D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[pemerton]

This confirms that your games are 95% technical (even in your summary you include the name of the powers used and the ability scores and the DCs...).

The point of an actual play report is to report the play. So that others can see how the game actually proceeded at the table.

There is no intrigue in there, it's a fairly straightforward dungeon exploration - a nice one for sure, but still a dungeon - but there are barely any NPCs to talk to.

If you don't think there is intrigue in negotiating with tomb guardians, solving a riddle, deciding what to do about a secret name, and choosing whether or not to try and hold a god to ransom to stop her taking over the world - well, that's on you. If you think talking to NPCs is more important than talking to one's fellow players in character to try and determine possible courses of action, well that's on you too.

My games (and in general the games run at our table) look nothing like this.

I'm sure they don't.

There is in general no map, no dungeon complex for sure. I mostly have a list of active NPCs and a situation (and at this stage of the campaign, the PCs have armies under their command, devils, daemons, undead, as well as devil assassins that the bhaalspawn of the group is trying to have betray to join her quest to the Throne of Blood). Currently the PCs have brought a vague coalition of devils, daemons, night hag, necromancer, devilish hobgoblins and undead (after recruiting them one by one, in the order of their choice, using some as levers to others, smashing some enemies as a way to reinforce their alliance and intimidating others, etc.) to try to break a deadlock where forces of Zariel and Bel are holding an army of Graz'zt in the middle, but both armies are on their own inferior to the demon army, although they could probably vanquish it together.

OK, there's no intrigue there that I can see, just a balance of forces. I don't see how your PCs with their armies are any different to the warband led by the PCs in my Prince Valiant game, or the ship's crew in my Classic Traveller game.

I've posted recently, I think in this thread, an account of how the PCs in my Prince Valiant game converted the Huns they had defeated and recruited them into their warband. And when I say how I mean not just in the fiction but as a moment of play at the table. From what you say I can't tell how it is established, at your table, that a NPC is used as a "lever" or "smashed" or "intimidated".

And that's all they have, except for the fact that the Warlock of the group has decided to please her master Mephisto by doing a ritual right in the town where the demons are besieged (the other PCs are a bit dubious and quite afraid of the result)...

OK. What ritual? What is its significance? And how is the outcome adjudicated?

So last time the PCs first held a war council with their "generals", all of whom have different aims, most of them nefarious. Then decided to take a very selective escort to negotiate with the demons, taking along the daemons mercenaries, discovered that a Marilith was in command and was expected to hold until a ritual was performed. They negotiated a bit, then returned to their own troops, sent a different embassy to the general of Bel, who claimed that he could not attack because he did not have orders to do so, which the PCs did not expect and put them in quite a situation. Then left, dodging spies, sending their own assassins to secure a retreat path and to spy, and went to the Zariel general who flew into a rage and promised to attack, they made battle plans together. Then the PCs went back to their armies to organise, and now plan to go and perform the ritual, although they have been warned that they will be betrayed by some of their own generals who are only interested in the ritual anway...

OK. I don't see how this is different, as fiction, from any typical high-powered fantasy RPG play. I've bolded some key verbs that describe things happening in the fiction, where I would be curious to know how that was actually resolved at the table. In my accounts of play that you dismissed as "technical" I explained how the PCs negotiated with the Duergar to change their allegiance from Asmodeus to Levistus, how they discovered the name of the Raven Queen and her goal to become divine ruler of the cosmos, and how they evaded detection by Orcus by learning a secret way into his throne room.

we spent several sessions in a city, interacting with NPCs, plotting to release some minotaurs, doing some propaganda for our cause, raiding a house to save minotaurs, then a long session for the trial of the culprit, etc. Mostly around NPCs and there was a map of the villa that we raided, where we had three short fights in about 2 hours, ecah fight being over in about 20 minutes.

OK. I gather you think it is a virtue of fights to be resolved quickly: you'll therefore be pleased to know that in our Classic Traveller game we have very few fights and that most are over in a few minutes (guns being quite deadly) unless they involve Aliens (which are hard to kill).

And you seem to think it is a virtue of trials to take a long time to resolve, so you'll be pleased to know that in our Prince Valiant game we once spent quite a while resolving the outcome of a witchcraft trial, including one of the PCs going off to find the cat that was an alleged familiar of the accused witch.

It's all plots and intrigue and NPCs, not rooms and statues and DCs and attacks and powers. We do use a lot of spells and powers for the intrigue, though, I'm a half-siren demigoddess, so I never speak, I only chant, and I can charm crowds and win herald and trumpets trials at the local olympics.

As you seem to think it is a virtue to use spells in play, including for intrigue, provided they are not used to attack, you'll be pleased to know that in my most recent Burning Wheel session the only spell use - by the weather witch PC - was to persuade an innkeeper to offer a room and (later on) to persuade my PC not to murder the same innkeeper; and also to see in the dark.

