D&D General Why defend railroading?

[pemerton]

Sure that can work if the players are into it. But some players (many, in my experience) don't want actively and knowingly decide this sort of stuff. As you surely remember, we had a looong thread about this. But yeah, it's just a matter of taste.

Sure. I just think it solves a whole lot of problems, including @EzekielRaiden's bored players.

 

[TheSword]

The setting fluff is both (a) absolutely essential, as in without it I would NEVER do this no matter how bored the players might seem, and (b) not something I can just change on a dime whenever I want to whatever degree I want. I have actual constraints on what I'm allowed to do. Yes, I can invent new things and proceed to demonstrate them in the fiction. But that's not the same as "the haunted house is EXACTLY wherever the players go, because I've decided that's where the players are going." It takes effort on my part, sometimes a lot of effort, to make these additions (or changes) happen--even in a world following the Dungeon World DM principle, "Draw Maps, Leave Blanks."

Asking for a random encounter roll when the party is choosing to sojourn through non-patrolled land, or saying "you got jumped by nasty monsters" when it is a well-established possibility that nasty monsters are A Thing that really does just randomly attack.

As an example: if the party is looking bored while, say, on a sailing ship in the middle of the ocean? Nope, not gonna spring a random encounter on them, no matter how convenient that would be for me as DM, because there's literally nothing I've done that would establish that as a possibility. I would have to do real, serious work to establish it, and leave some breadcrumbs for the PCs to learn about it, and very specifically give them time to choose to follow up on that if it isn't just stated out in the open. E.g., openly stating it could be the captain of the ship they're on inviting them to a private dinner, regaling the party with tall tales...and then getting more serious and explaining how there are Things that come from the deep, such that the best sailors always carry a cutlass even on routine voyages...and a holy symbol just in case. Leaving breadcrumbs could be mentioning that there's been a sharp increase in demand for mercenaries on trading vessels, or that Waziri mages (who normally avoid the docks) have been spotted dockside, collecting reports from sailors about unusual phenomena. Stuff that's noticeable, and that the party could spend a little time investigating as long as they aren't on a super-tight time budget. That would give me a foundation to build on.

I absolutely still think it is deceptive to use illusionism--which is not the same as "dishonest." "To deceive" is "to mislead by a false appearance or statement," which is exactly what happens when you present a choice as mattering, giving it the false appearance of impact, when it actually has no impact. "Dishonesty" is about lying, cheating, or theft, which doesn't apply to this situation (or at least I can't see how it would). I mean, the top three definitions of "illusion" literally all reference deception or false appearances in some way. I don't see how it's possible to argue that illusionism is not built on giving choices a false appearance of significance where there is none.


It is precisely the "GM-fiat-ish" that is the problem.

And yes, I run DW, I don't just play it. (Well, I don't play it at all right now, I just run it. But I did play it for several years before, and have played some Masks and IIRC one other PbtA game, though I can't remember what it's called.)

Ouch… so you have to foreshadow every single encounter you present to the PCs. That sounds like a lot of extra work. Don’t you like to surprise them sometimes? Don’t you like an encounter to be the foreshadowing sometimes?

Your pirates strike an unknown reef in a part of the ocean that should be far to deep to hold a reef?

You see a black flag on the horizon in an stretch of the sea that should be safe.

You see a floating raft with a dehydrated starving man clinging to the raft.

Is there not an element of excitement in confronting the unexpected and the unknown every so often. Particularly when you’re strangers in a strange land.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The point is that you don't always know which decisions are meaningful. Sometimes what you though was meaningless turned out to be meaningful and vice versa.

That is fine, I don't mind being surprised in that way. If I have a choice between drinking beer and water at the inn, and it turns out the beer was poisoned all along. That is a fun interesting thing, where I didn't know I was making a meaningful choice but my decision to have a beer meant something. However if the GM just decides to make whatever I choose be the one that was poisoned, and the other one isn't, then that is the kind of issue I am talking about here in terms of railroading.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Why limit it to two doors? I think there should be 3 doors: one with an ogre behind it, one with nothing behind it, and one with treasure behind it.

After the PC chooses their door, the DM should open the door with nothing behind it than ask the player if they want to switch.

That was just the example the poster gave.

 

[Umbran]

Again, this seems to be describing a game I wouldn't enjoy. The notion of "breadcrumbs" to me seems very railroad-y (as metaphors they are hard for me to really distinguish). And I don't find the idea that play might be boring very appealing either.

So, then a question. What about mysteries, in which whodunnit is known to the GM. Rather than breadcrumbs, you have clues. Is this a railroad?

Before you answer that - we can consider Ashen Stars, a Gumshoe-based game, in which the standard concept is the PCs are a team of freelance troubleshooters, hired to find out what's really going on and deal with the situation. The GM is encourage to have "deal with it" include some important ethical or strategic choices. The GM knows whodunnit. The GM does NOT know how the PCs are going to deal with it.

