D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Maxperson]

Sure, most is probably an overstatement. Though even a non-railroad can be a railroad in the hook. For example you can have a dungeon adventure that is pure exploration but the hook is presented in a way where it pushes the players to get in the adventure itself (I don't think railroad is just about structure, it is also about the GM insisting the adventure he or she has in mind will occur, and pushing the players back 'on track'). But like I said it also boils down to execution. Though I was thinking more about modules that have paths or events. Even there I think sometimes the railroadiness is a product of how the medium needs to be structured and packaged. I've had plenty of modules that offer up an overview of likely course of events, and it is easy to read that, and think these events are supposed to happen in this order, in this way, and it is the GMs job to make sure they do so. But if you examine the text more closely it is obvious this is just one way, the most likely way, that the adventure could play out, but the GM is expected to be flexible land adapt more to choices the players make.

Speaking of hook railroads, I think there are also certain types of adventures where you almost have to have some railroad to get to them. Or at least where I think the buy in makes it justifiable. This is possibly where I would defend railroad as okay as long as the players know and are buying into it. When I run monster of the week campaigns, this is how I tend to do things. There is an adventure. The players will go to the Temple of the Phoenix Spirit, or they will end up facing the werewolf of Moondale; but once there the structure is very non-railroad. Once the adventure starts, they can approach it however they want, I usually don't have a set list of things that have to happen in any particular order, and they can engage or disengage as much as they want (running away and escaping with their lives is a perfectly fine ending to the adventure). You could argue this isn't railroad because the players are buying in (but the structure does mean they are being railroaded into each adventure effectively).

This is the one area I've seen where you and I disagree. So long as the players have a choice, an encouraged hook isn't a railroad. There has to be no choice or invalidated choice(like the quantum ogre) for there to be a railroad. I've seen players turn down a tempting hook a number of times. That's not a railroad.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think we have some difference of interpretation here. I mean, first of all, I do state that the results must comport with the agenda and principles of the GM. I think we are taking it as a given that the scene exists for SOME reason that is related to something the PCs are attempting to do. Its possible the GM designed the existence of a clue as part of a Front, but most likely it is related to something the players said, or the PCs did. The GM could certainly present the veracity of the clue as being in doubt, either as a simple observation at the time (probably more likely PCs questioning it) or later as a move of some sort. However, that would only be cool in my book if they had not already 'won' it by some successful roll.

Again, I believe this is potentially, depending on certain details, a perfectly feasible example of a 'soft move', though I don't seem to have explicated that well.

Hard, soft, you can debate endlessly exactly what is what in that dimension. The GM doesn't have 'secret fiction', but the GM DOES HAVE "things aren't established until they are established in fiction." So, no, the GM wouldn't literally write down at the time of clue discovery "This clue is false!" (probably, I guess its possible if there were immediate consequences, then it is a move). It isn't OBLIGATED to be accurate though either. When it first appears it is simply the appearance of a thing. In the same way you could introduce an illusory terrain feature.

I think we'll just have to differ a little bit on our interpretations of things. I don't think you are 'wrong', but I think the game allows for a bit more range of things than you're suggesting. Again, I said "might turn out to be inaccurate information", that isn't "this is an outright lie on the face of it." I think there's a subtle point here WRT DR. The rules say "The answers you get are always honest ones." but think about that. You DR the room, and ask "What is useful here?" and the answer is "A letter from the Trade Guild to the Duke." That doesn't mean the letter's contents are truth! It means they are useful (they will provide a +1 forward when acted upon).

I'm not certain you can elucidate what range I'm suggesting. Your response hasn't provided any counter to any of my points that lands. You've managed to insert an argument about the line between soft and hard moves, but that has nothing to do with my points at all, so it's mostly beating a straw-stuffed man. And your argument about the GM maintaining things vaguely isn't very good either. Specifically on this, your example of the letter is poor because it presents something that isn't being established in the fiction, and that's not how that's supposed to work. If you find a letter from the Trade Guild via Discern Realities option 'something useful' then it is useful in the fiction -- it's not a generic +1 asset, but instead a specific bit of useful information or detail that the player can then frame into their future actions. You shouldn't leave it as a generic +1 on future rolls, because that is not beginning and ending with the fiction. You're stepping outside the principles of play to create generic assets, which is not at all the intent of play -- nothing is generic in play.