And as you dislike statues, you'll be pleased to know that I think there has not been a single statute in my Classic Traveller game. Though there have been murals, which also may not be to your taste.

And what is the part of the PCs in this intrigue? Pawns going to fight, almost all the session was a fight. No intrigue, no plotting, just a bit of deception to slip in through a portal on a mission from their patron.

This is just you making stuff up. There is no "mission from a patron". There is manipulation of a patron - ie the invoker, one of whose patrons is Vecna, manipulates Vecna.

After that it's all purely technical fight

You seem to have a deep aversion to action resolution mechanics.

And there is still so much that they have no idea of, what the ritual does, how it's linked to a number of artifacts, how some entities are planning to bring Graz'zt back as an archdevil, etc.

<snip>

what I'm using most is the "set a situation and let the PC talk and gather good ideas from them in addition to my own so that I can steer the story in the direction that will make these ideas shine and the players pleased". It is very sneaky and underhanded, and I do some prep, but I'm always happy to retcon it to take into account a good idea from one of the players, sometimes positively (it's actually true !") sometimes negatively ("this is never going to happen").

None of this is any surprise to me. As I posted, this is standard GM's-secret-backstory stuff, which is used to determine the outcomes of action declarations, and used to frame situations. It's a style of play that I personally dislike a great deal, both as a GM and a player, because it makes the main focus of play learning what is in the GM's notes or, if there are no notes and/or retconning, learning what the GM is making up in the moment by way of backstory.

I know, I'm a terrible DM, right ?

Well I don't think I would want to play with you, as you use techniques that I dislike a great deal. Those techniques make the GM's conception of the fiction the overwhelming focus of play. And you seem to eschew the use of action resolution mechanics in favour of "GM decides".

 

[niklinna]

I'd just like to point out that we follow clues here in the real world to the logical, but "wrong" conclusion, wrongly convicting people an alarming amount of the time.

True. And there's no GM to tell folks after the verdict that they got it wrong (no scare quotes for real life!) and see you all next week.

 

[tetrasodium]

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.

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.

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.

It's a system difference. Those other systems have mechanics built in that can be used to overtly and openly manipulate things. Doing it covertly like a d&d gm might would be as obvious in those systems as rolling 2d10 & asking if a 94 hits rather than rolling a d20 in d&d. Usually there are costs of some form involved in using those mechanics.

 

[Lyxen]

Amusingly, I do as well. What you should try to do here is to reconcile that I can establish fiction without just resorting to exposition dumps. Where you get to that anything I said requires anyone to act like an idiot I don't know. I mean, I can assume that however you do it results in complete idiots and bad versimilitude, too, but why would I expect that another person intentionally seeks such things or plays in ways that encourage it? It seems that you've done yourself a disservice, in that you've shown everyone that you are not willing to actually conceive how something new to you might work, but instead can only imagine degenerate and bad outcomes for any approach that is not yours. Maybe treat yourself better?

And maybe, just maybe, I'm a bit more realistic about my capabilities than people here, or maybe I'm also more willing to show that I'm not a perfect DM who never makes mistakes and only employs "player agency approved tools" ?

Although, this is rather explained by your other posts, where you reveal that you're trying to defend your position against what you think are attacks trying to call it bad.

I really suggest re-reading those posts from my perspective, where it's been called any sort of epithet from dishonest to unfair, and being used as examples of bad DM behaviour. I will admit that it has gotten better in the few last pages, but there are still quite a few patronising behaviours (not yours).

Okay, but I think you're completely tossing out the way that mechanics can create story and plot. The one I presented can be used to improv a super-genius villain that will reliably showcase the kinds of dastardly cunning you'd expect.

While it might do something face to face, most of the plotting is behind the scenes. I had no problem last week when they finally confronted Bel's general (who has a deception of +13) to make him seem perfectly dastardly through roleplay, and they knew that he was lying through his teeth although they could not catch him in a lie. But it's not the same thing as being able to plot how Bel is managing the situation and why the general is this way and what he is going to do about the PC's visit.

I could get standard responses on my own, but I was glad to be able to listen to the PCs and add a few strategies sparked off by their reflections.

It might not be how you want to do it, and that's fine, but saying that my answer doesn't provide results in terms of story and plot just shows that you aren't grasping how it is used and what it does in play. And that's fine, you don't have to; it would be nice if you were less hostile about it all.

I've been doing similar things and they help, but it's not the core technique I'm using for evil geniuses plotting.

And what I'm saying is that there's always at least another choice you could have made that results in the same (or more) fun. It's not a metric that results in one right answer -- never does. Talking about fun is like saying that what you do results in all the players breathing at the table. Okay, great, they breathe/have fun. Mine do as well, with different choices. Fun is not a useful metric at all.

For me, it's the most important metric of all...

 

[Lyxen]

There is just a fundamental disconnect between the way we see the GM role.

