D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Mallus]

Hey @overgeeked maybe you could give us some concrete examples of the kinds choices you consider meaningful? That would be helpful.

Might cut down on all the (diverting) diversion about the Quantum Ogre (has anyone brought up his favorite drinking establishment yet, the Teleporting Tavern?).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think they do care, just a little.

Have you ever had those scenarios where you have a fairly high-level adventure set up. The DM had a cool sequence for traveling. It isn't about draining resources, but its about exploring the world and enjoying the immersive worldbuilding. Stuff like climbing Mt. Doom or walking through the Valley of the Damned.

You ask the players if they're ready to set off and the wizard says "Can I just teleport there?" No matter what, its kinda a dissapointing feeling, right? Even if you say "No, magic is preventing your from teleporting," it shows they didn't really prioritize the journey. Why? Most likely because they've never been given incentive to explore the world like that before. Exploration had been nothing but meaningless worldbuilding that's irrelevant to their current quest.

XP can be a way for them to engage in the world. Trekking through a dangerous land can now be seen as beneficial, almost like training to before finally getting to the boss. They may even catch a level or two on the way, which is incentive.

I'm not saying XP is the cure-all for disengagement, but its at least a factor that could prove useful for a DM to incentivize immersive gameplay without railroading them down the specific path.

The problem with that is that with a level system, experience is too disconnected from the sense of advancement anyway, since its a multi-session contributor. A few people may like that sense of accumulating numbers, but for most its just pointless bookkeeping; its the levelling and the things that come with it they care about.

 

[Thomas Shey]

See, I don’t think whether or not it’s possible to make a decision that can avoid ogres has any bearing on the validity of the players’ decisions unless avoiding ogres is a factor in their decision-making process.

But see, I think the whole point is "avoiding extraneous encounters in general" can be a part of that process. They may or may not know whether its going to be ogres, but the thing the ogres represent--an unnecessary impediment to what they're trying to get done--can be. At that point it may not be the Quantum Ogre that's the issue but the Quantum Encounter.

 

[Stalker0]

What the players know isn't the point. Most of the time they won't know. That doesn't make it okay to deceive them.

So let me dig in to a few points going like 5 pages back.

you have stressed that if the quantum ogre always appears than that’s railroading, and people are fighting you on that definition. I will actually agree with you here, it is a railroad….but I don’t think railroading is necessarily a problem, it’s a matter of degrees.

So let us take the stance that such a railroad does in fact remove a player choice for this argument….but what if during the encounter the players still have full agency on how to deal with the ogre (run, hide, talk to it, fight, etc). So the player was still offered choices….how many choices are required before the game becomes “unacceptable”?

let’s take that a little further. Let’s say the players chose to fight (a meaningful choice). The fight lasts for 4 rounds, a player making 4 choices that impact the fight. So the player made 5 meaningful choices here. If I had allowed the party to ignore the ogre, there original choice is validated but they lose the ability to make those 5 choices…meaning I have denied my player a total of 4 extra meaningful choices. Am I now a terrible DM?

The REAL answer here, is railroading can only be determined through the amalgamation of encounters. If the DM denies choice in one scenario but allows it in another, overall things are fine. It’s always about a matter of degree, you can never look at one scenario and go “this is a railroady DM”.

And lastly on the quoted note about deception, this example. Let’s say during a combat a player decides to improvise, and wants to slip a firebomb into a creature’s pocket. The DM asks for the check and also notes that “that pocket also had a container of oil…so the bomb will have a big effect!” But…that’s a lie, I just made that up for this moment, that was not planned ahead of time. Has my deception ruined the game…or just delighted a player and encouraged them to improvise in the future?

Again it’s always a matter of degrees. If I make something good up for the players every time they improvise…then the magic of disbelief is lost…and the improvisation no longer seems special (or players may feel they have to improvise to get bonuses). But used on occasion it can delight players, and shake up the game in interesting ways.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Now I want to stat up a Quantum Ogre that has an actual game ability to be in multiple locations at the same time. Could be a cool monster, that you might encounter literally anywhere!

 

[CleverNickName]

Now I want to stat up a Quantum Ogre that has an actual game ability to be in multiple locations at the same time. Could be a cool monster, that you might encounter literally anywhere!

You might have been only joking, but I think this would be a lot of fun!
Or it could be an ogre that can be in several battlefield positions at once during combat. You could draw inspiration from the Echo Knight, in "Explorer's Guide to Wildemount."

EDIT: I may or may not be rolling up an Ogre Echo Knight at this very moment. He may or may not be named Sambek'it.

 

[Charlaquin]

But see, I think the whole point is "avoiding extraneous encounters in general" can be a part of that process. They may or may not know whether its going to be ogres, but the thing the ogres represent--an unnecessary impediment to what they're trying to get done--can be. At that point it may not be the Quantum Ogre that's the issue but the Quantum Encounter.

Sure, if they pick the longer but safer path to try and avoid extraneous encounters and that choice doesn’t actually result in a decreased chance of extraneous encounters, that invalidates their decision. I wasn’t assuming that to be the case in the ogre scenario though because it wasn’t part of the initial framing.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But see, I think the whole point is "avoiding extraneous encounters in general" can be a part of that process. They may or may not know whether its going to be ogres, but the thing the ogres represent--an unnecessary impediment to what they're trying to get done--can be. At that point it may not be the Quantum Ogre that's the issue but the Quantum Encounter.

But avoiding the randomly encounter by pure luck doesn't involve agency either. And of course the quantum ogres and similar can and often do exist within such a structure. The structure may be in effect ' the next time when X happens, Y happens.' For example 'next time a random encounter is rolled to occur, it is the ogres.' In that situation the ability of the PCs to randomly avoid the encounter at any individual occasion is not impeded, but the encounter will still happen for sure eventually.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I agree with you, but I think this is ultimately a consequentialist argument - you and I are both assessing whether or not Schrödinger's Ogre is railroading based on the material consequences it has on the players. But I think others are coming at the question from a deontological perspective - this position holds that using Schrödinger's Ogre is railroading in principle, whether it materially affects the players’ experience of the game or not.

Though one can question what the point of the objection is then; at least most deontological positions are based on process being bad in and of itself, and if that's where people are coming from you need to step back and indicate why that is rather than just "because". I do suspect you're right that some of the objection is to the process itself, but without indicating why you think so, that's kind of begging the question.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure, if they pick the longer but safer path to try and avoid extraneous encounters and that choice doesn’t actually result in a decreased chance of extraneous encounters, that invalidates their decision. I wasn’t assuming that to be the case in the ogre scenario though because it wasn’t part of the initial framing.

I realize, I was just noting that there's an argument to be made that the "ogres either place" argument is dependent on only the immediate time frame being relevant, and that's not something someone is required to give you.