D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Crimson Longinus]

Sure, I sometimes make those choices (and sometimes players make them, when possible) but I am not thinking about the kinds of beats and resolution I would keep in mind while writing a story when I am designing the scenario or running the game because I don't know what will happen (and I want it that way!). I am not a "rule of cool" guy - though when I have the opportunity to include something cool, I do. But I am not gonna (for example) keep a PC from dying in a random encounter that went bad just because dying during the final confrontation of the module would be more dramatic (though some games are designed to have such mechanics and that is fine for those games - but not what I want out of D&D personally) in the moment it will be dramatic enough.

I guess, the way I look at it is not in total disagreement with you, but there are a wide variety of kind of "good stories" (and that includes ones where all the good guys die) and I am not trying to push it towards any particular kind (save perhaps for the limits established by setting and theme), but am open to the ones that emerge.

Yeah, I don't think there is actually significant disagreement. I am not really talking about GM forcing the game towards some preplanned 'story,' what I mean is more of curating the emergent story and trying to present it in most engaging manner possible.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That's ... roughly the opposite of my preference. I'd prefer the DM not lie to me except in the person of a dishonest NPC.

It's all a lie, mate. When the GM says that there's a dragon, he's lying. Dragons don't exist.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But the question is - shouldn't the choice itself matter, informed or not?

Did the DM actually set up a fair choice? Or did he have a whatever you choose, oops there's an ogre scenario. I agree with @Maxperson that if it's the latter - that's railroading.

If the DM wants the PCs to fight the ogre - just have one door, that's linear but it's not railroading.

In that particular instance there indeed probably doesn't need to be two doors. But it is a simple analogy for the game world as a whole. It is literally impossible to prep for every location and for every moment of time. So often it is more practical to have things happen where and when the PCs happen to be, whilst maintaining the illusion of an expansive, limitless world.

 

[Maxperson]

It's all a lie, mate. When the GM says that there's a dragon, he's lying. Dragons don't exist.

No he's not. There is an unspoken "in the shared imagined space" that comes after "there's a dragon." There is no lie(deception) going on.

 

[Composer99]

@Lyxen
We (in the global sense) don't usually (or ever?) consider performances of stage magic or theatre, novel fiction, or film and television fiction - which all involve making up something that isn't true - to be lies or deceit. (Good thing we're not the Thermians from Galaxy Quest, eh?)

Nobody I know watches a movie and says, "boy, what a great experience being lied to for two hours!" Even though that is basically what has happened. We're willing to buy in, suspend disbelief, and engage with the let's-pretend premise of the film (or musical, or story-book, and so on).

Everyone I know would agree that an actor getting paid to portray a tax agent on TV isn't committing fraud, while a person impersonating a tax agent in real life in order to siphon money away from other people is. There is something essentially different about the two activities, even though they both amount to someone falsely representing themselves as a tax agent for money.

I think all we're asking is that, even when their NPCs are lying through their teeth, that the GMs themselves are earnestly inviting us into make-believe. They don't have to show their working, just be perceptibly earnest. Doesn't seem too much to ask, does it?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Lyxen
We (in the global sense) don't usually (or ever?) consider performances of stage magic or theatre, novel fiction, or film and television fiction - which all involve making up something that isn't true - to be lies or deceit. (Good thing we're not the Thermians from Galaxy Quest, eh?)

Nobody I know watches a movie and says, "boy, what a great experience being lied to for two hours!" Even though that is basically what has happened. We're willing to buy in, suspend disbelief, and engage with the let's-pretend premise of the film (or musical, or story-book, and so on).

Everyone I know would agree that an actor getting paid to portray a tax agent on TV isn't committing fraud, while a person impersonating a tax agent in real life in order to siphon money away from other people is. There is something essentially different about the two activities, even though they both amount to someone falsely representing themselves as a tax agent for money.

I think all we're asking is that, even when their NPCs are lying through their teeth, that the GMs themselves are earnestly inviting us into make-believe. They don't have to show their working, just be perceptibly earnest. Doesn't seem to much to ask, does it?

Right. And the audience of a film willingly pretend that the events of the film are caused by the actions of the characters, random chance and objectively existing world, whilst in reality they're product of scriptwriters, directors, actors, SFX artists etc collaborating. In fiction the main character just happens to be at the right time at the right place to witness an interesting inciting incident, but actually it was scripted because it was a good way to start a story instead of watching him for hours to do random mundane stuff whilst nothing interesting happens. It's same for RPGs. The GM puts interesting stuff where the PCs happen to be, when they happen to be there.

