D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Maxperson]

Now that’s just silly. You wouldn’t say the choice is invalid if there aren’t ogres down either path. There are all sorts of reasons one might choose to take one or the other that have nothing to do with ogres. No matter which road I choose to take to work tomorrow there will be cars on it, that doesn’t make my choice of whether to take University or Colorado Blvd invalid.

The point isn't whether there are ogres down both paths or not, it's that the DM is forcing ogres. Had the DM planned in advance that there were ogres down both paths, perhaps as part of an ogre village, then there would be no railroading. Same if he planned in advance that there were no ogres. He didn't do that, though. Instead he has only one ogre that he is forcing on the PCs no matter what they choose, invalidating their choice.

Going back to the planned ogres down both paths, the PCs could choose to go off path and if they did, they would avoid the ogres. With the quantum ogres, if they go off path they still encounter the ogre. They could teleport 3000 miles away and they'd STILL run into the ogre. They have no chance to avoid, which is a railroad. There is no meaningful choice that they can make. The DM might as well just tell them not to make a decision and roll for initiative.

 

[Don Durito]

Oh no. Not Quantum Ogres again.

The issue needs a new example. The whole Ogre thing never gets anywhere. Everyone always seems to bring too many unstated assumptions of their own about what's going on in such situations and therefore everyone talks past each other.

 

[CleverNickName]

Oh no. Not Quantum Ogres again.

The issue needs a new example. The whole Ogre thing never gets anywhere. Everyone always seems to bring too many unstated assumptions of their own about what's going on in such situations and therefore everyone talks past each other.

Agreed. The last four pages have been a bit hard to follow.

Unless they are real-life mind readers, there is no way for the players to ever know if the DM is "railroading" them or not. And if they could somehow know, the game wouldn't be any fun for anyone. So the question isn't "what if railroads?" The real question we should ask is: if you're having fun, why are you worried about Quantum Ogres?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The thing is, the standard D&D wandering monster table is full of quantum ogres. It doesn't matter which way you go, if the DM rolls a 4 you encounter a quantum ogre.

 

[Charlaquin]

The point isn't whether there are ogres down both paths or not, it's that the DM is forcing ogres. Had the DM planned in advance that there were ogres down both paths, perhaps as part of an ogre village, then there would be no railroading. Same if he planned in advance that there were no ogres. He didn't do that, though. Instead he has only one ogre that he is forcing on the PCs no matter what they choose, invalidating their choice.

The DM might not have planned anything. The point is, if the players didn’t choose to avoid an ogre, encountering an ogre doesn’t invalidate their choice.

Going back to the planned ogres down both paths, the PCs could choose to go off path and if they did, they would avoid the ogres.

Sure, and if they went off the path in order to avoid the ogres on the paths, it would invalidate that choice for them to encounter those ogres anyway. But that’s not something they would be capable of doing, given that they’re not aware of any ogres on the paths at all.

With the quantum ogres, if they go off path they still encounter the ogre. They could teleport 3000 miles away and they'd STILL run into the ogre.

Which would not invalidate their choice to teleport 3000 miles away.

They have no chance to avoid, which is a railroad.

There’s nothing to avoid. They just choose where to go and happen to encounter an ogre there.

There is no meaningful choice that they can make.

Sure there is. Do they take the well-traveled path to the right, or the disused path on the left? Or ignore the paths and go off-road? Or teleport 3000 miles away? There are reasons they might choose to do any of these things that have nothing to do with ogres, all of which are still perfectly valid if they happen to encounter and ogre.

The DM might as well just tell them not to make a decision and roll for initiative.

Except if, you know, the choice of where to go matters in other ways than whether or not there’s an ogre that way.

 

[loverdrive]

I mean, I see it -- you have a cool story point, or a nifty set of prepped encounters, and you just want to share them.

I understand such urge, I just think it's more work than it's worth. After all, I can reuse a cool room or two in a latter dungeon, or run it for a different party.

