Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Imaro]

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] ... You are summing up alot of my issues with the playstyle promoted by games like DW and the PbtA games in general that I feel I have been unable to articulate clearly in these conversations. It feels as if the creativity on the part of the DM is so constrained in these types of games/playstyle that I honestly don't think I would want to GM them. Maybe, if anything, I would want to play since the players seem to get more leeway and freedom when it comes to creative license. I'm not saying it's badwrongfun but it does seem to dispense with or even actively work against many of the things I find enjoyable about DM'ing.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

And if I read rightly the NPC villains are only reactive, not proactive, once play begins?

NPC villains are frequently proactive, especially at the start of the campaign, when the PCs haven't done anything for them to react against. Many a campaign has been kicked off by the Big Bad capturing a royal heir, or stealing the magic crystal. That the forces of good will fail to hold off the forces of evil, unless the PCs intervene, is part of the premise which makes the campaign worth running. Given the multitude of possible worlds that we could play in, the world where the PCs might make a difference is much more interesting than one where good or evil will prevail regardless of their choices.

But that's all part of the premise. It happens entirely outside of the game. Choosing which premise to start from is like choosing which movie to watch or novel to read. We can only judge the integrity of a story by how well it follows from the premise.

And, just one storyline or plot arc - kind of like an adventure path?

It's also (ideally) played with dice, much like an adventure path. The numbering of plans that are simultaneously in motion has no significance upon whether those unfold organically or through contrivance. You can railroad three plot arcs as easily as you can railroad one, as long as the DM insists on biasing their outcomes.

And even in your ideal game noted above there's still specific events and NPCs and stuff the party has to (or is certainly expected to) deal with, the only apparent caveat being that they are put in place before play begins rather than after. But the characters still have to go to places a then b then c and do things p then q then r to prevent events y and z from occurring...which on the face of it sounds more railroady than baiting hooks at the right moment.

In most such games, there's probably going to be a most-obvious path that will get the PCs from point A to point Z, but they don't need to follow that path if they have any better ideas. You don't need to go take out the Dragon in the Dragon's Den before you confront the Big Bad. You don't even necessarily need to deal with the Dragon, or befriend it, or acknowledge its existence in any way.

The players have the freedom to do whatever makes sense to their characters. The only limit is the actual capability of their characters to affect change within the world. The DM is operating under the same constraints - their NPCs can do whatever makes sense to them, limited only by their individual agencies (and motives) within the world.

Another thing to keep in mind is that not all railroading is done by the DM. Sometimes the players railroad themselves in that on finishing one adventure they have already decided what the next one will be whether it's what the DM had in mind or not.

All railroading is done by the DM, because the DM is the only one with the agency to declare what is true within the world. The player can't decide that there is a nearby pitcher in which to catch blood, or that the one artifact they happened to find was also coincidentally the one that was being sought by an archaeological dig several days away, unless you're playing in one of those weird hippie games where that's a thing (usually moderated by some sort of metagame resource, like plot points).

In D&D, nothing is true unless the DM decides that it is true. To do so, the DM can either make a judgment call based on known and unknown factors and possibly roll some dice to account for their own uncertainty, or they can just pick an outcome based on what they want to happen. In the context of this thread, as posited in the opening post, the latter method is railroading. It doesn't matter why the DM chooses that outcome; if they're doing it for any reason other than as a judgment call on what should naturally happen based on existing factors, then it's railroading.

If the players decide to follow the plot in a certain direction that you did not expect, you have three basic options as the DM: 1) You can railroad against them, forcing the plot back toward your original path; 2) You can railroad with them, forcing the plot to develop in such a way that their new path will be interesting; or 3) You can make a judgment call about how that path would look, based on existing factors, and let it play out on its own merits.

Most people in these forums are likely to say that (1) is bad, because it takes away player agency. Some people might say that (2) is good, because (1) is bad and (3) might very well be boring. All three choices have their own merits, but the fact remains that (1) and (2) are both cases of the DM railroading the players in the direction they want; the only difference is what the DM wants in each case.

