Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Jester David]

I always find this analogy amusing; most modern video games are online, and therefore far more persistent (and real) than any world that exists purely in the imagination of a group of 4-8 people.

Most? Really?!

There's a lot more online play, but persistent worlds are still rare and confined to MMOs. And getting somewhat rarer as they're expensive to make and maintain. And by definition these don't change and progress, with areas resetting continually.

There's many server based games popping up, but zones and chunks of those don't refresh when a player is not actually present. They literally cease to exist. Because keeping the server going for all areas at the same time eats up too much RAM.

 

[Lanefan]

What you describe here would be an example of what I have described as railroading - determing that the PCs' aspirations fail on the basis of backstory known only to the GM.

So in your game the characters/players can never be surprised later by something in the game world that's secretly influencing what they do now and-or what's happening around them? That's certainly how it looks.

Using an example of mine from some way upthread: if the party's mentor is secretly a vampire, everything he does - all his reactions, all his intentions, all his backstory - is going to be influenced by the fact he's a vampire and the corollary fact that he's trying to hide it. His intentions and reactions, for example, may well be based on a very long-term view as in theory he can last forever, where most people can't. The PCs don't know he's a vampire any more than anyone else does, though over the long run some of his actions/reactions/etc. might raise some eyebrows and cause questions.

And you say this is railroading?

Balderdash.

These are relatively subtle judgements involving a mix of aesthetic sensibility, a feel for pacing and drama, and a good ability to read the mood of the table as well as the emotions of individual participants. I don't think they would be very easily done by a computer at the typical RPG table.

But they could just as easily be done by another player, or the table as a committee. Still don't need a DM.

This basically antithetical to the way I GM RPGs. To me, it seems more like the mindset for writing a story than GMing a RPG. The bit about NPC arcs particularly stands out - because, once you allow that the GM can introduce material into the shared fiction unilaterally and secretly, and then can draw upon that backstory known only to him/her in the course of resolving action resolution, the stage seems to be set for the GM to let those NPC arcs really spring forth.

Yikes.

First off, the PCs are not (or certainly shouldn't be) the only occupants of the game world with plans and agendae. NPCs are going to have plans and agendae too, often (if not nearly always) unknown to the PCs. Sometimes these NPC plans may get in the way of the PCs, or influence what they see/hear/notice/react to, or even support the PCs without their knowledge. The characters don't (and can't) know everything, which by extension means the players don't (and shouldn't) either.

Second off: between this and the other restrictions you're putting on, how in the nine hells is a DM supposed to have any input at all to the plot/story development of her own game? Or is she not allowed to, thus leaving her at the whim of the players no matter what and reducing her to, again, a processing unit/referee, sounding board, and otherwise spectator.

One question: in your game do you have any NPCs or DMPCs in the party, to allow you to have some story/plot/direction input from that angle? I'm guessing not, but might as well confirm.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

Absolutely. But [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] (who can [and doubtless will ] correct me if I'm wrong) has brought up a slew of other systems that tend to see the DM as more reactionary than proactionary...which might be fine for those systems but is a departure from what I see as traditional D&D.

Here's just one excerpt, from p 87 of Gygax's DMG, under the heading "Setting things in motion":

Set up the hamlet or village where the action will commence with the player characters entering and interacting with the local population. . . . When they arrive, you will be ready to take on the persona of the settlement as a whole, as well as that of each individual therein. . . . The players will quickly learn who is who and what is going on - perhaps at the loss of a few coins. Having handled this, their characters will be equipped as well as circumstances will allow and will be ready for their bold journey into the dangerous place where treasure abounds and monsters lurk.​

To me, this makes it pretty clear that what sets things into motion is the arrival of the PCs. The players drive the action (though in this case by interacting with the elements of the GM's sandbox, rather than by the GM framing them into situations that engage their PCs beliefs/goals/aspirations etc).

I

f the game is run in a pre-fab setting e.g. Greyhawk then most of that also becomes needless. Only the "scene framing" remains, and the table as a whole can do that.

What procedure would you envisage for the table as a whole to use to frame scenes? And how would that procedure bring about, say, that the tarrasque is attended by maruts in the fashion that I described upthread.

 

[pemerton]

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.

