Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[robus]

Railroads lead somewhere. Ergo, if there's no predefined endpoint, there is no railroad. GM fiat? Sure. Arbitrary constraints? Ok. But terms have meaning and if we ignore the meaning then the discussion is, unsurprisingly, meaningless.

I gave XP but then I retracted it when I thought about this some more.

Having an endpoint does not imply a railroad. Having only one route to the endpoint is a railroad. I.e the PCs can't have any impact on the way to the endpoint. They have to go through all the obstacles that the DM sets up - no deviation, no upsets, everything running as planned in advance.

Your definition would imply that every published adventure is a railroad and yet the stories told about what happens in individual games makes me think that players (and GMs) have a lot of leeway to go off the rails at any point and rejoin if/when it suits them.

 

[Reynard]

I gave XP but then I retracted it when I thought about this some more.

Having an endpoint does not imply a railroad. Having only one route to the endpoint is a railroad. I.e the PCs can't have any impact on the way to the endpoint. They have to go through all the obstacles that the DM sets up - no deviation, no upsets, everything running as planned in advance.

Your definition would imply that every published adventure is a railroad and yet the stories told about what happens in individual games makes me think that players (and GMs) have a lot of leeway to go off the rails at any point and rejoin if/when it suits them.

You are misreading what I wrote. I said that regardless of anything else, it is not a railroad if there is not an endpoint to the rails. I did not say (nor do I believe) that an endpoint means it automatically is a railroad. A given GM can interfer with play a lot and still not be railroading the party if the point of that interference isn't to force a singular conclusion to the adventure/campaign/whatever. Based on generally accepted definitions, I don't think you can railroad an action or even a scene. Certainly the premise of the thread is flawed -- that GM decision making is the same as railroading.

Similarly there is a lot of mislabeling of sandbox play as well. A sandbox doesn't mean that the GM doesn't influence outcomes or make decisions or even that there aren't any predefined plots (side quests). It means that the player characters are free to explore what is there without the constraint of an "adventure path." There can still be a big bad and a "victory condition" but the PCs have freedom to engage it however they will (or not).

Nor should we ascribe value judgments based simply on whether a thing is a railroad or a sandbox. A railroad can be great fun if presented correctly, and sandboxes can be terribly boring and frustrating if mishandled. And, of course, these are extreme ends of a continuum and most campaigns land somewhere in the middle.

 

[robus]

You are misreading what I wrote. I said that regardless of anything else, it is not a railroad if there is not an endpoint to the rails. I did not say (nor do I believe) that an endpoint means it automatically is a railroad.

Cool - apologies

 

[Campbell]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION],

That's the danger of categorization and simplifying things down for ease of communication. It fails to capture the nuances of play effectively. The three schools of Play To Find Out I outlined are not mutually exclusive and can be combined in various ways to create compelling experiences. When I say that I am not generally focused on scene framing anymore I am mostly focused on the closed circuit nature of scenes. I absolutely use elements of scene framing in my own Apocalypse World games - framing scenes is something I believe we do naturally as GMs. Every time we elide certain details to focus on others and make determinations about the fiction to provide for a more compelling play experience that's scene framing. The degree to which we embrace scene framing is impactful and important. I would also say that Principled Game Mastering is not really a binary. The degree to which we depend on our principles and what those principles are is also impactful. I believe it is obvious that we also follow the fiction to its logical conclusion to varying degrees. The shape of actual play is far more complex than general theorycrafting.

I believe that typical Burning Wheel play is fairly principled. The same goes for Moldvay D&D as described. Both offer a GM more latitude than Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World, or Monsterhearts which are more specifically about certain stuff as typically played. Marvel Heroic and D&D 4e as I understood it lean more on the GM to provide their own principles, but can absolutely be played in a more principled way. The same is largely true for most games. When I have run Demon - The Descent or Vampire - The Requiem 2e I have had to borrow some principles and techniques from Apocalypse World and make some of my own in order to focus play and provide the constraints which allow me to GM in the manner that works best for me.