 

[Campbell]

This is the one area I've seen where you and I disagree. So long as the players have a choice, an encouraged hook isn't a railroad. There has to be no choice or invalidated choice(like the quantum ogre) for there to be a railroad. I've seen players turn down a tempting hook a number of times. That's not a railroad.

If there is significant social pressure (either from the GM or the other players) to go along with the provided hooks I'm not sure if it's railroading, but it feels close enough for government work to me. That might or might not be a bad thing depending on your perspective. One of the things that really gets undersold from my perspective is the role other players have in creating an environment where you can often feel pressured to go along to get along or may themselves be engaging in a form of railroading via social imperative.

 

[pemerton]

I've not GMed DW, only played it a little bit. But I think it's fair game for a letter discovered via Discern Realities to be useful and yet turn out to be a forgery.

Somewhat parallel: in the BW game where I play Thurgon, while investigating Evard's Tower I (as Thurgon) discovered various letters apparently written by my mother to Evard when she was a child, and apparently addressing Evard as "Papa".

The context for this was that (i) my PC build includes a relationship with my mother (Xanthippe), (ii) my backstory notes that Xanthippe still lives on our ancestral estate (Auxol) which the family still manages but which has fallen into darkness, and (iii) one of my Beliefs at the time was Harm and infamy will befall Auxol no more! (In subsequent play, Thurgon has returned to Auxol, through prayer has lifted the weariness and resignation from Xanthippe's shoulders (think Gandalf and Theoden), and now instead has the Belief that Xanthippe and I will liberate Auxol.)

Now it's definitely true that those letters existed (they no longer exist, because I (Thurgon) threw them into the campfire). But I am hoping that they might turn out to be false - to have been forged, or perhaps have some other explanation that doesn't entail that the demon-summoner Evard is my maternal grandfather. One straightforward path to that outcome would be a successful check on Letters-wise, but that would be at a pretty high obstacle given the specificity of the knowledge, and so I can't see Thurgon achieving that any time soon. But more realistic for Thurgon, given where his talents lie, would be a revelation of the truth via a prayer to the Lord of Battle.

Now I know that DW and BW aren't the same system, but I think there is enough overlap that it should be possible, in DW play, for the letter to turn out to be false, if that's the way things play out.

 

[pemerton]

If there is significant social pressure (either from the GM or the other players) to go along with the provided hooks I'm not sure if it's railroading, but it feels close enough for government work to me.

Adding to this - for me at least, and I'm going to guess for you also, we can draw meaningful distinctions between different bits of content, in terms of how they speak to us and how they sit in the "social pressure" dynamics.

When I think of a "hook", I think of the classic module starting point, where I as a player am expected to pick up on a bit of action or a clue that the GM presents that has no relevance to my character as I am conceiving of him/her except because I as a player know that if my character doesn't pay attention to this then there will be no game. For me, what is most marked about this content is that I have no internal or character-grounded reason to care about it.

And the same is likely to be true as we go along the adventure.

I'll contrast that with the episode of play that I mentioned just upthread, involving the letters in Evard's Tower. Now someone might want to say well, those letters are a hook too! But for me, at least, the difference goes pretty deep:

* The reason the action is even taking place in Evard's Tower is because I, playing Thurgon's sorcerer sidekick Aramina, who has a Belief about finding spellbooks, declared Isn't Evard's Tower nearby here? and then succeeded on the Great Masters-wise check. That was me - as per the instructions to BW players in the rulebook - deliberately seizing control of the fiction to push it in a direction that I wanted it to go in.

