D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[The Crimson Binome]

The only unequivocal example of railroading that has been provided in this thread (at least recently) is [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]'s story about the corpse-eating demon, which also seems to have lead to illusionistic backstory manipulation to get the game "back on the rails".

I don't see how it would have been any less problematic, in all the ways that it was, if it had come about because the GM rolled on a random table and it happened to be the result that came up.

It would have been less problematic, in that it never would have happened. They need that mandatory encounter in order to tell the story that they were trying to tell, where this corpse is the only one with the password to get through the magical lock.

If the ability to force a mandatory encounter isn't in your design toolbox, because you're constrained by naturalistic probabilities, then you don't try to tell a story that requires one. You try to tell some other story, where it continues regardless of whether the PCs come across this one random encounter.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Just to be clear, we don't accept JC's definition of 'meaningful', there must be INTENT, in the same way that the law would define intent, and for the same reason, accidental action lacks meaning. It may have significant effect, but it does not convey anything. The WILL of the players is not involved.

Sure, if you accept your narrow definitions of "railroading" and "meaningful", then this wouldn't technically count as that. Regardless of what you call it, though, we find it equally as distasteful and for much the same reason.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Your definition seems to be that the game is a railroad any time the GM makes a decision about the content of the fiction. So how is writing up a timeline not a railroad, by these lights?

For the same reason it's not railroading when a player makes a decision. A timeline is just a best guess about how everything is going to work out, based on known factors. They're subject to change. Players can make timelines, too, but it's rarely worthwhile since they know fewer of the factors involved.

How is the GM writing a world of pedestrian events less of a railroad? It takes just as much "force" or "effort" for the GM to write a timeline of likely events as to choose an unlikely one.

That's the disagreement. I'm saying that it takes more "force" for the GM to cause an unlikely event than a likely one. If you walk down a street and the GM says that nothing happens, then that requires less GM force than if you walk down the street and the GM says that you find a bag of money on the side of the road.

Another way of looking at it, you could say that the GM has a finite amount of 'plausibility' that can be expended before players lose interest and/or call shenanigans. The amount of plausibility expended with an event is directly related to its perceived probability.

The question then comes down to how much plausibility the GM is allotted, and what rules he or she should follow when spending it. The naturalistic approach would give as much plausibility as is required to emulate a naturalistic world, with the caveat that it be spent randomly. Some people might suggest a much larger amount, which the GM should spend toward making things more exciting for the players. I suspect that even those people would have a limit, though, before things get too silly.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sure, if you accept your narrow definitions of "railroading" and "meaningful", then this wouldn't technically count as that. Regardless of what you call it, though, we find it equally as distasteful and for much the same reason.

Look, I've been having these kinds of discussions about D&D since literally the 1970's, and this is the FIRST time I can ever recall someone attempting to use these quixotic definitions. If you talk to 100 RPG designers about this topic, or 100 highly experienced DMs every single one of them is going to agree with my definition and not yours. You can call them any sort of definitions you want, but they are the established definitions that are used universally, because they are the ones that have utility. Players could give a crap less if the random choice they made that was a blind guess they could have rolled a d6 for had 'meaning' by your definition or not. They want ACTUAL AGENCY IN THE GAME! lol.

 

[Manbearcat]

Not meaning to shoot the messenger (!)

Winning!

In other news, did you hear about the guy who had his whole left side cut off?

He's all right now.

, but I don't find the analogy very persuasive.

The guy that plays Russian Roulette was hoping that no bullet would be fired. (If, in fact, he wanted to die then it is suicide per se.) But the GM can't pretend that s/he didn't want to introduce some content into the game!

Well I don't find the initial position very persuasive so the analogy isn't going to do much better!