Dungeon World is an interesting example here. While Dungeon World takes some cues in its design from Apocalypse World it is a very different game. It was designed to provide an experience very similar to Adam Koebel and Sage Latorra's memories of old school D&D without much of the rules cruft that they did not enjoy. Part of making that happen is providing for more latitude and discretion in the hands of the GM. The principles are more lax and less discipline is required to run the game as written. It also is more focused on Free Kriegsspeil style playing the fiction. I'm not sure where I say it, but in one of Adam Koebel's Youtube videos he explains that trying to not trigger moves was a valid strategy for Dungeon World play in the same way that OSR play styles often attempt to not involve the rules and dice rolling because when the dice come out you might lose.

Dungeon World is not my favorite Powered By the Apocalypse game. In many ways it leaves me with more latitude than I would like when running the game. I'll happily play it, but when I run games I prefer to have a stronger idea of what exactly I should be doing in any moment of play.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Depends on what we mean by story. For me, when crafting our campaign elements, the story is the forces at play, the NPCs, the sites of interest. I get a real kick out of how the players choose to interact with them. What do they go for? What do they ignore? Will they go this way or that. Love it! Of course, we do spend a lot of time with our players, gathering feedback and suggestions for the content, so as best to populate the campaign with as many interesting and exciting things - that may or may not be discovered!

And as a player, I detest games where the DM is trying to develop a more traditional narrative, akin to a book or movie. I prefer to choose what my character engages with.

My favorite kind of game is a collaborative effort between the DM and players all contributing to the story and the lore. DMs that allow me as a player to develop something outside my character in their world in a creative way is something I really like. However I always acknowledge that it's the DM's world and that though I might want things to work the way I see them working it may not be what the DM wants to happen.

I also like games that have a plot. A bunch of murder hobos trouping around gathering loot just 'cause is a royal snoozefest for me. But a legendary dragon being resurrected by a cult of undead sacrificing the souls of entire elven nations to fuel the effort and how our PCs work to thwart them over an entire campaign, that I like. As a player I respect a DM who takes the time and effort to put that story framework in place. I work with them in bringing it to life by playing my character and adding to that story however they would do so.

As a DM I want to provide a space for players to enjoy and interact with the world. I love interweaving their inventions and interactions in with my story to embellish, expand and change it's course. I like providing reveals and clues to the main plot in a way that may intrigue them and entice them to learn more. I like unexpected tangents, too, but I don't want to run a game of tangents unless they are satisfying to both me and the players.

 

[pemerton]

I would argue that the distinction of sandbox vs railroad applies a macro level of the entire campaign or even an adventure, but isn't very useful on a scene or encounter design level.

This seems to rest on a distinciton between "adventure" and "scene" which I think is unstable. What individuates adventures?

Rails apply when there is only one story, when the outcome of the actions is set and predetermined. In this instance, either the players will always manage to gain the blood because that's what the story requires, or they will always fail.

<snip>

For an individual scene the DM just has to make a call. Which can work with the rails or not. Even if the DM's plot requires the blood not be recovered, they could still have some vessel found and the include some other reason the recovery fails. They just have to decide one way or another. Even if their story needs the blood recovered they could say there's no container available, just to see what the players do and add some drama and tension.

To me, it seems that the existence of something called []the DM's plot[/I], which has certain needs/requirements, entails that there is only one story.

This is why I don't feel the force of your scene/adventure distinction. When you talk about the GM making a judgement call because that's what the plot needs, you seem to me to be talking about a railroad. There is a pre-authored outcome (or series of outcomes), and the GM is adjudicating in such a way as to bring that about.

 

[pemerton]

When I say that I am not generally focused on scene framing anymore I am mostly focused on the closed circuit nature of scenes.

OK, so I wasn't too far off in my reading of your post!

Of the games I GM regularly, this is a big feature of MHRP. And a bigger feature of 4e than of BW.

I believe that typical Burning Wheel play is fairly principled. The same goes for Moldvay D&D as described. Both offer a GM more latitude than Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World, or Monsterhearts

<snip>

Dungeon World is an interesting example here.

<snip>

The principles are more lax and less discipline is required to run the game as written. It also is more focused on Free Kriegsspeil style playing the fiction.

In GMing BW, I find that the hardest part is framing the action. There are principles, but they certainly can't be applied algorithmically and even beyond that (fairly obvious) aspect they rely on a high degree of intuitive sense of drama/pacing, or GM's "gut".