* I can't even recall now whether finding the letters was a success or a failure on Scavenging (all I can see is the record of making a Beginner's Luck Scavenging test marked on the appropriate part of my PC sheet). But the reason the GM narrated the existence of letters indicating a connection between Xanthippe (Thurgon's mother) and Thurgon is because I, Thurgon's player, put Xanthippe and her fate and the broader fate of Thurgon's family and ancestral estate front-and-centre (via the Relationship with Xanthippe; an Affiliation with the family; and the Belief about the future of the estate).

* Even the fact that there was a campfire to burn the letters in flowed from an Instinct that I wrote for Thurgon When camping, always ensure that the campfire is burning.​

The social pressure is flowing from me as player to the GM. mediated by the game rules and principles, to make all that stuff that I am the author of front-and-centre in play. It's completely different from turning up, spotting the GM's hook, and going along with it because that's today's adventure.

This is also why I am puzzled by @EzekielRaiden's suggestion that a GM who frames scenes and introduces new content in this sort of way is railroading. To me, as a player, it feels the exact opposite.

 

[Campbell]

@pemerton

I think there's a phenomenal difference between the expectation that we will all honor and engage with the material another player brings to the table and the sort of specific expectations that most hooks bring of a particular orientation towards the fiction or in the case of another player specific expectations of that characters' concept or story arc than something like scene framing or Burning Wheel beliefs that require engagement, but do not stipulate how you have to engage.

In our Vampire game right now the threat of a Giovanni plans to unravel the Camarilla's power base in Amsterdam are hanging over us like the Sword of Democles, but we all have a personal stake and the way we choose to engage with it is entirely up to us. My character is currently doing all he can to unravel that plan (although he might take advantage of the opportunity to clear some pieces off the board as well), but the other characters are positioning themselves in different ways. It's expected that we are going to engage with the scenario, but how we choose to engage (including the allies and enemies we choose to make) is largely up to us.

This is phenomenally different from something like an adventure path where my methods may be up to me, but my objectives are all decided by the scenario or GM.

 

[Umbran]

As best I can tell from what you've posted, your player contributions consist in suggesting setting elements which then get incorporated by you into your prep. I don't see you talking about how player preferences shape processes of action resolution or inform your scene framing.

As I posted upthread, the player of the sorcerer PC in my first BW game had established, as one of his PC's Beliefs, that I will find the magic items I need to free my brother Joachim from possession by a Balrog (I'm paraphrasing from memory, but it was very much to that effect).

So now I have the following two options in front of me:

I can start the campaign in a tavern, and write up (in my prep notes) various NPCs who might know the way to find various magic items, so that if the player declares the right actions for his PC, he might trigger me to play those NPCs in such a way that the relevant backstory is communicated, so that eventually he is in a position to declare actions for his PC which might result in his PC acquiring an angel feather.

Or I can do what I actually did, which is to start the campaign in a bazaar, where a peddler is selling curiosities of various sorts, and claims to have an angel feather for sale.

You are asserting that the second is a railroad and the former is not. I see the situation as exactly the opposite

So, here's a thing that a GM of more traditional games will trip over, and that maybe will make things clear: The player setting their Beliefs in this example is part of play.

In traditional games, that Belief would sit in the character background, which would be considered, at best, as part of a separate character generation minigame/activity that is over and done with when the players sit at the table and start action resolution. The GM in a traditional game is not expected to engage with that right out of the block - that's a campaign-goal, to be addressed in the very long run, not a call to action for the first moment of the first session of play.

Similarly, the GM of traditional games will trip over that much "action resolution" is - in fact, it is kind of a misnomer in some games, because the in-narrative action isn't actually what is getting resolved. The narrative question is getting resolved.

The points where, say, someone is looking for a clue, and the player says their intent is to find evidence that Duke Badguy was behind recent events, that is what is happening in the narrative. What is often happening in the mechanics is determining if, in fact, Duke Badguy was behind it all. In "no myth" play, the mechanics resolve the PCs question by authoring the fact, rather than by testing the character's modeled technical ability to pick locks.