At least as I experience, there are a combination of things going on: there's the ritual aspect, of picking up the dice; which establishes a certain sense of "heft" or "place" of the event in the unfolding fiction. And then there's the odds, as you say, which over time contribut to (say) a gritty vs heroic tone.

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%.

In my preferred approach, whether or not a roll is required might vary between PCs (or between events involving the same PC), depending on the dramatic/thematic context.

But your point still holds good in this way: sometimes those low DCs aren't easy to make (eg if a PC has a low bonus in a certain field, or is under penalties for some reason), and so the practice of requiring rolls even at those low DCs does, over time, create meaningful prospects of failure even at straightforward but pivotal moments.

As I posted in reply to [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION], this opens up a certain sort of gritty feel, as well as the prospect of black comedy.

 

[pemerton]

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?

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "straight failure".

In the episode of play that I referred to in the OP, and have elaborated on over the course of the thread, the PCs failed to escape across town with their bodies and blood. They were, rather, apprehended by the night watch. Do you count that as straight failure?

In the write-up of the viking game to which I linked, I mentioned the failed attempt to trade the giants' giant ox back to them. Do you count that as straight failure?

Sometimes I feel you're not really reading the accounts of actual play that I've provided, because you seem to conjure up imaginary scenarios (that as far as I know aren't based on anyone's actual play) rather than talking about the actual examples provided (often in some detail).

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.

Why is the encouragement false?

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.

What you're describing here is a puzzle: the players have to decipher some clues to get to Verburgge so they can get the key to enter the Ruins of Fortune.

I posted about puzzles upthread, in response to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]. In my view they fall very much into the "handle with care" bag, and I wouldn't base a whole campaign around them; and I certainly wouldn't base a whole campaign around one single puzzle.

I don't think D&D has ever been exclusively, or even primarily, a puzzle-solving game. Exploring a classic dungeon doesn't require the players to solve any particualr puzzle before they can progress - if there's one door they can't get through, there are plenty of others evident to them they can explore.

what I've seen fail-forward defined as is a failure that still contains elements of progress toward the intended goal

I've described it mulitple times in this thread, and given examples (both actual and conjectured).

"Fail forward" means that the consequences of failure aren't simply status quo. There are no dead ends.

Rather, a failed check means that something happens that thwarts the purposes of the PC and forces the player to make some new choice in an adverse situation. Eg the PCs are trying to escape across the city, and they don't. Rather, they get apprehended by the night watch. That's failure. It's not "success with complications". It's not "elements of progress".

But it does force the players to make some new choices, under conditions of adversity.

 

[pemerton]

In the fail by DM Fiat situation, the DM can just as easily add additional details or options, such as the broken vessel example you provided.

Yes. I posted that in my first reply to you, and have reiterated since.

The issue of "dead end" failure and the issue of "railroading" are independent. As I said in the post you quoted.

And the failed check doesn't determine anything from how I read your description; the fail forward options seem to be decided entirely by the DM on the spot.

I don't understnd what you mean. Failing the check means that the PC (and hence the player) does not get what s/he wanted.

The consequence of failure is established by the GM - as I posted, it might be expressly stated in framing the check; it might be implicit in the situation; it might have to be worked out by the GM after the roll is made. Narrating a failed consequence is an exercise in framing, in drawing out implicit strands and elements in the game that might be pushing against the PC and brining them to the fore, at the centre of the action.

This is why I find [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s suggestion that a computer could do it, or [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]'s suggestion that it crushes GM creativity, rather odd. Those are completely at odds with my experience. It can sometimes be quite a challenging thing, to hit upon the right failure consequence for a given check.

One example I may have already mentioned in this thread is the following: Jobe the mage and Tru-leigh the naga-serving spirit summoner, knowing that Halika the assassin would try and kill the unconscious mage that night, fed her a sleeping potion before seting out through the sewers and catacombs to find their way into the tower (so that they could take the mage from the tower for their own purposes). But they failed their check to make their way quickly through the catacombs; and so, as time passes, they find themselves under a grille and Halika's voice calls through, taunting them: the consequnce of failure is that they have spent so long wandering through the undercity that the sleeping potion has worn off, and Halika now has a head start on her way to the tower (in the fiction it's already been established - in a previous session - that she's spent a week casing the place, so there's no question that she can make her way there without getting lost).

