D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[prabe]

I have run a lot of adventures that have mysteries, in the Sherlock Holmes sense. You naturally want the players to figure out the mystery, but the game does not have mechanics that are quite as strong for solving mysteries as it does for stabbing goblins.

This means that a lot of the time I have to decide whether a choice by a player that I did not plan for can still be useful in the investigation. Generally, I lean in the direction of making the players' investigation be on the right track.

For instance, last night in my game, the party decided to look for clues at the site of a street brawl. I had previously thought of a location where they could get useful clues to identify one of the bad actors in the adventure, but it was not at the site of this street brawl. But because they went there, I moved the clue so that their investigation would provide some forward momentum.

Is that a railroad?

Ish. Arguably. But I think it's a reasonable choice--mysteries of that sort are tricky, IMO.

On the rare occasion when I've run that sort of scenario, I've tended more toward "what information is available" as prep, and if the PCs go somewhere it's reasonable to find any of that, they do (probably--I suppose they could mishandle things and not get that information, but ... that's their fault, I think).

I also have tended more toward "solving the mystery makes the next thing possible" than "solving the mystery is the whole point."

 

[Umbran]

I'm quite amazed that there are still arguments or misunderstandings about what railroading is. When did Alexandrian write his Railroading Manifesto? Six years ago?

It isn't like a person on the internet writing something has ever stopped arguments or misunderstandings before.

 

[J.Quondam]

It isn't like a person on the internet writing something has ever stopped arguments or misunderstandings.

Yes they have!

 

[overgeeked]

Direction doesn’t have to be a choice. Leaving town can be the choice in and of itself.

You can't have one without the other unless there's only one way in or out...and then once outside...you can go any direction you want, provided the terrain isn't impassible.

You seem to be suggesting that deciding to leave by the north road or caravan gate is different than traveling north or south… or NNW or NNE… or 46 degrees or 47 degrees… or 47.5 degree or 47.6 degrees.

Yes. Exactly that. Because I want the world to feel like it's a real place where the choice the players make matter. If they go north that's a completely different choice than going south...because different things exist to the north than to the south.

By your argument you expect the players leaving town to make choices that would affect whether their path intersects with the ogre/farmers.

Absolutely. If there's a village to the north and the farmers are coming to your town from there...they're going to be on the north road...not the south road. If the ogre is staking out the south road to waylay people...he's going to be on the south road...not the north road.

Uninformed choices by the way.

Not every choice made is informed.

That’s only because your considering the encounter as being in a specific location rather than at a specific time.

Space-time. They're connected. You cannot have space without time, nor time without space. Disconnecting an encounter from one or the other give you a quantum ogre problem. If you as the DM decide that the players will encounter an ogre regardless of which door they open (space) or regardless of when they open the door (time)...you're still deciding to use illusionism. Their choice doesn't matter, this encounter is predetermined. Period. It's a bad tool to use.

When some has a choice of two things… the right door or left door it’s reasonable to have simple consequences - bound to locations because those locations are easily determined. Once you step outside the easily bounded area of a dungeon then things become harder. The wilderness or a city of hundreds/thousands of locations has an endless number of possible decisions. It is very difficult to map consequences to these the same way.

So what? DMs do it all the time. Players do it all the time. Real people in real life do it all the time.

That’s why event based encounters become far more attractive in a non-dungeon setting. There needs to be another method of advancing action than opening the next door.

The farmers don’t therefore need to be 1 mile NNE of town, plotted on a map.

If you want your world to feel real, yes, they should. Sometimes the PCs will miss things. That's okay. The farmers had important info about some thing and the PCs will find out when they get back to town...if they get back to town.

They can be after lunch the day the players leave.

Yes, they can. But that's still illusionism.

 

[payn]

View attachment 145485
Ticket to Ride… Great game if a session gets cancelled by the way! All about making choices when laying railroads

Nice, the superior Euro map!

 

[overgeeked]

I have run a lot of adventures that have mysteries, in the Sherlock Holmes sense. You naturally want the players to figure out the mystery, but the game does not have mechanics that are quite as strong for solving mysteries as it does for stabbing goblins.

Check out the Alexandrian blog. The Three Clue Rule and Node-Based Design have a lot of great advice. Try picking up an investigation specific game, like Call of Cthulhu (especially the most recent edition) as it has a lot of great advice.

This means that a lot of the time I have to decide whether a choice by a player that I did not plan for can still be useful in the investigation. Generally, I lean in the direction of making the players' investigation be on the right track.

For instance, last night in my game, the party decided to look for clues at the site of a street brawl. I had previously thought of a location where they could get useful clues to identify one of the bad actors in the adventure, but it was not at the site of this street brawl. But because they went there, I moved the clue so that their investigation would provide some forward momentum.

Is that a railroad?

Yes, that is illusionism and railroading.

I've run a lot of Call of Cthulhu and investigation-based games. You really should check out the Alexandrian. You won't be able to cover every random thing the PCs do, but prepping a lot of clues in a lot of obvious places is a great start.

 

[MichaelSomething]

What can be done to enable DMs to be less railroady? Recommend good hex crawls? Suggust improv classes? Write a capter in the DMG? Have a ton of random tables?

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see where in this example GM fudges or changes anything.

I think it's more of an "implicit action declaration" than anyone usurping anyone's agency.

The agency issue is that the GM is taking control of the player characters without their consent. My point is that this form of participationism is relatively benign. In the same way, the GM might say, "Rogue, as you're scouting ahead, checking the hallway for traps..." without the rogue specifically declaring that he's doing so. Chances are, the rogue is fine with it, and if he's not, he'll let the GM know: "Hell, no, I'm not scouting ahead, I've got 2 HP!"

On the other hand, the GM might say, "Rogue, you see something shiny ahead of you, and you can't resist the allure of it. As you eagerly make your way down the hallway, you hear a click, and suddenly you're falling! You slide down, down, down a dark chute and find yourself dumped out into a chamber deep in the dungeon..."

There's a gradient between participationism and illusionism, I'd say, and there are strong and weak implementations of it.

 

[jmartkdr2]

What can be done to enable DMs to be less railroady? Recommend good hex crawls? Suggust improv classes? Write a capter in the DMG? Have a ton of random tables?

Make sure the players do have meaningful choices to make is the big one. Don't have only one hallways, and when you have two, have different things in them, and give the players enough info to make an educated (at least a little) guess about what they'll find down each hallway. Even if the choices are constrained, they should be choices - not guesses, and "play the game or don't" is not a fun choice.

The second is to not shut down player choices if you can avoid it, and if you have to don't be ham-fisted. It's better to pull the curtain aside and admit that you haven't prepped anything beyond the mountain pass than it is to throw a bunch of obstacles in the way. Obviously the players need to stay within the rules, but if the rules don't shut the player's plan down, then you should try your darnedest to let them try.

The third is to stay within the established rules of the game as they are played at the table - that is, whatever combination of RAW and RAI and homebrew you said you'd be using is what you should use unless the fiction takes you outside of that.

 

[Umbran]

Yes they have!

Look, I came here for an Argument!
Oh, I'm sorry, this is Abuse.