I mean, how many adventure products have you sold for your games

Exactly zero. I've tried to write some adventures, but got bored after like 15 minutes. Ah, sweet ADHD.

and, by the by, I truly adore your recent post on adapting Mujik is Dead to Cthulu -- brilliant!

Thanks

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The thing is, the standard D&D wandering monster table is full of quantum ogres. It doesn't matter which way you go, if the DM rolls a 4 you encounter a quantum ogre.

Indeed. As someone already said earlier, quantum ogre is just a random encounter with 100% proc rate and one entry on the random table.

 

[Don Durito]

Ok probably if people are going to discuss the quantom ogre it's worth at least reviewing the original discussion.

The ogre first arose in a blog post here:

Let's imagine a gaming scenario where the group must search a series of woods looking for the MacGuffin - Woods A, B, and C. The MacGuffin could be in any of the woods. Pick a wood, pick any wood! It could be the classic Shell Game in D&D!

One DM - we'll call him Scripto-DM - scripts the content for all 3 woods in advance, and locks the MacGuffin into Wood B. The other DM - Improv-DM - makes a detailed encounter with an Ogre, and keeps that game content unassigned. Regardless of which woods the players choose first, he'd like the party to have the opportunity to encounter the ogre. The MacGuffin will be somewhere else.

Most folks will say that Scripto-DM has enabled player agency and free choice; Improv-DM is setting up a railroad. Let's first take a closer look at Improv-DM.

When the party boldly announces they will head out to Wood C first, looking for the MacGuffin, they run into Improv-DM's (supposedly excellent) Ogre encounter. He reasons that he could have improvised the woods with random encounter tables, but instead developed an encounter in advance. By deciding at game time that the MacGuffin is not in Wood C, and the Ogre is there instead, has he actually violated player agency? Player will or choice has not been thwarted. They wanted to go to the woods, and Lo! - they are in the woods. And yet objectively he has preordained a game result

And in result, another blog post at hack and slash made the ogre quantom and created a spectre which has haunted discussion of gaming ever since.

Player choice has been thwarted, because the players were presented with a meaningless choice. Does it matter if they know the choice was meaningless or not? If the players have no hint of where the ogre is does it rob them of agency?

It matters for these reasons.

• If you always pre-ordain 'your precious encounter' then the players never have the experience of choosing correctly and skipping right to the end (which is fun for them).
• The flaw of the Quantum Ogre is that, if you have a party who plays smart, he won't be quantum long before you enter the woods, and then you've wasted time by not assigning him to a location already or you become the jerk DM where ESP doesn't work, the ground doesn't hold tracks, and if you try and teleport - suddenly anti-magic fields everywhere.

Make of it what you will.

Edit: I think how one feels about this has a lot to do with the stance once takes towards one's character and whether one's priority is being immersed in a world or in the collaborative creation of a dramatic and rewarding story.

Or in other words, how you feel about the GM switching things around to avoid a potentially anti-climactic ending and create greater drama depends a lot on whether you really consider that to be the GM's roll in the first place.

 

[Don Durito]

Indeed. As someone already said earlier, quantum ogre is just a random encounter with 100% proc rate and one entry on the random table.

Not quite - see the original context above. It's closer to a random encounter with three different entries which the GM pretends to roll, but actually he picks the result he wants.

 

[ReshiIRE]

I'm starting to regret bringing it up (I think I highlighted it first potentially) as I think we're talking past each other and that perhaps the main example of a Quantum Orge and it's explaination is both too specific as an example to discuss the point being made and it's too specific to OSR like games. It might be too theoretical as well.

My stance is just - as a DM, if I felt I were to use something akin to a Quantum Orge on the micro-level, I might use it at a macro-level as well, and that moving prep around versus improvising based on notes I have for specific scenarios versus calling the session early if I don't have things prepared will lead to situations where player choice isn't respected and areas won't join up in a logical way.

I'm not sure if those are valid concerns at this stage.