D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Bedrockgames]

No, your choice doesn't really matter here. What matters is that in this scenario there is only 50% chance to meet Bill in given location, but this would be exact same situation if there was Quantum Bill with 50% probability and the GM would just flip the coin once the PCs arrive in one location to see whether Bill is there.

Even if it is a 50/50 shot, if the GM decides where Biff is first, then it is a meaningful choice because one way leads to Biff immediately, the other doesn't. If I meet Biff no matter which way I go, not only do I not have a meaningful choice, but it is now a 100 percent chance of bumping into Biff. That is a huge difference on both counts. Also how informed this choice is will be very dependent on how players make their decision and how the GM decides which way to go. But assuming they have zero info, and Biff is just randomly at one of the locations, as a player, I'd still like to think, even if it is just a shell game, it is an honest shell game, not the GM saying "its the same either way" and insisting the encounter happens down both paths.

 

[Bedrockgames]

No, your choice doesn't really matter here. What matters is that in this scenario there is only 50% chance to meet Bill in given location, but this would be exact same situation if there was Quantum Bill with 50% probability and the GM would just flip the coin once the PCs arrive in one location to see whether Bill is there.

There is a difference here. If you flip a coin, whether Biff is there or not, comes down to the GM's choice over heads or tails. If you set him in one spot, whether they encounter him comes down to whether the players pick path A or B. It is gaming and random, but this definitely matters to people even if the GM thinks it is all the same. Lots of players like the feeling of "boy if we chose path A instead of B we'd be in a lot of trouble now". When you flip a coin, it takes that away and it takes the choice out of the players hands. But both of these cases, the 50-50 coin flip and assigning Biff to one path or the other, are different from a situation where the GM makes Biff there 100% of the time, regardless of what path the players choose or which side the coin lands on.

 

[TheSword]

I get this, but let's turn your example into something closer to what's being posited in the thread:

"Shall we go to the beach today, or will we go see Shakespeare in the park?"
"Let's hit the beach, I'm not really in a Shakespearian mood."
"Yeah, me too - beach it is!"
...time passes until arrival at beach...
"Hey, whaddya mean they moved the Shakespeare performance to the beach today?! Bloody hell, we can't get away from it!"

This is the same as the DM moving an encounter into the PCs' path after the PCs had actively taken steps to avoid it.

No. It’s more like, “shall we go to the beach or the park?” Reply… “let’s go to the beach”….

“Oh wow, the Red Arrows are doing an airshow. Wow that’s amazing.”

We would have seen the display whether we were at the beach or park because it was independent of our decision.

Thats the equivalent of encounters not tied to place.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

There is a difference here. If you flip a coin, whether Biff is there or not, comes down to the GM's choice over heads or tails. If you set him in one spot, whether they encounter him comes down to whether the players pick path A or B. It is gaming and random, but this definitely matters to people even if the GM thinks it is all the same. Lots of players like the feeling of "boy if we chose path A instead of B we'd be in a lot of trouble now". When you flip a coin, it takes that away and it takes the choice out of the players hands. But both of these cases, the 50-50 coin flip and assigning Biff to one path or the other, are different from a situation where the GM makes Biff there 100% of the time, regardless of what path the players choose or which side the coin lands on.

Yeah, you're thinking for some reason that completely random blind choices that you might just as well flip coin for are meaningful and I very much don't.

 

[TheSword]

Even if it is a 50/50 shot, if the GM decides where Biff is first, then it is a meaningful choice because one way leads to Biff immediately, the other doesn't. If I meet Biff no matter which way I go, not only do I not have a meaningful choice, but it is now a 100 percent chance of bumping into Biff. That is a huge difference on both counts. Also how informed this choice is will be very dependent on how players make their decision and how the GM decides which way to go. But assuming they have zero info, and Biff is just randomly at one of the locations, as a player, I'd still like to think, even if it is just a shell game, it is an honest shell game, not the GM saying "its the same either way" and insisting the encounter happens down both paths.

As the late great Han Solo once said, “never tell me the odds”.

 

[TheSword]

We have three working examples so I think it depends on the one (I am actually a little unclear what the destination is in the case of the ogre). But let's say there are two paths and one goes to the beech, one goes to Shakespeare. And instead of an ogre let's say Biff Tannen is blocking one of the destinations. This would be equivalent to having Biff be there to stop them whether they picked the beech or Shakespeare. As a player, if I knew the GM was doing that, I would feel like it was a railroad, and I would prefer that, even if I don' know Biff is in play, that the GM doesn't move Biff from one location to the other just to make sure we encounter him. You can have a planned encounter with Biff, but at least make our choices matter. A less railroady way would be for Biff to go to one location, if we don't show up, he eventually checks out the other one (and perhaps that gives us an advantage or at least makes the encounter different in some way: maybe we even have a chance to hear about his approach and escape before he gets there). If the GM is making decisions about where Biff is, and sticking to them, then our choices about where we are going will matter even if we aren't immediately aware of it (our choice of direction is producing different situations).

