say about this is that's a case of the GM changing the backstory - facts already established in the GM's head - in response to PC/player input. While this is not necessarily a bad thing to do, it's not what I'm talking about when I discuss meaningful player choices and PC-based campaigns. In the default sandboxy style I use, I don't normally change established backstory to fit with player preference (even backstory unknown to the players), although when something is not yet defined I will certainly establish the facts in accord with expressed player interest & what looks like being the most interesting answer.

The risk with changing established backstory is that the game-world feels incoherent, inconsistent, and more like a PC-dependent 'living dream' than a real place. A good example is a 'Blade Runner' computer game I once played, where (AIR) you play Deckard, and whether or not Deckard turns out to have been an android all along is determined by player choices in play: be nice to the renegade Replicants and it turns out you're one of them too; gun them down and sure, you're human, you get a medal!
Personally I find this postmodernist, 'no such thing as objective truth', Deconstructionist approach to be fairly unsatisfying. I'd be a lot more interested in questions like: "OK you gunned down all the Replicants, but actually you ARE one", or, even better "OK you've helped them, but you are actually Human, and they'll be dead in 4 years while you go on & on for decades...".
These questions could arise from a particularly vicious 'floating reality' where reality changes to ensure the PCs are always screwed over by the 'wrong' choice, but I'm much more interested in worlds where reality is set, it's very clear that the PCs could have made a different choice based on that reality, and it's very clear that things would then have turned out differently. The PCs believe the boy, optimistically try to befriend Nessie, and get chomped on, for instance.

Which is not to criticise Rowland's GMing choice - if the aim of the session is satisfying crafting of a compelling short story, his choice to change the backstory may have been correct. I would say though that there are 'author stance' story-crafting games, and there are traditional 'actor stance' immersive RPGs, and they both are best at doing their own thing. They have mechanics tailored either to shared story-crafting authority (author stance) or to "You are the Hero/GM is the World" (trad/actor-stance). Forgotten Futures AIR is in the latter category.