However, I was thinking more along the lines that the Russian Roulette player's primary interest is an adrenaline junky's fix in a morbid game of chance/tempting fate...rather than not dieing (or he wouldn't be playing Russian Roulette and risking his life!). It is sort of the analogue to an adventurer recklessly risking life and limb for treasure and a player risking their character's death for the thrill of success over challenge and attendant advancement. The GM is the guy who hands them the gun. Presumably, the idea is that the GM's hands are clean with respect to cognitive bias and any perpetuation of "what comes next". The player of the game has agency insofar as they can (a) involve themselves in the first place or not (eg pick their adventure/dungeon level) and (b) they can roughly figure their odds of success (assuming they can perform the necessary maths as rounds compound).

If the GM just willfully fires a gun into the player's temple (rocks fall, you die - eg GM Force), there is a clearly no case for a lesser charge of negligent homicide.

Of course I don't buy the TTRPG version nor do I buy that the guy supplying the Russian Roulette gun to the players is free of cognitive bias/agenda and concomitant liability!

I find it a bit puzzling that multiple posters assume an interesting scene description is a railroad - negating or failing to respond to some previous choice - whereas a pedestrian one is not. I'm not sure why that is. The pedestrian description is OK only if the PCs have done nothing to disturb life in the city; but then, in that case, the interesting (overturned wagon) one probably is as well!

It is puzzling but I think I understand what [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] believes he is doing when he assumes scenario-design driven by causal logic/plausibility derivation should (a) yield more mundane scenarios that (b) must have table time committed to their mundane resolution. And of course that (c) this approach is more free of cognitive bias than another (say one driven by pushing play toward conflict) and (d), accordingly, more rewarding as a play experience. I just happen to disagree vehemently with a through d!

Regarding (a) above, unfortunately, I think people who have not spent a significant portion of their lives in conflict-ridden scenarios really don't have a good grasp at/respect for just how brutal, relentless, and damaging it is for people who do.

Kids born in a bad neighborhood growing up on rough streets literally have their heads on a swivel 24 freaking 7. Soldiers in theater are the same. Ask the people in Nigeria being ravaged by Boko Haram whether they feel the majority of their days are conflict-neutral. This includes the biofeedback of being in such neurosis-inducing situations whereby you're perpetually suffering PTS. There are plenty of other examples (including terribly abusive/poverty-stricken families and/or school situations or multiple combinations thereof). And there are plenty of brutal stressors in every day life for hard-working folks in the western world.

I don't think it makes a lot of sense for most scenarios to be conflict-neutral...in a fantasy world with dragons, undead, orc raiders, magic (et al), with most folks living under the thumb of corrupt lords/nobility/thieve guilds/tyrants...with war and pestilence always just around the corner...where infections are deadly and broken bones yield likely lameness...all while attempting to scratch out a meager existence and raise a family.

That is for normal everyday folk who are not looking for trouble. Adventurers are the adrenaline junkies playing Russian Roulette every/single/day....in a world that is all too capable and all too happy to oblige their zest for an untimely demise!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's the disagreement. I'm saying that it takes more "force" for the GM to cause an unlikely event than a likely one. If you walk down a street and the GM says that nothing happens, then that requires less GM force than if you walk down the street and the GM says that you find a bag of money on the side of the road.

But this is the very quixotic definition of which I speak. 'FORCE' IMHO consists in the DM using his innate authority in such a way as to achieve his own ends regardless of what the players are trying to do. The quintessential expression being 'rocks fall, you die', the DM wants your character dead, no narrative is offered which is world-coherent at all, no avoidance is possible, the DM simply achieves his aim, the character is dead (presumably the player doesn't desire this end, if he did then the question of force is moot).

Your definition OTOH literally has no meaning except within your own highly niche style of play. The ENTIRETY of the way we play D&D at my table is by your definition 'DM Force', yet the players are entirely directing the course of the story! Can you see how your definition, useful as it might possibly be to you in discussing qualities of your own agenda, is utterly dysfunctional in any other context! You literally CANNOT debate RP agendas with anyone except other 'naturalists'!

