D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Crimson Longinus]

You just try to be a curious explorer of the fiction, trust in your scenario design, and just like play the characters to see where it goes. Make an active effort to avoid curation. I mean obviously have desires or wishes or hopes, but like just try to play the characters with integrity.

I'm sorry but this is just your typical buzzwords that do not actually describe the process, but merely obscure it. 'Playing with integrity' is merely being true to the nature of the character/world, and then that is the vision towards which you're guiding the game to.

 

[Maxperson]

But you can see my posts, and decided to ignore some of those. Yet I'm somehow supposed to know you only read some of my statements?

Dude. Just accept that I didn't see the first one and the second one, the one I responded to, appeared without context and let it go.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Because it is blurry. What if the GM had not decided at all what is behind the doors before PCs open one, then they just make up the ogre on spot? What then, was this illusionism? The player's choice didn't influence the outcome. And whilst this might not commonly happen with doors, it happens all the time with GM making stuff up as response to player action. Or does it become illusionism if GM had decided use an ogre beforehand? How firmly they need to decide? Is briefly thinking before game that 'ogres seem to be appropriate challenge level for this group' enough to make it illusionism and railroading?

These discussions always lead to utterly bizarre though policing of the GM. Seriously, forget it, it doesn't matter. The PCs will open the door, fight the ogre, gain XP and treasure and be happy.

It's Force, and if it's not detectable then it's Illusionism. This isn't bad, again, in and of itself. It's just the GM using fiat to declare an outcome that is disregarding player input, choice, or mechanical resolutions. There's no thought policing here, because there's no intent (at least by me) to characterize this as bad. Like many things, though, overuse can be bad, and individual tolerances can widely vary. Personally, I would be unhappy in a game where your example was common, or even uncommon. Rare to never used would be my preference, but that's me.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No, I said it's when the GM uses fiat to compel an outcome in disregard to player input, choices, or a mechanical resolution. Prep is none of these.

How it is not? Certainly prep was by fiat, and in disregard to player input, as it was done before the players could give their input! Also by your definition GM unilaterally improvising or inventing anything is force.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The players have made a choice that matters - choosing a fork with a distinct and meaningful difference in outcome to the other ("this way to the exit, that way to traps and treasure", or indeed, any decision point with any given number of two or more options).

If an unpredictable event - by which I mean, as I have already stated, unpredictable to the player characters in the context of the in-game fiction - happens between the decision point and the destination, it has not made the choice somehow meaningless, or indeed matter less in any meaningful way - so I would contend, at any rate.

That is true whether the unpredictable event was the result of procedural content generation or the GM making it up on the spot on a whim.

Hence why, if we are defining "railroading" as a term of art to refer to a kind of GM misbehaviour, such an event is not railroading qua railroading (although chronic use of such events might very well be symptomatic of same). In fairness, obviously, a different operational definition of "railroading", will conclude otherwise. (Hence my remark rather early on about how these discussions tend to founder on such things as operational definitions of terms.)

As for the remarks summed up as "adapt to the table" - I am in full agreement. The GM and players should openly communicate and come to agreement about such things. (For instance, at many D&D tables I would expect it's considered bad form for the PCs' adversaries to, say, attempt to burn all the party wizards' spellbooks.)

You moved from my statement about Illusionism to a statement about railroading. While you can get from A to B, I wasn't drawing any such connections. I believe that Illusionism is nearly required, if not absolutely so, by 5e. This is because there are very few options for content generation outside of prep, the game focuses heavily on narrative arcs of play, but mainly because the game is so heavily dependent on pacing for much of it's structed play. If the GM is handling pacing in an active way, this pretty much requires Force to be at play, and the nature of the secret prep elements of play encourages Illusionism. The bridge to railroading, though, is still far off. A single instance of Force is not railroading, although players may have different tolerances for it. For railroading, you have to have persistent and consistent use of Force. I don't think my arguments are there yet.

 

[Ovinomancer]

How it is not? Certainly prep was by fiat, and in disregard to player input, as it was done before the players could give their input! Also by your definition GM unilaterally improvising or inventing anything is force.

Nope. Prep is situation, not outcome. If I prep room A and room B, though doors A and B, respectively, and the players select room A, then it's not Force to present room A as the outcome. This is directly in line with player choice -- they choose door A and get the associated answer. Force would be applied if you were going to room Z no matter which door you selected -- this is disregarding the player choice -- ie, it doesn't matter what choice the players make, they get the same answer.

Similarly, improv can be directly in line with the player's choice, if the GM is improving answers that align to that choice and input. If the GM has the idea of "ogre" and then just inserts it regardless of choice, we have Force. If the GM is improving in ways that really don't consider the player's choices, at best we're in a strange middle place, but quite often we're in Force territory because the GM is still selecting an outcome that doesn't care what the players actually did.

And, again, this isn't necessarily bad. In fact, whether it's bad or not will entirely depend on the table. Lots of tables are perfectly fine with a good bit of Force -- a skilled GM can wield Force in quite entertaining ways after all. Some tables will be very unhappy with even a little or any Force. I can't tell you if a given instance is bad or not, outside of my personal opinion. I can analyze the structure of the play and say if it's Force or not, outside of the rather thin grey area along the line (Force doesn't really have a large sloppy area of maybe).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Nope. Prep is situation, not outcome. If I prep room A and room B, though doors A and B, respectively, and the players select room A, then it's not Force to present room A as the outcome. This is directly in line with player choice -- they choose door A and get the associated answer. Force would be applied if you were going to room Z no matter which door you selected -- this is disregarding the player choice -- ie, it doesn't matter what choice the players make, they get the same answer.

Similarly, improv can be directly in line with the player's choice, if the GM is improving answers that align to that choice and input. If the GM has the idea of "ogre" and then just inserts it regardless of choice, we have Force. If the GM is improving in ways that really don't consider the player's choices, at best we're in a strange middle place, but quite often we're in Force territory because the GM is still selecting an outcome that doesn't care what the players actually did.

And, again, this isn't necessarily bad. In fact, whether it's bad or not will entirely depend on the table. Lots of tables are perfectly fine with a good bit of Force -- a skilled GM can wield Force in quite entertaining ways after all. Some tables will be very unhappy with even a little or any Force. I can't tell you if a given instance is bad or not, outside of my personal opinion. I can analyze the structure of the play and say if it's Force or not, outside of the rather thin grey area along the line (Force doesn't really have a large sloppy area of maybe).

So improvisation is force. Got it. I don't think this is an useful definition.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So improvisation is force. Got it. I don't think this is an useful definition.

I just said the literal opposite of that. So...

 

[niklinna]

So improvisation is force. Got it. I don't think this is an useful definition.

You're right; it isn't. It also isn't what @Ovinomancer said.

 

[Umbran]

The first question that must be asked, of course, is are they all alike or all different?

This discussion is hard enough, we don't have to make it gruesome.