That is failure - as per my recent reply to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], it's not "success with complication". The PCs don't get to the tower unopposed by Halika. Instead, she has the head start (in mechanical terms, a bonus die).

The failure isn't just conjured out of thin air. It has none of the non sequitur quality of "rocks fall". It draws on the established fiction of the game, but also puts a new twist on it that is adverse to the PCs, and thereby the players (in this case, the sleeping potion, instead of being an instrument of success for the two PCs, becomes a symbol of the division between the two of them and Halika).

It's probably worth noting how this example connects to the ideas of "no failure offscreen" and "no determination of consequences by reference to the GM's secret backstory": the relationship between the PC's travel time and the duration of the sleeping potion effect isn't worked out by comparing GM's charts and maps. Rather, it's narrated as a result of the players' failed check.

The game is not lacking in backstory and interconnection between events. But they are established via play, not via pre-authorship.

It would depend on what the specific task in question was

<snip>

I can't imagine that quickly spotting the presence of pottery in a bedroom is going to come up often enough for the math to get there.

As I said in reply to [MENTION=89537]Jacob Marley[/MENTION], what is key is that even low DCs are set when the action pivots upon simple but crucial deeds. Some of these will fail (due to bad luck; due to poor bonuses; etc). Framing the check even when failure is unlikely is part of establishing an overall tone and feel.

 

[pemerton]

So in your game the characters/players can never be surprised later by something in the game world that's secretly influencing what they do now and-or what's happening around them? That's certainly how it looks.

Then I urge you to reread some of my posts.

Of course they can be surprised in that way. But that would be the result of failure; not it's cause.

I even posted an example upthread, of the discovery of the cursed black arrows, in post 171, IN REPLY TO YOU.

I'll repost it:

a PC mage had returned with the party to the ruined tower where he once lived studying under his brother's tutelage before they fled when the tower was assaulted by orcs (this was part of the PC's backstory; the brother is the mage who was decapitated in the tower by the assassin, having been possessed by a balrog when the attempt to cast a spell to repel the orcs failed). Another part of the PC's backstory stated that, in the tower, he had left behind The Falcon's Claw, a nickel-silver mace which he was preparing to receive enchantments. Having now returned to the tower after lo those many years, a search was made for the mace. This was framed as a check in the same way as looking for a vessel in the bedroom. The check failed; and so the PC did not find any mace. Instead, he found a collection of cursed arrows in the ruins of what had been his brother's private workroom - this discovery therefore (i) implicating his brother in the manufacture of the arrow that had killed another PC's (the elven ronin's) master; and (ii) implying that his brother was evil before being possessed by a balrog, rather than as a result of it.

The players were surprised by this discovery. Including the implication that the explanation for the brother's possession was his evil, rather than vice versa.

if the party's mentor is secretly a vampire, everything he does - all his reactions, all his intentions, all his backstory - is going to be influenced by the fact he's a vampire and the corollary fact that he's trying to hide it. His intentions and reactions, for example, may well be based on a very long-term view as in theory he can last forever, where most people can't. The PCs don't know he's a vampire any more than anyone else does, though over the long run some of his actions/reactions/etc. might raise some eyebrows and cause questions.

And you say this is railroading?

As I've posted multiple times upthread, from a mere description of the fiction it's impossible to tell. Railroading isn't about the content of the fiction, it's about the method of its generation..

how in the nine hells is a DM supposed to have any input at all to the plot/story development of her own game?

I think my play examples make this pretty clear: by working with the players to establish the context and themes of the game; by framing; by narrating the consequences of failures.

I've posted a lot of examples in this thread, and linked to more. I can provide more links if you like.

 

[Maxperson]

Here's just one excerpt, from p 87 of Gygax's DMG, under the heading "Setting things in motion":

Set up the hamlet or village where the action will commence with the player characters entering and interacting with the local population. . . . When they arrive, you will be ready to take on the persona of the settlement as a whole, as well as that of each individual therein. . . . The players will quickly learn who is who and what is going on - perhaps at the loss of a few coins. Having handled this, their characters will be equipped as well as circumstances will allow and will be ready for their bold journey into the dangerous place where treasure abounds and monsters lurk.​

To me, this makes it pretty clear that what sets things into motion is the arrival of the PCs. The players drive the action (though in this case by interacting with the elements of the GM's sandbox, rather than by the GM framing them into situations that engage their PCs beliefs/goals/aspirations etc).