It is this very thing that brings many folks to consider these more "storytelling games" than "role-playing games". Because, when what you are resolving is a question of narrative direction, rather than character action, it doesn't feel to them like playing a role. Their role is, say, a thief, not a person who molds the universe by asking whodunnit.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not certain you can elucidate what range I'm suggesting. Your response hasn't provided any counter to any of my points that lands. You've managed to insert an argument about the line between soft and hard moves, but that has nothing to do with my points at all, so it's mostly beating a straw-stuffed man. And your argument about the GM maintaining things vaguely isn't very good either. Specifically on this, your example of the letter is poor because it presents something that isn't being established in the fiction, and that's not how that's supposed to work. If you find a letter from the Trade Guild via Discern Realities option 'something useful' then it is useful in the fiction -- it's not a generic +1 asset, but instead a specific bit of useful information or detail that the player can then frame into their future actions. You shouldn't leave it as a generic +1 on future rolls, because that is not beginning and ending with the fiction. You're stepping outside the principles of play to create generic assets, which is not at all the intent of play -- nothing is generic in play.

Sure, I didn't delve into the fiction side of that, but there's no reason why the fiction must pin down the veracity of the content of the letter, is there? I mean, it will, eventually, as we PLAY TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS, right? lol.

I mean, surely you aren't implying that nothing can ever be surprising to the players in a DW game? I will agree with you that DW is not a game where the GM is allowed to build some sort of clever railroad around interpreting every DR check in the way I described. OTOH things can turn out various ways.

 

[pemerton]

In our Vampire game right now the threat of a Giovanni plans to unravel the Camarilla's power base in Amsterdam are hanging over us like the Sword of Democles, but we all have a personal stake and the way we choose to engage with it is entirely up to us. My character is currently doing all he can to unravel that plan (although he might take advantage of the opportunity to clear some pieces off the board as well), but the other characters are positioning themselves in different ways. It's expected that we are going to engage with the scenario, but how we choose to engage (including the allies and enemies we choose to make) is largely up to us.

Are you able to say anything about how the GM handles the different PC motivations and actions - including eg separation in space and hence participation in different scenes? Or being in the same scene but pursuing different goals?

I think this is an aspect of GM technique that would benefit from more consideration. And I think a lack of methods for handling it is part of what makes GMs feel they have to railroad in order to keep the game manageable.

 

[Campbell]

Are you able to say anything about how the GM handles the different PC motivations and actions - including eg separation in space and hence participation in different scenes? Or being in the same scene but pursuing different goals?

I think this is an aspect of GM technique that would benefit from more consideration. And I think a lack of methods for handling it is part of what makes GMs feel they have to railroad in order to keep the game manageable.

Sure. Our game is primarily a social crawl so access to particular NPCs can be important for achieving our personal objectives. Each PC has personal connections that would be much more difficult to access without the cooperation of another player character. The deck is also mostly stacked against us so we often need allies. Even friendly NPCs are likely to ask for significant concessions so it's helpful to maintain those connections. There's a social currency called boons in setting and the rules that carries a lot of weight. We often end up owing each other quite a bit.

One thing that has really helped is there is an additional XP reward for bringing in the other characters to your personal objectives.

Another that I think has really helped is that Vitae/Blood can be somewhat hard to get and can make it harder to maintain control as it gets low so having other vampires to depend on when you are in rough shape is a definite plus. The risk of losing control often helps keep us together.

We also have a shared place that it is assumed we all travel back to on a regular basis to kibitz and talk shop/plans. So when things get a bit too spread out we often meet back up.

More than anything though we keep a meta channel open where we discuss plans and might say stuff like "Let's handle X tonight and Y next session." We're also really good at being fans of each other's characters. There are times when one character may have the narrative spotlight for up to 20 minutes. Sometimes I get so caught up in other characters' scenes I will ask the GM to wait on my character's scenes.

Quick programming note : the version we are playing is custom and takes a lot of mechanical inspiration from Blades in the Dark, Sorcerer and Chronicles of Darkness. A lot of the GMing techniques are drawn from Sorcerer and Blades in the Dark.