 

[Lanefan]

Think of the example in the context of a whole campaign. While a 1% chance may appear as an automatic, it does not take too long before those chances add up to where you have a meaningful likelihood of failure. For example, 20 automatic "yes" answers changed to 99% chance of success means the likelihood of failure during those 20 instances is approximately 18%. That number, in my experience, is meaningful. In my experience as a player, knowing that statistic does increase the drama of any given roll. It's also important to note that just because the roll is 1% for my character, it may be higher (or lower) for another character. Moving from a 1% chance of failure to 3% chance of failure means that within those 20 instances the likelihood of failure increases to 46%.

And in a system that doesn't use d% for pretty much anything any more, your chance of failure is more likely to be 5% anyway (1/d20); making failure yet more of a possibility.

But - and not to pick on you at all [MENTION=89537]Jacob Marley[/MENTION], it's just your post triggered some thoughts I've had percolating for a while - this raises a tangential and much bigger question:

What's so bad about outright failure?

It seems from reading some posts here - particularly [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], though I suspect he's just putting it more eloquently - that straight failure is something to be avoided at all costs. Say yes, roll the dice, and fail-forward, but never straight-out fail. Why not?

1. Overly-sensitive players who can't handle being told "no"? Let's for the sake of sanity hope not, and dispense with this one right now; players like this aren't what anyone needs and if you have one (or worse, more than one) you have bigger problems, and my sympathy. That said, a player coming from a say-yes-or-roll-dice system might be in for some culture shock...

2. Saying "no" is a railroad? Not true at all. Sometimes "no" is a fact of life, both in reality and in the game, and there's no harm in it. My somewhat silly example upthread of finding previously-nonexistent diamonds only because I look for them and force a roll is case in point: the answer should just be "no" without a roll.

3. Saying "no" breaks continuity, or is a dead end? There's no reason why it should be provided the players/characters can think on their feet and come up with a plan B. Example: "Is there a cup in the room to catch the blood?" "No." "Fine, I'll tear off some cloth - from my own clothes if I have to - and soak it with the blood..." That, and sometimes dead ends are also a fact of life - the characters are trying to do something that simply cannot be done given their current state/resources/abilities and they really need to give up and try something else. Saying yes or rolling dice in these situations only serves to provide false encouragement. And, sometimes there just isn't a plan B....

And I can hear it now: "a dead-end scene shouldn't have been framed in the first place". Well, why the hell not; particularly if it's the players who did it. Example: party hears passing talk of the Ruins of Fortune and sets out to explore said Ruins for whatever reason; they get a certain distance in then hit a choke-point door they simply cannot open, beyond which lies the meat of the adventure (which, by the way, is probably more than they can handle at their current level). The door has 100% magic resistance, the DC to pick the lock is somewhere in the lower stratosphere - they're stuck. Meanwhile you as DM are gnashing your teeth; you know full well they were going to get stuck here because they ignored every clue you could give them suggesting they go to Verbrugge the Giant's Hold first, and Verbrugge's got the key (he uses it for a toothpick). So, the players have marched themselves into a dead end. That's life. That's D&D.

Lan-"sometimes the right answer can only be found by trial and error, which doesn't work if error is not an option"-efan

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] Glad to hear my 4e cheat sheet is still getting good use

On topic, leaving aside the potentially contentious "railroading" and "rulings not rules" labels, what I found interesting is that you paused to question whether there was a vessel in the bedroom and even called for a Perception check to find one. I would have just said "Yes, indeed" and played from there.

Was the outcome really so in doubt & meaningful to the narrative that it merited rolling dice?

 

[Lanefan]

Oddly enough, I think I more or less agree with almost every point you make here but still find myself disagreeing with your overall position. Neat trick.

NPC villains are frequently proactive, especially at the start of the campaign, when the PCs haven't done anything for them to react against. Many a campaign has been kicked off by the Big Bad capturing a royal heir, or stealing the magic crystal. That the forces of good will fail to hold off the forces of evil, unless the PCs intervene, is part of the premise which makes the campaign worth running. Given the multitude of possible worlds that we could play in, the world where the PCs might make a difference is much more interesting than one where good or evil will prevail regardless of their choices.

But that's all part of the premise. It happens entirely outside of the game. Choosing which premise to start from is like choosing which movie to watch or novel to read. We can only judge the integrity of a story by how well it follows from the premise.

OK, I'm with you so far.