 

[pemerton]

I'll give an example I'm sure we can all relate to: the party is talking amongst themselves about their next course of action, and they've decided to visit some location, say the Mad Hermit's Hut. They stop and stare at the GM at this point, which is the GM's cue to say, "You travel to the Mad Hermit's Hut, a residence of dubious quality. The thatched roof is half-rotten, and you're uncertain if the crumbling mortar in the stone walls could withstand a heavy rain. (Pause to see if anyone has anything to say. No characters act, so the GM continues.) Entering the structure, you see the Mad Hermit himself..."

Right there, the GM usurped player agency to narrate. The players are probably fine with it, though, so that's participationism.

I don't think what you're describing here is, in itself, participationism, though it could be. Here's one test: what happens if one player says Hang on, I'm not going in. I turn invisible and leap up onto the top of the walls, keeping watch while the others go in. Only if the GM negates that action declaration in some fashion, but without provoking pushback, so as to keep things "on track" - eg maybe some revelation is planned to take place inside the hut, and all the PCs need to be there - do we have participationism.

I'm influenced here by these essays from Ron Edwards (who is participating in and building on the work you cite in your OP):

The Golden Rule of White Wolf games is a covert way to say the same thing: ignore any rule that interferes with fun. No one, I presume, thinks that any player may invoke the Golden Rule at any time; what it's really saying is that the GM may ignore any rule (or any player who invokes it) that ruins his or her idea of what should happen.

The functional version of such play is properly called Illusionism . . .

Illusionism is a widespread technique of play and arguably, textually, the most supported approach to the hobby, as testified most recently by the publication Secrets of Game-mastering (2002, Atlas Games). It relies on Force, as defined earlier in the essay. GMing with lots of covert Force is called Illusionism. I call that the Black Curtain; if the Curtain is drawn, then the players aren't immediately clued in about the presence and extent of the Force itself.

Force (Illusionist or not) isn't necessarily dyfunctional: it works well when the GM's main role is to make sure that the transcript ends up being a story, with little pressure or expectation for the players to do so beyond accepting the GM's Techniques. I think that a shared "agreement to be deceived" is typically involved, i.e., the players agree not to look behind the Black Curtain. I suggest that people who like Illusionist play are very good at establishing and abiding by their tolerable degree of Force, and Secrets of Gamemastering seems to bear that out as the perceived main issue of satisfactory role-playing per se.​

At some participationist tables, the GM might be expected to deploy their Force via establishing further fiction- eg Heavy rain starts - it's going to get pretty wet up on that roof! - and the player gets the hint, cracks a joke about hoping the mortar holds, and has their PC go in. At others, the GM might be expected to deploy their Force via overt metagame requests/instructions - eg Look, this is a big scene coming up, and it really needs all your characters to be there.

If the GM allows the action declaration about turning invisible and jumping up, and reframes the scene accordingly, then I don't think we have participationist/illusionist-by-consent play.

 

[pemerton]

Per the discussion in the other thread, are any of these examples of railroading or illusionism against the rules? Or are they just--arguably--"bad" dming? Because the argument in the other thread (from @pemerton among others) are that the rules of 5e are a guarantor of agency, whereas my contention is that you need a gm that you can trust and that is operating in good faith. It's not hard to play a game of 5e with plenty of player agency, but the rules alone will not get you there.

Have I used the word guarantee? I don't recall doing so.

I have said that 5e D&D has dozens and dozens of pages of action resolution rules - found in the rules for PC build, in the spell rules, in the combat rules, in the equipment rules, in the rules for stat checks, etc - and that when the GM narrates results of declared actions there is a clear textual assumption that the GM won't just make it up, but will rather apply those rules found on those many dozens of pages.

 

[Mort]

And yet, I'm pretty sure that in general, people will think that linear adventures are inferior to non-linear ones, all other things being equal. Linear is NOT a positive word either.

Pathfinder made their name and a VERY good reputation doing exactly that.

A good linear adventure is NOT inferior to a non-linear one. Frankly from a publishing perspective it is much easier to do a good linear adventure than a good sandbox one.

No, there is no roleplay, you just move to the next station.

I don't see how that relates to lack of roleplay - you still have to move forward which can certainly involve roleplaying. Or are you saying there is no roleplaying in the various Paizo adventure paths?

And then, once more, it has to be a terrible crime ? The players don't even try to understand why it was done, they just slam the door, walk away and use the DM as a "bad DM" example until the end of their days ?

Of course there is no crime, but players often don't like the realization that the choices they thought they were making were actually not choices at all. And before we go onto the "how would they find out" merry-go-round? Well, many are more perceptive than you are giving credit for. The point is, why give false choices - there's just no need to.

I have a different take on this, which is that there was a REASON for which the DM did what he did. But honestly, people in here are much too self-righteous and theoretical to ask WHY the DM did it. Because in my experience, it's because he looked for another solution to try and please the players and did not find one. So does it make such a terrible crime ?