Yes, but what is set in motion by their arrival was pre-determined by the DM who "Set up the hamlet or village where the action will commence...". Part of that set up is determining the NPC motivations, plots, secrets, etc., virtually all of which will be unknown to the players/PCs before they arrive. Many of those things may never be discovered, yet still have influence on the PCs.

 

[Manbearcat]

The term ceases to be as valuable when you use it to describe playstyles, as you are doing here. In essence, you are setting up your own playstyle as being X, and other playstyles as being "railroady."

Different tables will have different preferences; what works for your table (and for [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]) will not necessarily work for all tables and for all levels of experience ... or for all TTRPGs. Using a term that is widely viewed as a pejorative to describe the preferences of other tables does not illuminate conversation- instead, it is likely to diminish it.

(FWIW, I will reiterate the same thing I said before- all TTRPGs are, by definition, railroads to some extent or another. It's just a question of what the rails are.)

Pretty much! We get a bunch of rules which we're given free license to use, modify and flat out ignore. Good stuff! And unsurprisingly, attempting to use language to describe specific facets of play enjoyed at one table will ultimately lead to some disagreement and confusion, as such facets are not universal in their delivery any more than our experience of them.

Though I'm totally up for authoring a D&D Dictionary, enforced with extreme prejudice.

Reading this perhaps a bit harshly, this puts the DM in the role of little more than a free-thinking processing unit which could these days be done by a computer; which brings to mind [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION]'s question of why have a DM at all.

Reading a bit less harshly, it still seems it's the DM getting railroaded by the system here in that she's only supposed to react; and further, only react to what the players (via their characters, I assume) "have signaled they care about". Fine for the players, thankless for the DM.

My wish in these kinds of threads is that we could focus on specific moments of play and hone in on analyzing "what is going on under the hood" and the implications therein rather than working broadly from the macro conception (railroad) backwards to those important moments of play (of applied, or not, GM Force). I hate how so often threads devolve into that. We end up functionally analyzing nothing (collectively that is) and thus gain no greater understanding.

I also wish I could locate my GMing principles thread that I did for Dungeon World, 4e, 5e, and B/X. I think they may have been lost to the October 6th scrub from last year (what a pity). I believe [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] and [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] were both involved in that thread. They would be helpful here.

Just a couple of things:

1) I know a lot of folks assume my GMing is exclusively Indie/"Story Now"/Narrativist (whatever you want to call it - regardless, you're talking (a) below) due to the majority of my posts. However, that is just a product of what I'm talking about at that moment (which just so happens to be a lot of (a) on these boards). I run several different (significantly divergent) styles of games depending on what D&D system I'm running:

a) My Dungeon World, Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy, 4e, Strike(!), Torchbearer, and Mouse Guard all have considerable overlap. My 13th Age has some overlap here too. Tightly principled and codified games with resolution mechanics and feedback loops that are well-integrated. The sum total means that action snowballs and story emerges just by playing the game.

b) My B/X and Torchbearer have considerable overlap. Discrete play phases, Keyed Dungeons and tight/coherent procedures move you through character progression (which is a different in both games, but similar in the zoomed-out view).

c) My AD&D2e and 5e (and 13th Age and 3.x have some with 5e but neither with each other) games have a lot of overlap. Hexcrawl, adventuring-day-dynamics, PCs built around that paradigm, "subvert/scrub the rules as you see fit" ethos, and loose resolution mechanics that expect the GM to be heavily involved in all facets of adjudication. This paradigm expects/mandates (though doesn't really require it in 5e like it does in AD&D2e) GM Force/Illusionism to be deployed and it very much "plays nice" with all those techniques. The zoomed-out goal of play is to "have fun" with a "compelling story". It is a micro-principle-lite game (by design) because the GM is expected to sub their own play principles/agenda as they see fit. Of note, when I stand-in for the GM of the 5e game that I run, I don't use GM Force or Illusionism, so I know that 5e doesn't require it (it just plays very nice with it). He definitely does (liberally), however, as I've watched him run the game on a few occasions (and have experience with him in the past). As far as I can tell, he has never learned to run a game without covertly applying GM Force as he chooses. He considers it to be "the" fundamental GMing technique.

d) My AD&D1e (with heavy use of WSG) and 5e games have a lot of overlap and both share a lot with my 3.x games (except for LFQW is so bloody out of control in the latter). Granular hex-crawl and wilderness-exploration-heavy.