It's also (ideally) played with dice, much like an adventure path. The numbering of plans that are simultaneously in motion has no significance upon whether those unfold organically or through contrivance. You can railroad three plot arcs as easily as you can railroad one, as long as the DM insists on biasing their outcomes.
In most such games, there's probably going to be a most-obvious path that will get the PCs from point A to point Z, but they don't need to follow that path if they have any better ideas. You don't need to go take out the Dragon in the Dragon's Den before you confront the Big Bad. You don't even necessarily need to deal with the Dragon, or befriend it, or acknowledge its existence in any way.

The players have the freedom to do whatever makes sense to their characters. The only limit is the actual capability of their characters to affect change within the world. The DM is operating under the same constraints - their NPCs can do whatever makes sense to them, limited only by their individual agencies (and motives) within the world.

Still with you to here, particularly this last bit.

All railroading is done by the DM, because the DM is the only one with the agency to declare what is true within the world. The player can't decide that there is a nearby pitcher in which to catch blood, or that the one artifact they happened to find was also coincidentally the one that was being sought by an archaeological dig several days away, unless you're playing in one of those weird hippie games where that's a thing (usually moderated by some sort of metagame resource, like plot points).

Except that's exactly what we're being presented with here: games where the players can and do - if not outright make these seterminations, at least force a roll for them.

The artifact-in-the-desert example counts as part of the premise, at least to me. They certainly could have ignored it and moved on (and believe me, the whole game would have taken some much different directions if they had!) but it was always there to be found; and the dig site was always in the wrong place.

In D&D, nothing is true until the DM decides that it is true. To do so, the DM can either make a judgment call based on known and unknown factors and possibly roll some dice to account for their own uncertainty, or they can just pick an outcome based on what they want to happen. In the context of this thread, as posited in the opening post, the latter method is railroading. It doesn't matter why the DM chooses that outcome; if they're doing it for any reason other than as a judgment call on what should naturally happen based on existing factors, then it's railroading.

OK, though you're on a slippery slope here as the DM also determines the existing factors, as is her right.

If the players decide to follow the plot in a certain direction that you did not expect, you have three basic options as the DM: 1) You can railroad against them, forcing the plot back toward your original path; 2) You can railroad with them, forcing the plot to develop in such a way that their new path will be interesting; or 3) You can make a judgment call about how that path would look, based on existing factors, and let it play out on its own merits.

Again, agreed. Both (2) and (3) are simply a matter of hitting the curveball; (2) just hits it harder.

Most people in these forums are likely to say that (1) is bad, because it takes away player agency. Some people might say that (2) is good, because (1) is bad and (3) might very well be boring. All three choices have their own merits, but the fact remains that (1) and (2) are both cases of the DM railroading the players in the direction they want; the only difference is what the DM wants in each case.

I suggest both (2) and (3) contain elements of the players railroading the DM, particularly if the DM then ends up running an adventure or scenario she has no interest in or desire to run. And that's bad for two reasons: 1) the DM is there to have fun too, and 2) if the DM isn't enjoying what she's doing it's inevitably going to show through, potentially risking dragging the players' enjoyment down with her.

Lan-"while I've by the standards here probably been doing it wrong for 30+ years, I fully intend to go on doing it wrong for 30+ more"-efan

 

[Tony Vargas]

Was the outcome really so in doubt & meaningful to the narrative that it merited rolling dice?

I wondered about that, too. I figured that it must have been a matter of finding a vessel /before/ the decapitated corpse had bled out to the point that blood couldn't be caught in it. (Perhaps because, for some arcane reason, blood collected with a sponge didn't count? "What? C'mon, 5-second rule!")

What's so bad about outright failure?

Nuth'n. Builds character(npi). Kids these days could do with some more character.

But, what is bad is when your session grinds to an ignominious halt because someone failed just the wrong check, at just the wrong time, and the players are left shuffling around, going "whadda we do now?" "I dunno, whadda you wanna do?" "Go back to town for a beer, I guess, world can save itself this time, 'cause we got nuth'n."

It seems from reading some posts here - particularly [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], though I suspect he's just putting it more eloquently - that straight failure is something to be avoided at all costs. Say yes, roll the dice, and fail-forward, but never straight-out fail. Why not?

Fail-forward /is/ straight-out failure, it's just failure of the character's action, not failure of the DM's game.

Even a really horrible failure, with a really horrible consequence, could move things forward.

It does, however, strike me as not so different from the kinds of techniques that'd get called 'illusionism' or 'railroading...'