OTOH our definition works for everyone and still has considerable meaning within your style of play. The question is begged, which definition is better?

Another way of looking at it, you could say that the GM has a finite amount of 'plausibility' that can be expended before players lose interest and/or call shenanigans. The amount of plausibility expended with an event is directly related to its perceived probability.

The question then comes down to how much plausibility the GM is allotted, and what rules he or she should follow when spending it. The naturalistic approach would give as much plausibility as is required to emulate a naturalistic world, with the caveat that it be spent randomly. Some people might suggest a much larger amount, which the GM should spend toward making things more exciting for the players. I suspect that even those people would have a limit, though, before things get too silly.

I disagree, there's no set 'plausibility budget' or amount of plausibility which MUST exist. Games can be entirely implausible and work perfectly well. For instance nobody would for an instant doubt that every single game of CoC ever run has a vastly implausible plotline in which the PCs, all reporters, detectives, etc just happen to come together and be exposed to the most well-hidden secrets in creation, not once, but time and time again!

Even sticking to D&D I don't find any real need for the type of plausibility you suggest. I'd suggest that there should instead be a certain amount of 'narrative integrity'. That is NPCs (and PCs if you want the game to really work well) should act in accordance with their nature, goals, and limitations. The events which transpire should fit together in some sort of causal framework, or at least not mutually contradict (this point was made in the map discussion much earlier by [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]). Even narrative integrity might be superseded by other considerations in rare situations (maybe a retcon, or some sort of 'breakdown of reality' scenario, a hallucination, trip to the Far Realm, time travel, etc).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

They want ACTUAL AGENCY IN THE GAME! lol.

Says you. I would counter that they want agency WITHIN THE WORLD.

Different priorities, though.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I disagree, there's no set 'plausibility budget' or amount of plausibility which MUST exist. Games can be entirely implausible and work perfectly well. For instance nobody would for an instant doubt that every single game of CoC ever run has a vastly implausible plotline in which the PCs, all reporters, detectives, etc just happen to come together and be exposed to the most well-hidden secrets in creation, not once, but time and time again!

Maybe think of it as a limit rather than a budget. I would posit that there is some limit, beyond which things are too silly for you to suspend disbelief. It might be high enough (in your case) that nobody is in danger of reaching it accidentally. It's definitely not a set amount, though; it would vary from person to person. And for some people, it's a lot lower than for others.

 

[pemerton]

A timeline is just a best guess about how everything is going to work out, based on known factors. They're subject to change.

I'm talking about the timeline before it has been changed.

In my GM prep scenarios upthread, in scenario 2 the GM had prepared a timeline, which s/he draws upon in order to describe the Garden Gate to the players, depending upon the ingame day that their PCs arrive at it.

My point is that reading out the description from the appropriate day of the timeline is just as much GM authorship as preparing a single freeze-frame description and reading out that.

Of course no decent GM will stick to a freeze-frame description if other action declaration has declared it irrelevant. For instance, if the PCs fill the dungeon with Cloudkill then when they get to the torture chamber the GM won't be reading out the freeze-frame about the torturer taking the heated brands from the oven. S/he will be describing the torturer and the prisoner both dead, perhaps embellishing with some description of what the torturer was up to when the gas came into the room and killed them both.

It would have been less problematic, in that it never would have happened. They need that mandatory encounter in order to tell the story that they were trying to tell, where this corpse is the only one with the password to get through the magical lock.

I don't really understand what you mean by a "mandatory encounter". There is no law that obliged your GM to run this encounter, and no Paizo operative even figuratively, let alone literally, holding a gun to your GM's head.

Your GM chose to run this encounter, presumably because s/he (?) thought it added something to the game.

In your preferred style, suppose the PCs are trying to infiltrate an ancient tomb, and only one person knew the magical password, and that person has died: then it would seem similar to the scenario you are describing. And if that person's corpse were to be eaten by a demon (which is significant, I assume, because it precludes Speak with Dead), then the PCs would be stumped - just as in the scenario your GM is running.