No one is saying a crime was committed and if you want to avoid theory, this is an odd place to hang out! And as for "other solutions," they've been presented in this very thread and they are widely available. The goal is to provide a fun experience for the players and the argument is that an experience where their choices actually matter is more fun - in a gaming context.

God, reading about this, I'm getting angry again. We are not talking about abuse here, it's just a game, with zero consequence. If there cannot be a bit of understanding and friendship around this, I really wonder with who you guys are playing.

I play primarily with friends. My goal is to provide them the best experience I can. I believe that one way that their experience is enhanced is by making sure choices presented are meaningful and matter. So the players see that THEY are shaping the outcome of the session/game and not me pushing it to some conclusion that I want.

And the part which annoys me the most is that I'm sure that in most cases, it's not even detected, and that most people are not so inhuman about it in real life.

This is a discussion about what provides the best experience for players. I believe that resorting to trickery can detract from that experience because the players can see/feel that they're not the ones driving the story and that lessens the experience for them.

 

[pemerton]

Well, I think there's a meaningful difference. Illusionism (the Quantum Ogre) means no matter where they go they're going to have to deal with it. No?

The notorious Quantum Ogre reveals many unstated assumptions that are part of typical D&D play.

So first, here's an actual play example, from my Prince Valiant game, of "quantum Huns" and a "quantum Death Knight"; I'll repost some of the most salient bits:

The second of these two sessions - which we played on Sunday - began with the decision to liquidate all assets (incuding the captured pirate ship) on the grounds that the PCs didn't have the resources to maintain a chapter house of their order in Sicily.

They then set sail again.

Exercising GM fiat, I declared that as they were crossing between Italy and the Balkan Peninsula the storms were incredibly fierce, and the captain of their ships decided to cut his losses, and dock and sell his cargo in Dalmatia. The PCs therefore set of on the overland trek to Constantinople.

This was a fairly obvious contrivance to seed some scenarios. The players didn't object.

The core rulebook has three scenarios that involve fighting Huns, and I used the first of them: the PCs and their band (by this point 13 mounted men-at-arms plus the three knight PCs, and 42 footmen) were crossing through fairly rough and mountainous country when they were set upon by a band of 50-odd Huns. I allowed the player of the Grand Master PC - Sir Justin - to make a Battle check to take up an effective formation in the rough terrain and he succeeded, putting the Huns at a -1 die penalty.

The way the scenario is written it assume resolution via single combat, but this was clearly going to be a mass combat, and I improvised stats for the Hun leader (making sure he was weaker than the notorious Hun leader who figures in the third of these Hun-fighting scenarios). I had also decided (via extrapolation from the scenario set-up) that there were 20-odd huns in an ambushing flanking manouevre, but asked the player of the Marshall PC - Sir Gerran - to make a Presence check to notice them, which he did, and so we resolved the massed battle in two parts: the Grand Master leading the main force (around 60%) while the Marshall led the remainder of the forces on the flank, without the benefit of the terrain penalty to the Huns.

I asked the other two players what their PCs were doing - Sir Morgath joined Sir Justin in the main force, while Twillany, wearing a dress, stayed with the camp followers behind the line of battle, but looking for a chance to throw an opportune knife.

I probably should have resolved it flank first, to see whether or not the ambushing force broke through, then the main force, but didn't think of that at the time, and so resolved it in the opposite order. The main force was victorious in every respect

<snip>

And the rolls for the flank were also very successful, with the Hun ambuhsers completely routed

<snip>

The mounted soldiers in the main force pursued the main group of fleeing Huns and easily defeated them (I reduced the remaining command dice to reflect the fact that Twillany had killed their leader), capturing a large number as they fled back to their camp, and taking their supplies and yurts. Sir Justin failed in a Healing check to save the lives of injured soldiers on his side, and so the forces were slightly depleted, but Sir Gerran gave a speech to the captured Huns explaining the greatness of St Sigobert and the order's cause and made a very successful Oratory roll, with the result that 32 Huns joined the PCs' forces, giving them a highly useful mounted archery capability.

The PCs and their warband continued their crossing south-east - and (as I narrated it) found themselves on the edge of a heavy forest somewhere in the vicinity of Dacia (=, in our approximating geography, somewhere in the general area of modern-day Transylvania - I haven't checked yet to see how butchering of the map this is).

I asked the PCs who would be with the four of them if they were scouting ahead to verify whether the band could pass safely through the forest, and they nominated their two NPC hunters - Algol the Bloodthirsty who is in service to Sir Morgath, and Rhan, the woman who had joined them at the end of the last session I posted about.