[MENTION=6846794]Gardens & Goblins[/MENTION] , is your position in the quoted post that "system doesn't matter." It looks that way with what you've said and specifically your assertion that "We get a bunch of rules which we're given free license to use, modify and flat out ignore." While that is an orthodox principle in games like White Wolf's supernatural ones in the 90s, AD&D2e, and 5e, that isn't remotely a standard, TTRPG-spanning principle across all games. I know that is a big cultural zeitgeist that came out of that White Wolf/AD&D2e era, but that doesn't rubber stamp it as applying across all games. Most games don't need it, and several actively push against it or overtly direct you not to.

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , given what you've written in this thread (and the reply above), I don't think you have a good handle on:

* the sum-total of GM overhead (prep, improv/adjudication, conflict-framing, and creativity requirements) in a game like Dungeon World versus a game like B/X (or 5e).

* the nuance of GM overhead (prep, improv/adjudication, conflict-framing, and creativity requirements) in a game like Dungeon World versus a game like B/X (or 5e).

Upthread I wrote out the fictional output from a play excerpt from Dungeon World. I followed that up with revealing the mechanization of that excerpt in Dungeon World. I have now just transliterated that over to reveal how that might be mechanized in B/X. Later I'll do 5e (which should be trivially done), when I have the spare time.

Do you think you could look those over and comment or ask questions to clarify. I would hope (if I've done my job...perhaps I haven't done it well enough though) the sum-total and nuance of GM overhead between DW and B/X would be much more clear to you.

Obviously anyone else can do the same if they'd like. I feel that this level of focus is much more helpful than just broad -for-tat on railroading (and for whatever reason folks aren't engaging with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's myriad of play examples...maybe its the format of them, I have no idea why...so maybe how I've formatted things will help).

 

[Lanefan]

Here's just one excerpt, from p 87 of Gygax's DMG, under the heading "Setting things in motion":

Set up the hamlet or village where the action will commence with the player characters entering and interacting with the local population. . . . When they arrive, you will be ready to take on the persona of the settlement as a whole, as well as that of each individual therein. . . . The players will quickly learn who is who and what is going on - perhaps at the loss of a few coins. Having handled this, their characters will be equipped as well as circumstances will allow and will be ready for their bold journey into the dangerous place where treasure abounds and monsters lurk.​

To me, this makes it pretty clear that what sets things into motion is the arrival of the PCs.

And from here, then what?

The players drive the action (though in this case by interacting with the elements of the GM's sandbox

This is one option, if a) the DM is running a sandbox-type game and b) the players are with it enough to realize they have to drive the action or else little if anything happens. Not all (in fact IME quite few) players will proactively get on and do this, leading to:

The other primary (and I think more traditional) option is the DM drives the action by making it clear there's an adventure out there that needs doing. This can be done in many ways but the end result is nearly always that at least the first adventure is one chosen by the DM. That adventure might naturally and organically lead to others (if the DM's done her storyboard well and read her players properly) or might be forced to lead to others (as in most if not all AP-style games); or the characters might find their own amusements once the ball is rolling. In any case, however, the game world keeps on keeping on behind the scenes, and while the PCs might do something about event x events w y and z will still occur and possibly have ramifications on the PCs.

What procedure would you envisage for the table as a whole to use to frame scenes? And how would that procedure bring about, say, that the tarrasque is attended by maruts in the fashion that I described upthread.

I have no idea whatsoever how or why a table would frame itself into being anywhere near a tarrasque, but on a smaller scale a table might put itself into an adventure...a cave, say, that has had a bad reputation among the locals for years which has got at least some of the PCs curious as to why...so they explore the cave. One of the players comes up with the idea of the cave being the lair of a dragon some time ago, but as far as anyone knows it hasn't been seen for well over a century. So they explore the cave(s), building encounters as they go...and eventually get to the end. At first glance it seems empty. Then someone frames a ghostly dragon appearing out of the darkness, and away we go.

It's not a tarrasque, but you get the idea.

Lanefan