Presumably, furthermore, as per your hypothetical timetable above, a sole PC could stumble upon the corpse-eating demon and realise that, if s/he does not stop the demon, the party will have no chance to recover the password and thereby break into the ancient tomb.

You would then face the same choice as your GM faced: what do you, as GM, do about the fact that it seems the players have no chance (within the mechanical parameters of the game) to pursue the path they want to pursue.

From what you've said about your style, upthread, you would have the demon eat the corpse, either killing or ignoring the sole PC, and hence the tomb-infiltration adventure would come to a peremptory end.

Your GM, from what you've reported, didn't want the adventure to come to a peremptory end, and so used illusionistic manipulation of backstory to create a new pathway for the PCs.

The difference between your style and what your GM did, as far as I can see, has nothing to do with the encounter itself, but rather to do with how you integrate the consequences of the episode into the ongoing fiction of the campaign.

I'm saying that it takes more "force" for the GM to cause an unlikely event than a likely one. If you walk down a street and the GM says that nothing happens, then that requires less GM force than if you walk down the street and the GM says that you find a bag of money on the side of the road.

Another way of looking at it, you could say that the GM has a finite amount of 'plausibility' that can be expended before players lose interest and/or call shenanigans. The amount of plausibility expended with an event is directly related to its perceived probability.

This is a completely idiosyncratic definition of "force". It implies that naturalistic or pedestrian descriptions write themselves - which obviously they don't!

Using the notion of "force" in its ordinary sense - of referring to unilateral specification by the GM of the content of the shared fiction - the GM can use force and railroading to produce a naturalistic or pedestrian game just as much as a gonzo one. For instance, every time the players declare high-risk or over-the-top actions for their PCs the GM declares failure, without reference to detailed mechanics or dice rolls.

That would be a game with a very naturalistic fiction, but high in GM force. And it is actually a fairy common type of railroading/GM-blocking that one reads complaints about on these forums.

I would counter that they want agency WITHIN THE WORLD.

If the GM reads from boxed text "You hear X, and therefore decide to do Y, and arrive at place P, where you observe Q and therefore choose to do R, which has consequence A, etc" then the PCs are exercising agency within the world.

But the players need not have bothered to turn up!

In other words, I don't see how you can say anything meaningful about player agency if all you are talking about is actions taken by the PCs within the fiction.

 

[pemerton]

I was thinking more along the lines that the Russian Roulette player's primary interest is an adrenaline junky's fix in a morbid game of chance/tempting fate...rather than not dieing (or he wouldn't be playing Russian Roulette and risking his life!). It is sort of the analogue to an adventurer recklessly risking life and limb for treasure and a player risking their character's death for the thrill of success over challenge and attendant advancement. The GM is the guy who hands them the gun. Presumably, the idea is that the GM's hands are clean with respect to cognitive bias and any perpetuation of "what comes next". The player of the game has agency insofar as they can (a) involve themselves in the first place or not (eg pick their adventure/dungeon level) and (b) they can roughly figure their odds of success (assuming they can perform the necessary maths as rounds compound).

I think that (a) and (b) are roughly in place for Gygaxian play (at least til you get to the point where players are ostensibly barred from reading the rulebook). I think they're in play to at least some extent for [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION]'s game, too, but I don't know how much his players are privy to his content-generation tables.

But once we are talking about secret backstory, in the form of timelines, or random tables the payers aren't privy to, as well as NPCs of unknown and generally unknowable level (I'm thinking back to the notorious chamberlain and the court magicians protecting him), then I think (b) is out the window and mostly (a) as well.

At that point, it seems to me that the GM who protests that s/he has "clean hands" is like the player who writes up and CN or CE PC and then defends his/her disruptive play by saying "I'm just playing my alignment." The player needs to own up to his/her choices; and so, in my view, does the GM.