Actually adjudicating checks and narrating consequences is, by comparison, pretty straightforward.

MHRP is almost the opposite. Framing the action is easy, but the system (every check is opposed, and must be adjudicated in terms of an effect die) makes narrating consequences sometimes quite challenging - not in fights or even social conflict, but in "exploration" or other circumstances where it's not always intuitive what the asset is that's being created, or what the Scene Distinction is that is being degraded.

 

[pemerton]

Let's go back to your LotR example. Frodo was given the ring to carry the entire way to Mt. Doom. However, Sam took the ring when he thought Frodo died. That was a change of plot. The DM could have railroaded Sam's player and refused to let another PC take up the ring, since he knew Frodo wasn't dead, but chose not to allowing the plot to change.

This is strange. LotR isn't the output of a RPG session. There were no players, no GM, no railroading and no "changes" to the plot.

If we want to imagine some parallel thing that might be an RPG, we've got to ask questions like "Who decided to make the ring the focus of the game" (as per my post 87), "How was it determined that Shelob stung Frodo", "How was it determined that Frodo lived or died, and who knew that at what moment of play?", "What parameters governed Sam's picking up of the ring?", etc.

We can't tell anything about railroading or RPGing techniques just from being told a story of what happened.

Here is a concrete example that addresses some of my questions: Frodo's player fails at some sort of check or extended contest that has the result of betrayal by Gollum; it's already established at the table that one of Gollum's "traits" is Servant of the Mistress of Cirith Ungol; hence the GM frames Frodo into conflict with Shelob; Frodo loses suffering both a "poisoned" and a "webbed" complication; some sort of 4e-style "death save" system applies for sheding conditions, although over a longer in-fiction time-line; Sam's player declares that Sam takes the ring; Frodo's player makes the save vs poisoned but not vs webbed; Frodo's player invokes a "last ditch" mechanic to trade a loss of gear (mail, cloak) for not losing the game (all the orcs kill one another fighting over the gear); the GM frames Sam into a conflict with the last couple of orcs in the tower; Sam's player wins the conflict and so Frodo is freed of debilitating conditions and the two are united. Sam's player chooses to hand back the ring to Frodo.

Notice how there's no "plot" that the GM allows to be changed. There is just framing, action declaration and/or spending of player resources, and resolution.

 

[Campbell]

It's completely in a DM's purview to provide paths and encouragement on where they want the story to go. If the players don't groove with that direction then the DM can change what they're doing to better accommodate the players wishes.

I'm not saying that railroading doesn't exist. I've been down that road a few times. But the idea that the DM is an impartial arbitrator there only to serve the whims of the players in their game is too far the other way. DMs typically put hours into creating their game so they can tell a story they thought of. They have a right to promote that story in play.

What is and is not in a GM's purview is something that I feel is up to debate. That depends entirely on the group. Part of that comes from the game we are playing, but in every moment of play we depend on the consent of other players. No authority is granted except that which is freely given. Trust is something that must be earned on a continual basis. This is something that applies to all players.

I would also say that GM preparation does not entitle their contributions as more meaningful than the contributions of other players. When you prepare a specific narrative you are putting the game on your back, privileging your own contributions, and taking sole responsibility for the game. This is a choice that a GM chooses to make. This might be how your group likes to approach the game, but it is not a given part of running a game. Neither is investing hours outside of the game in preparation a necessary part of GMing. I regularly run games with minimal to zero preparation. The game does not fall apart if you do not spend hours on world building and plotting. This is a choice.

Another player may choose to prepare specific plans for the game - particular actions to take, groups to build alliances with, groups to oppose, etc. That does not mean they necessarily have the right to have their contributions taken more seriously than players who just show up to play.

 

[Campbell]

So, one of the things that informs my views on role playing is that in any given moment all of the players (including the GM if there is one) are both participants and audience. That is why playing to find out is so important to me. I have a genuine interest in not knowing how things will shake out. I am a fan of the other players' contributions and genuinely want to know what they have to say, how things will go for their characters, and how they will be changed as a result. As a participant I have some stuff to say and expect what I say to really matter, but I also expect that other players have stuff to say too. Part of my responsibility as a player is to value that stuff they've said.