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I suggest both (2) and (3) contain elements of the players railroading the DM, particularly if the DM then ends up running an adventure or scenario she has no interest in or desire to run. And that's bad for two reasons: 1) the DM is there to have fun too, and 2) if the DM isn't enjoying what she's doing it's inevitably going to show through, potentially risking dragging the players' enjoyment down with her.

It sounds like a simple miscommunication between the definition of railroading that is presented in this thread and the common definition that is used outside of this thread. According to the opening post, railroading is just the name for the DM choosing an outcome based on outside factors instead of making a judgment call. I would have chosen a different name for it (biased determination?), to avoid confusion, but you have to respect the premise if you choose to engage with it.

By common parlance, the players could easily railroad the DM into doing whatever, through peer pressure or any number of other means.

 

[Lanefan]

Nuth'n. Builds character(npi). Kids these days could do with some more character.

But, what is bad is when your session grinds to an ignominious halt because someone failed just the wrong check, at just the wrong time, and the players are left shuffling around, going "whadda we do now?" "I dunno, whadda you wanna do?" "Go back to town for a beer, I guess, world can save itself this time, 'cause we got nuth'n."

Same thing happens when someone didn't happen to memorize a particular spell this morning and now that spell is the only answer. At least you can swap 'em out now, unlike 1e where you had to wait till tomorrow.

And if they go back to town for a beer so be it...the world doesn't get saved and you're off to new adventures in post-cataclysm-land.

Fail-forward /is/ straight-out failure, it's just failure of the character's action, not failure of the DM's game.

Not how I've had it described; what I've seen fail-forward defined as is a failure that still contains elements of progress toward the intended goal (e.g. you fail to climb the hill but you get halfway and can see a different path to try from here). I'm talking about a failure that has no progress in it at all - a fail-stationary? (e.g. you fail to climb the hill and are still at the bottom, or [without a roll] no, you don't find a large diamond here).

Even a really horrible failure, with a really horrible consequence, could move things forward.

Forward, or backward? A really awful fail might push the PCs further away from their objective; that'd be a fail-backward.

It does, however, strike me as not so different from the kinds of techniques that'd get called 'illusionism' or 'railroading...'

Depends how it's done and with what intent, I suppose. There's a fuzzy line in there somewhere between good DM judgement (which it seems everyone supports) and an overly-harsh definition of DM railroading.

Lan-"the fog of war becomes lost in the fog of definitions"-efan

 

[Tony Vargas]

Same thing happens when someone didn't happen to memorize a particular spell this morning and now that spell is the only answer.

A similar issue with the adventure, yes. A single point of failure. DM should try to avoid presenting those.

And if they go back to town for a beer so be it...the world doesn't get saved and you're off to new adventures in post-cataclysm-land.

Heh, I'd consider "oops, wrong wire, you'll be playing mutants next session" to be fail-forward, in a way.

Not how I've had it described; what I've seen fail-forward defined as is a failure that still contains elements of progress toward the intended goal.

OK, that is a little different, but I guess if you're going all player-directed, the goal /is/ the story. :shrug:

Forward, or backward? A really awful fail might push the PCs further away from their objective; that'd be a fail-backward.

In the direction of plot/fun/character-development/whatever it is you're going for as DM.

 

[pemerton]

what I found interesting is that you paused to question whether there was a vessel in the bedroom and even called for a Perception check to find one. I would have just said "Yes, indeed" and played from there.

Was the outcome really so in doubt & meaningful to the narrative that it merited rolling dice?

In the context, yes.

The tone of the game, its feel and pacing, is established by the distribution between "saying 'yes'" and rolling the dice. If something matters, even if it's easy (like spotting a vessel in a bed room for a recuperating wizard), then a difficulty is set and the dice rolled. That reminds us of the stakes; it gives the moment its suitable "heft" in the unfolding fiction, and - by creating the opportunity for failure - it creates the prospect of dramatic (potentially also blackly comedic) turnabout.

If nothing ever goes wrong when the stakes are high but the difficulty low, a different tone is created. (Eg think about the widespread sense that using magic in D&D is not dangerous, because no check is required - whereas in (to pick an example) Rolemaster, there is always a 2% chance of failure for any spell (and a much higher chance in some circumstances) which creates a different feel.)