I was using the Rattling Forest scenario from the Episode Book, and described the "deep and clawing shadows [that[ stretch across the path, and the wind [that] rattles through the trees." The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging from his shoulders, and six men wielding swords and shields, their clothes equally tattered. The scenario description also mentions that they have "broken trinkets and personal effects" and I described rings and collars that were worn, notched and (in some cases) broken. The description of the collars was taken by the players as a sign that these were Celts (wearing torcs), and I ran with that.

<snip>

Sir Justin had the idea of converting these ancient Celtic ghosts to Christianity and the reverence of St Sigobert - "a Celtic saint" as he emphasised several times - and he also thought that their bones could be put in the reliquary that had been made for martyrs of the order a few sessions ago.

<snip>

the PCs triumphed: Sir Gerran persuaded the Bone Laird that he and his men would find rest and release from their geas if they acknowledged God and St Sigobert and their bones placed in the reliquary. The Bone Laird - physically unharmed to the last but with his social resistance pool finally reduced to zero - cut the heads off his companions and went to fall on his sword. Sir Morgath intervened at that point, persuading him that it would be more honourable for another to take his life - and so the Bone Laird handed him his greatsword and Sir Morgath made a successful roll to decapitate him.

The choicest bones were then placed in the reliquary. And Sir Morgath had a new magical but dangerous sword to replace the jewelled one that he had lost in the previous session.

This is not illusionist play. There is no GM manipulations of the fiction, or the mecanics, behind the "black curtain".

And it's not railroading: the players conceive of a plan to defeat and then convert and recruit the Huns, and do so; and they conceive of a plan to convert and lay to rest the undead, and do so.

What it is, is relatively standard scene-framing - besides Prince Valiant, some reasonably well-known RPGs that use this technique are Agon, The Dying Earth, Burning Wheel, Dogs in the Vineyard, and 4e D&D (at least on a certain approach suggested in the rulebooks).

So coming back to the "quantum ogre", and assumptions:

There is an assumption, in typical D&D play, that geography matters. This is inherited from dungeon- and hex-crawling. The basic idea is that the GM prepares a setting that consists of a map and a key, and that the key includes "latent"/incipient scenes/situations which the players "activate" by declaring actions that move their PCs to the relevant part of the map.

Here's an example I just made up:

The GM's map and key record a dragon cave on the west side of the hills, and also note that the villagers on the east side of the hills occasionally see the dragon take flight, and hope it doesn't come to eat them. The session starts with the PCs in the village (maybe it's the first session and this is GM fiat; maybe they ended up there at the end of the last session). The players declare actions of talking to the villagers. The GM adjudicates these actions - The villagers tell you of the dragon they see from time-to-time over the crest of the hills. The players declare We go to the other side of the hills, looking for the dragon's lair. The GM adjudicates that, and when the PCs succeed in getting to the other side of the hills, the GM tells them You see a dank-looking cave in the western side of the hills. And play goes on from there . . .​

There are skills to this sort of play: players have to declare the right actions to elicit the information from the GM; they have to declare the right actions to move their PCs from A to B; it helps to keep good maps and notes, which is a skill; etc.

If players are expecting to play this sort of game, and the GM is pretending that it's this sort of game, but is in fact just making stuff up as they go along, then we have illusionism! And players who keep careful notes, try and make sure they ask the right questions, etc, are really just wasting their time.

But this sort of play isn't required for RPGing. Here are two possible departures from it:

(1) A setting can matter, for play, in other ways than its geography - see eg the importance, in my Prince Valiant excerpt, of religion and culture/heritage.

(2) Player skill/engagement can manifest itself in ways other than trying to "activate" particular scenes/situations. If the players want a particular (sort of) scene or situation then the GM can just establish it (as I did, in my Prince Valiant game) and then the skill and engagement operate not in the attempt to get the scene, but in the attempt to resolve it. In scene-framing-type play - as in the RPGs I mentioned above - it is the scene that carries the weight of the action. (Eg in DitV the players don't need to worry about finding a town; in Agon they don't need to worry about finding an island - play begins with the GM framing the PCs into a town, or an island, and then the action starts.)

Of course we have some narration to establish the framing - like my narration of the storm that washes the PC knights onto the Dalmation coast - but that's just colour.

And to close: all of the above is quite relevant to GMing D&D. I was running more-or-less scene-framed AD&D in the second half of the 1980s. I didn't have a vocabulary or conceptual framework to describe what I was doing, and so it was a bit halting in parts, and certainly far from a perfect example of the technique! But it can be done. It's not a coincidence that the games were (i) an OA game, and (ii) an all-thief game, because these bring with them a certain sort of trajectory (honour, family, martial arts master, etc in the first; a reasonable capacity to engage in urban intrigue in the second) that supports scene-framed play. It's probably harder if the PCs are a generic fighter, ranger and wizard. But it can be done.