D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Lyxen]

Story-oriented play may view prepared notes as ideas and potentials, and not sacrosanct - they could be ignored, added to, or edited on the fly as needed.

I honestly think it rather disconcerting (but I will put this down to the nature of internet discussion) that some people can on the one hand totally want sandbox playing which requires the DM to improvise a lot and at the same time absolutely want him to stick to what he prepared.

But if he did not prepare anything, as he is improvising to cover the sandbox aspects of the game, how can he stick to what he prepared ?

That's the reason I stopped the discussion about using devious tools for DMing. Of course, I would not advocate using them for a, as you said "tactical & wargame" type of game, it would totally devaluate what the players are trying to achieve, which is a sense playing against the DM or at least against the situation that he has set up, so I agree it requires honesty (and on both sides).

But as you go into more story-oriented play, especially if you have a lot of intrigue, and therefore a lot of improvisation (another characteristic of that kind of game is that it goes much faster because there is much fewer combat, so you get much much faster into unknown territory leading to improvisation), I'm sorry, but these devious tools become critical and almost a necessity.

And I'm sorry, but this is not bad DMing, in any way shape or form because by stepping into that kind of game (actually by wanting it) the players agree that these tools might be used, when necessary. How else can the DM play all the evil geniuses keeping track of their plots ? Are you all evil geniuses able to run all the intrigues in parallel ?

So deviousness becomes necessary, in particular metagaming about hearing what the PCs are planning to do and retroactively creating the plots that make these ideas into interesting storylines (and, by the way, there is not even a hint of cheating there, as nothing was pre-prepared, so even that spurious claim cannot be used). Again, like a stage magician, everyone expects that there are going to be tricks when necessary, they just don't know which ones, and they actually don't care as long as the story and intrigues are cool and epic.

And it comes back to trusting your DM, and knowing that he is not playing against you. Because, honestly, that is the part that is the most sad about all those stories, at the core of it, there is a mistrust between the players and the DM, and the players feel that they need to protect their agency against a nasty DM who is only out there to steal it and deprive them of their choices (and what makes it even worse for me is that these players, on the other hand, think that it's totally their right to steal the DM's agency and to ask him to run whatever their fancy switches to, taking into account none of his prepared work, own thoughts and desires, and even less his capabilities, I'll come back down to this in another post).

I really hope that someday, you can play with a DM that you can fully trust and that you can enjoy that kind of game in a fully collaborative mode. It's by far my preferred style of play, our groups have been doing it for many decades now, and there's never been a problem of trust around this, because actually, you know what, we love our sneaky DMs who can pull amazing plots out of the air to make our characters shine.

 

[jmartkdr2]

No, it's still Illusionism. The question really then is, "is it bad?" That's going to have varying answers. I don't think so. It's a flavor encounter really, but it's still always going to be the GM putting their thumb on the scales to Force it.

Illusion of what, though?

 

[Maxperson]

Illusion of what, though?

Choice.

 

[Maxperson]

I honestly think it rather disconcerting (but I will put this down to the nature of internet discussion) that some people can on the one hand totally want sandbox playing which requires the DM to improvise a lot and at the same time absolutely want him to stick to what he prepared.

But if he did not prepare anything, as he is improvising to cover the sandbox aspects of the game, how can he stick to what he prepared ?

This is a Strawman. Nobody is arguing that improvisation is bad, or arguing that they want him(at the same time or otherwise) absolutely stick to what he prepared like you are attributing to our side. Your argument against your invented fiction clinches it.

Illusionism and other railroads are not the equivalent of improvisation.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Choice.

What choice? They still get to pick which sidequest they go on. They knew ahead of time that there might be encounters they haven't been told about.

 

[Maxperson]

What choice? They still get to pick which sidequest they go on. They knew ahead of time that there might be encounters they haven't been told about.

Are you really arguing that there will only be one choice on an adventure? Whether to go on it or not?

 

[Lyxen]

Ok, let's dive down a little deeper here.

I know exactly why the DM that I had railroaded us. Back in a 2e game, she was running Keep on the Borderlands. We were playing away and then had the idea to rob the jewel merchant. Spent an entire session planning, working it around, scouting, the works. We were going to go on A HEIST! The entire group was involved. Then, when it came time to execute our cunning plan, she declared that the night before, the jewel merchant, without any prior notice, had closed shop and left in the night never to be seen again.