And yet Marty meets Biff, several times. Why? Because Biff doing his own thing miles away from Marty is dead boring. Yes? Dead boring.

The DM’s effort is only of value in so far as it improves the game of their players. If the DMs effort is unrelated to actual play it has no value in game terms. It might help the DM better articulate the world but has no intrinsic value without the PCs.

In other words Biff Tanner without Marty McFly is an empty pair of trousers. A rebel without a cause, an empty vessel, a hollow shell, a fart in the wind.

 

[Don Durito]

I was not aware of the blog post or the term prior to this thread and do not really care whether it refers to an encounter or a destination, "quantum whatever" is an obvious name for something that is in a indeterminate state as to location or other characteristics before it is presented to players. Good luck in enforcing your particular nomenclature.

Oh for gods sake. How exactly am I enforcing something by pointing out the term has a history?

As for 'obvious' I think you will find if you see enough of these discussions that it is anything but obvious. People always talk past each other because the idea of the quantum ogre is just too vague to be useful. It always turns out, as it has iin this thread, that people are discussing on the basis of unstated assumptions that they have brought into the situation.

 

[Bedrockgames]

And yet Marty meets Biff, several times. Why? Because Biff doing his own thing miles away from Marty is dead boring. Yes? Dead boring.

The DM’s effort is only of value in so far as it improves the game of their players. If the DMs effort is unrelated to actual play it has no value in game terms. It might help the DM better articulate the world but has no intrinsic value without the PCs.

In other words Biff Tanner without Marty McFly is an empty pair of trousers. A rebel without a cause, an empty vessel, a hollow shell, a fart in the wind.

but a game isn't a movie. A movie can railroad its characters and the audience will not get annoyed. Still though the sense that the outcome isn't predestined, even in a movie is important to maintain. In a game, if I start to feel like no matter where I go, I am always going to bump into Biff Tannen and have to deal with him, then that definitely feels railroady and it feels like my choices aren't making any difference. Again if the issue is you need something interesting, by all means put something interesting down that other path, but make the choice between going left or right, north or south, through door A or door B, have a meaningful difference. Yes the GM is supposed to improve the game for the players, but going too far to make the game good is exactly where railroading becomes problem. Railroading isn't a product of trying to make the game dull or not fun, it is a byproduct of heavy handed methods to ensure something is going on, and to make things easier for the GM in terms of prep (i.e. making sure what the GM has planned happens).

And obviously there are shades of gray here. If I antagonize Biff and he starts hounding me, following me wherever I go, that is fair. But there are going to be moments when it seems I am presented with a choice, and if those choices don't really matter because the GM just decides X happens regardless (or worse, as per the example literally moves Biff from where he was supposed to be to the place I chose to go) then I would definitely say it qualifies as railroading and it lessens the game for me.

 

[TheSword]

Oh for gods sake. How exactly am I enforcing something by pointing out the term has a history?

As for 'obvious' I think you will find if you see enough of these discussions that it is anything but obvious. People always talk past each other because the idea of the quantum ogre is just too vague to be useful. It always turns out, as it has iin this thread, that people are discussing on the basis of unstated assumptions that they have brought into the situation.

The problem is the ‘ogre’ is irrelevant to the ‘Quantum Ogre’ conundrum.

The big issue with the mind puzzle is not that that an ogre is behind whichever door. That is a perfectly reasonable time prompted encounter.

The real issue is that no matter which door is picked the treasure won’t be behind the first two, then will miraculously be behind the third. That’s pretty darn naff.

It should be called the ‘third-room-treasure’ rather than quantum ogre. The issue here is that the DM moves the goal posts, The ogre is irrelevant. Floating ogres land all over the shop normally with nary a difficulty.

 

[Don Durito]

The problem is the ‘ogre’ is irrelevant to the ‘Quantum Ogre’ conundrum.

The big issue with the mind puzzle is not that that an ogre is behind whichever door. That is a perfectly reasonable time prompted encounter.

The real issue is that no matter which door is picked the treasure won’t be behind the first two, then will miraculously be behind the third. That’s pretty darn naff.

It should be called the ‘third-room-treasure’ rather than quantum ogre. The issue here is that the DM moves the goal posts, The ogre is irrelevant. Floating ogres land all over the shop normally with nary a difficulty.

Ha.

You do realise that was my reformulation of the original situation the quantum ogre was meant to describe right?