D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Campbell]

@Lyxen

I have about 15 years experience running character focused games that do not utilize any of the tools that you claim are essential. We have had what I consider as pretty compelling play. I also play in games with GMs I consider quite skilled who I am confident do not utilize any of these techniques.

Some of the best roleplaying experiences of my life have been in my best friend's Vampire and Infinity games. We regularly talk shop. Given our mutual distaste for linear storytelling I am confident he does not use any of these techniques. I trust him implicitly.

Over the years there have been a number of players who were a poor fit for my games because they wanted an experience I was not willing to provide. Stuff like spotlight balancing, not wanting to be put on the spot, etc. I have had players ask for railroads, fudging, etc. Did they not trust me?

Assuming someone is missing out because they do not share your play preferences is misguided in the extreme. I have both run and played in the sorts of games you are advocating for. I did not enjoy the experience. Plenty of players do. My lack of enjoyment of linear storytelling is not a character flaw.

 

[Maxperson]

Force also includes any other prep, so "Force = railroading" is massively overbroad.

Railroading is simply removal of player choice. That's narrow, not broad.

You can't see my posts? My link must not have worked. It's #356

I quoted to you where I came into it. All that was present in the first post I saw was, "Illusion of what, though?"

Since the answer to that question is choice, that's what I told you. That's what illusionism is. The illusion of choice.

 

[Ovinomancer]

But your definition of Force include encounter prep.

It does? Where?

If I prep a room with ogres in it, that's not Force if the players encounter the room through their own choices. If I put an ogre into whatever room the players enter third, that's Force, because I'm just using fiat and disregarding everything else. The level of prep for both of these can be exactly the same. Prep != Force. I believe that prep can definitely be a catalyst for Force, though.

Maybe if I ask differently: what does a Force-free (or minimum-Force) campaign look like? How would I run a campaign without using any Force?

Apocalypse World would be a good start. Or Blades in the Dark. Dogs in the Vineyard. Lots of games. As I've said, I think that Force is pretty much required for D&D (even 4e, although that offered tools to mitigate quite a lot of the normal vectors for Force). You'd have to largely abandon secret backstory/notes/prep for 5e, and it doesn't work terribly well that way largely because it has no tools to engage alternative play. You can make them up, but then it's your game, not really 5e.

 

[Lanefan]

Conversely, there are more than a non-zero number of DM's who don't run their games/settings fairly, honestly and in good faith, which results in players who are less willing to blindly trust DM's. Remember, that player might be new to your table, but, they're probably not new to gaming and they are viewing you through the lens of every other DM they've ever had.

One thing to note: our experiences probably differ widely in that, other than con games or one-offs, I don't generally play or DM with people I don't already know from elsewhere. Playing online with strangers, sure, you never know what you're gonna get on either side of the "screen".

I once polled En World, ages ago, about people's experiences with DM's. About a third reported terrible experiences. As in, Would never recommend this DM level experiences. That's HUGE. That means if you have five players, probably two of them have had terrible experiences with DM's in the past. Turning around and then expecting that the players will automatically trust you to act in good faith is a bridge that is WAAAAY too far.

Perhaps I'm more trusting than you, but I like to assume the best until and unless something bad happens.

Frankly, I became a DM out of despair of actually playing a fun D&D game. I had negative experience after negative experience for years. So, if I wanted to play D&D, I decided to run almost exclusively. And it was that way for a long time for me. It wasn't until the past few years that I actually got to play again. Fantastic DM's and I was lucky to have them. But, I think people tend to not realize just how much crap gaming there is out there. There's a LOT of garbage DM's out there.

There's also a lot of garbage players; and IME more than once when a player's consistently had bad experiences the solution was right there in the mirror.

 

[Lanefan]

The DM is still lying by omission. The placement of two door and the two passages behind going to two different areas is the DM saying that choice matters. Choose one and you will reach X location in the dungeon. Choose the other and you will reach Y location. If both X and Y result in the same thing(assuming the passages don't physically reconnect prior to reaching the ogre), the choice is an illusion(lie) and is railroading.

What if the two doors open directly into the same large chamber behind them? I've seen many an example of this in the real world...it is "bad DMing" to put this into an adventure?

 

[Umbran]

Blaming the players for the DM lying is certainly a novel approach. "I did not explicitly tell you there was a meaningful difference between going north or south, therefore it's your fault for assuming there was." Wow. That's a lot.

You seem to be wiping out context to make a point, which is not really fair. Going north indoors, in a cavern or dungeon of twisty rooms and corridors is not the same as going north 40 miles of outdoors overland travel.

 

[Maxperson]

What if the two doors open directly into the same large chamber behind them? I've seen many an example of this in the real world...it is "bad DMing" to put this into an adventure?

No. But I've already covered that in a future post.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Railroading is simply removal of player choice. That's narrow, not broad.

I quoted to you where I came into it. All that was present in the first post I saw was, "Illusion of what, though?"

Since the answer to that question is choice, that's what I told you. That's what illusionism is. The illusion of choice.

So you ignored the context of the post, which is probably why your answer didn't make any sense.

 

[jmartkdr2]

It does? Where?

You said Force was when the dm did something without considering the player's choices first. Si if the pc's choices would have been irrelevant (ie naming the town), that's Force.

If I prep a room with ogres in it, that's not Force if the players encounter the room through their own choices. If I put an ogre into whatever room the players enter third, that's Force, because I'm just using fiat and disregarding everything else. The level of prep for both of these can be exactly the same. Prep != Force. I believe that prep can definitely be a catalyst for Force, though.

So If I prep an ogre encounter in the woods, but not in a specific part of the woods, is that Force? I haven;t let them choose to go to the part fo the woods without ogres, ergo I've disregarded their choice that they didn't have in the first place.

Apocalypse World would be a good start. Or Blades in the Dark. Dogs in the Vineyard. Lots of games. As I've said, I think that Force is pretty much required for D&D (even 4e, although that offered tools to mitigate quite a lot of the normal vectors for Force). You'd have to largely abandon secret backstory/notes/prep for 5e, and it doesn't work terribly well that way largely because it has no tools to engage alternative play. You can make them up, but then it's your game, not really 5e.

So - to not railroad, don't play DnD? I feel like that's a pointless comment on a DnD forum. Or just defines railroading too broadly to be a useful thing to say.

 

[Lanefan]

Are you really incapable of understanding that not everyone plays RPGs the same as you do?

As I posted upthread (post 267), whether to care about geography, or not, is a choice.

Not, usually, in D&D; which is the main focus of discussion here despite your valiant (Valiant? ) attempts to bring in other systems.

In D&D, exploration - which is usually geographically-based - is a primary facet of typical play and is even explicitly called out as such in 5e.

But there may be other understandings at the table. Perhaps the players believe, correctly, that the choice of whether to travel by plane or by boat is just colour. Or perhaps by choosing the travel route some other significant possibility opens up - maybe the players make a different check if the travel is overland or by boat, and the result of that check contributes a bonus or penalty to the ensuing encounter (in 4e D&D, this could be part of a skill challenge).

There's also the different options and encounters that might occur depending on how the party choose to travel. As an example, a passing storm probably won't have nearly as much effect on the PCs if they travel overland as it would if they're on a ship. Conversely, if the PCs travel by ship they'll bypass the Gnasty Forest while travelling overland will run them right through it unless they take a multi-day detour; and there's enough going on in that forest to maybe cause the PCs to make a choice: carry on with what we're already doing or divert course and deal with what's in here.

Things like this are why as DM I try to never just jump from one end of a journey to another without first determining how they intend to travel and then rolling some dice to see if anything happens along the way.