Now, I know why she did this. She didn't want us to do this. She had seen her campaign go off in a completely different direction and had decided to get things back in the "right" way again. I know this because she told me so afterward.

We still immediately quit the game.

And that is again not diving deep enough. WHY did she not want you to do this ? Did you even ask her before going into your heist whether she was capable of running it for you ? Whether she had prepared it ? Whether she could do some impro about it ? Whether she even felt capable of doing it ? Whether she needed some time to prepare for it ?

Because you know what stress is ? At the core, it's the fact that you feel unable to face something. And stress is a terrible thing, that makes you do sometimes stupid thing, or can completely paralyse you.

So, having been in this position with a bit more maturity perhaps, but having seen it in many DMs in clubs, I think I can tell you exactly what went through her mind when she saw you starting to prepare for the heist : "My god, I have no idea how to run this and not disappoint them, it's not in the module, I've never done it before, I'm sure I will fail, it's not even the kind of DMing that I want to do, what do I do ?"

Do you REALLY think that she let you prepare and then told you that she did not want you to do it because she wanted to be nasty with you ? Because she wanted to get rid of you as players ? Because she wanted to end the campaign ? Because she wanted to "deprive you of your player agency" ? Because she was a "bad person" ? Come on, dive down a bit deeper...

No, it was just stress, you taking her far out of her comfort zone without warning, without asking if it was OK for her, just on your trip with no regard for her capabilities or what she wanted/could run. Pushing it a bit further, it was you, as a group, breaking the social contract with a GM who just wanted to run Keep on the Borderlands as scripted, and was running it for your enjoyment.

So yes, she probably did not do it the right way. If she had been more experienced, she would have seen it coming, and would have either (depending on her capabilities and maturity) stopped you cold saying "the guards are too good and organised, if you try to pull this off, you will die", or asked for another week to prepare the heist so that it would look good, or even improvised it on the spot. But that requires a number of things that not all DMs have, and in particular confidence in their capabilities (and even more than the capabilities themselves).

At this stage, I probably pushed it a bit far in terms of hypothesis, but honestly, I've seen this many times, DMs who don't know how to control or say no to their group, or even don't know that they are being stresses but still not finding any solution.

And do you honestly think that, from a human position, as a person, it was the right thing to do to slam the door in her face ? For making a mistake due to stress and you going completely off chart ?

 

[jmartkdr2]

Are you really arguing that there will only be one choice on an adventure? Whether to go on it or not?

Did you read my example? The party can go to point A, B, or C. How is this not a choice? Is the choice not valid if there's a random encounter? Do I need to fully inform them of every possible random encounter along the way?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Illusion of what, though?

I've defined Illusionism very recently and clearly. Illusionism is when the GM deploys Force but obscures it from the players so it isn't obvious. Force is when the GM chooses an outcome with disregard to player input, choice, or the outcome of mechanics.

And example of Force would be if the player tries to Counterspell an opponent and the GM declares it fails because they want that spell to happen, even though there's no reason for it to fail. A GM may deploy some smokescreen here, and if that smokescreen is effective, then we've moved to Illusionism. However, in this case, most players are going to see through the smokescreen so it's most likely not Illusionism.

Illusionism would be an example where the GM has determined that event A must happen, and, no matter what the players choose, even including actions to avoid event A, the GM Forces it in a way that makes it impossible to tell that it wasn't just luck, chance, or error on the players' part that caused it. The Quantum Ogre is a useful example in it's original format (the constant altering of this example in discussions is making it less useful).

 

[Lyxen]

This is a Strawman. Nobody is arguing that improvisation is bad, or arguing that they want him(at the same time or otherwise) absolutely stick to what he prepared like you are attributing to our side. Your argument against your invented fiction clinches it.

I'm not even speaking to you, and there is no "your side". And I don't even want to spend time looking for the things that you might or might not have said, since you obviously did not even read my post in its entirety.

Illusionism and other railroads are not the equivalent of improvisation.

Read the post and then come back with something which is not a strawman, because this is a huge one.