Is this a railroad?

 

[Maxperson]

In The Eye of the World (an excellent best selling book frequently in top fantasy book lists) the protagonist visits the city of Caemlyn.

Dissent in the city has been stirred up by fanatics nicknamed whitecloaks because of the fastidiousness and puritanical beliefs. The city has split into factions. Supporters of the queen were red armbands for the Rose of Andor. Supporters of the whitecloaks wear white armbands (obviously). People without an armband are treated with suspicion for not picking a side…

… what you wear can definitely affect what you encounter.

Spoiler: Events in Eye of the World

The protagonist chooses a red band… because it’s cheaper and not knowing the difference. He has an altercation with whitecloak thugs. A royalist innkeeper takes him under his wing and introduces him to several important characters. He later accidentally ends up in the palace in front of the queen and the red armband saves his life.

This is actually a great example of what I am talking about. Matt makes a seemingly trivial decision(to him), but which ends up having great meaning. The PCs don't have know anything more than there's a fork in the road for the decision to mean something, so removing choice is still railroading, since it deprives them of that meaningful choice.

 

[Bedrockgames]

For my part, I think there is a more straightforward approach: let the players decide what is meaningful or throwaway; and have every moment of play lead somewhere.

This is definitely a solution to railroading. I don't disagree with your claim here about style and approach. But I don't think that alters the definition of railroading. A series of planned encounters you can't avoid are pretty much a railroad, and one way to side step that railroad is to build in ways that allow players to avoid them or have other encounters (i.e. the forks in the road being set and meaningful) but another is like you say give the players more control over what encounters have meaning. But I think in both instance, the thing being reacted to is the problem of railroading and feeling like you are being railroaded.

 

[TheSword]

We were just using those as examples because the two doors came up. But this is definitely true. Choosing what to say to someone can also be a fork in the road. It doesn't have to be pegged to geography. The point is if you the GM establish this is a fork in the road, a figurative one, and the player chooses fork A then Y should happen, if the player chooses fork B then X should happen, but then when the player actually chooses fork B you make Y happen anyways because that is what you want, then you are railroading. And even if you aren't, even if we agree that somehow falls outside the definition of railroading, you aren't honoring the choice the player made. The player might not know, because you may be the only person who is aware that the fork was there, but I think even lying to yourself that way as a GM undermines the choice the player made (especially if there was a logical reason for A to connect to Y and B to connect to X)

So the location of house is irrelevant it has no place it needs to be to suit the game world so it can be wherever it needs to be to suit the adventure. The house is not foreshadowed it is just an interesting scenario the PCs can engage with. You say this is railroading?

So at what point can a scenario be added to the course of events? Does it have to be directly caused a conscious decision made by the party? That would rule out 80% of the plot hooks in published adventures.

Let’s be honest we put things in front of players all the time because they sound interesting and could make for a good session. Ogres, haunted houses, plot hooks etc etc

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Reading through this thread about choosing multiple doors, and/or quantum ogres, I think we should probably generalize this to a D&D problem.


The Monty Haul Problem for D&D

The party comes to a room with three doors. In the middle of the room is the Mad Dungeon Architect Zagyg (no relation).

Zagyg stares at the party and say, Behind one door are the uncountable and fabulous magical riches of the Great Emperor, Monty Haul. Behind the other two doors are quantum ogres. Choose your door wisely!

The party confers and chooses door 1. Zagyg smiles, and opens door number 2, revealing a quantum ogre.

Do you still want to open door 1?

WHAT DOES THE PARTY DO? DO THEY OPEN DOOR 1, OR SWITCH TO DOOR 3? HAS ZAGYG TOTES RAILROADED YOU? WHY DOES MATH HURTZ ME BRAIN SO MUCH?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

More context is always going to be useful. But again the original example was there are two doors to choose from: one has a monster behind it, the other does not. The poster stated this, so clearly there is a note on the page or an idea in the GM's head that something is behind door A and not door B or vice versa. The issue is the players are presented with this choice, they make it, but it never mattered which door they went through, the GM is railroading the encounter and making it happen anyways. I am certain that in most campaigns if this situation arose, then after the fact the GM told them the creature was behind the other door but he or she moved it after they made their decision about which door to go through the majority of players are both going to cry foul and say they were being railroaded.

There can be added layers to this, like what happens once something emerges in the game, and if the players decisions after it emerges are also being thwarted. Railroading is an ongoing process. It is possible the only thing railroaded is the decision to move the create behind whichever door, but perhaps the GM then gives them freedom to run away, to negotiate with it, to fight it, to do whatever. The original choice is still railroading though, and if the GM doubles down and forces encounters to play out how he or she wants then its even more of a railroad.

I think it is an excessively expansive view of railroading, makes low prep and improv play indefensible and shuts a lot of discussion because someone will always cycle the conversation back to railroading.
I also feel there is little point in engaging with you further on the topic.