Yes, there is. Call me old school, but when someone prepares something for me, I am grateful, and respectful. And as a DM, that preparation work needs to be respected to. Players who think that they can come and then decide that I need to throw it out of the window and start again just because they have a different whim will be told that they can come back next week if and when I will have had the time to prepare something else.

And by the way, this attitude comes from more than 30 years of associative work, both for charity and for LARPing. One of the fundamental principles there, and one which allowed us to be not only the most successful LARP association in France, but also the only one to still be active 35 years later is that work should be respected. And one who did some work is always right in comparison to one who did not do it. It works wonder to differentiate between people who are active in providing a good gaming environment and people who just like to sit on their bottoms commenting around (like on the internet, if you catch my drift).

Because although yes, while there are some aspects of the preparation which are indeed enjoyable, there are always hassles, it's never 100% pure bliss. And this in addition to the fact that I have always had a complex international job with quite a few complex responsibilities, frequent travel and living overseas, and raised three daughters, so spending time preparing games is sort of a luxury.

Which, in return, makes me extremely grateful when I can just turn up and play my character for one evening, almost no strings attached and no preparation work.

After that, you can have tell me whatever think you think is true for you, it's not how the game is built, it's not how it's described by the authors of the game, and it's not how it's played over the world someone posted a whole list of differences a few pages ago. It might be an old trope, but with greater power (and it's totally undeniable that a DM has greater power) comes greater responsibility and accountability.

This kind of player centricity was instilled by 3e, and WotC has rightly backpedalled strongly from it ever since, as it creates way too many problems by being contrary to the spirit of the game, which is naturally totally unbalanced by the fact that the DM is in charge of all the rules and rulings, and manages the world and all creatures in there except for a few chosen one.

I'm not saying don't be patient and understanding with new GMs. Absolutely be patient and understanding with them. Also be patient and understanding with new players. Have empathy for everyone. Also keep everyone accountable for the shared experience. Don't put that pressure all on one person.

That, I can certainly go with, and it's one of the reasons that I reacted so strongly to people claiming that they slammed the door on DMs who did not match their perfect expectations... I would just add, after this, to be patient and understanding with EVERYONE. It's just a game, there are no stakes, so if you can't be a bit empathetic and sympathetic to people who you are gaming with, I find it really sad....

Here are some other things to add to it: running a game for me isn't doing a favour, any more than me letting the GM run his game was doing him a favour. In the case of the railroading kobold GM, the other players and I invited him to join the game that we set up in lieu of his, and he declined.

You humiliated him and derided his way of gaming, told him that he was a bad DM, and this surprises you ?

So clearly he didn't think that GMing a game was some sort of onerous act of generosity that he would like to avoid if possible!

I won't tell you what I see so clearly because it would not be polite, it has little to do with what you think.

You argument seems to be that every RPGer is obliged to play in every game they possibly can, regardless of how good or bad it is, and how much the do or don't enjoy it. Because if that's not your argument, then you are saying that sometimes it's OK to withdraw from a game. And once you say that, you have no basis to criticise me, or @Hussar, or anyone else for having done so.

In all my 43 years of play, up to six times a week at the most blessed of time, I have withdrawn from a game only ONCE, and I've never had people quitting my game. NEVER. That's one point, and the second one is that there are good and bad ways to do things, and good and bad reasons. And saying that a DM is a bad DM because he plays a kobold as a frightened idiot (and again, I have proven to you that this is a canon way of playing kobolds) is a BAD reason, and the way you described it was a BAD way to do it, and the worse thing is that you seem proud of it. That's all I have to say.

 

[Lanefan]

That's cool. My preferences run the other way: I'd be disappointed if the DM didn't change things in order to run with a new, more-exciting idea, and instead insisted on running things with the less-exciting original solution.

As DM I like to do both: stick to the original idea now but stow away the more-exciting idea for use sometime later once everyone else has forgotten about it.

A player in my game once, during a session, jokingly came up with a variant on a classic monster: to wit, a Gelatinous Cube that hangs from the ceiling rather than oozes along the floor. We laughed, and moved on.

Six months later a party (including the same player) in a dungeon find a hallway with a suspicious "tide line" about six inches off the floor, above which everything's clean. They think little of it, carry on, and guess whose character walks face-first into the hanging Cube? Yeah, that's right: the player who gave me the idea in the first place!

After the brief ensuing combat, amid much laughter I had to remind the player who'd given me the idea that he had in fact done so, as he'd completely forgotten about it!

 

[Lyxen]

The point of an actual play report is to report the play. So that others can see how the game actually proceeded at the table.

Indeed, which gives me a pretty good idea by now, as I've pointed out.

If you don't think there is intrigue in negotiating with tomb guardians, solving a riddle, deciding what to do about a secret name, and choosing whether or not to try and hold a god to ransom to stop her taking over the world - well, that's on you.

This is not "intrigue", this is again (good) dungeon play. Good intrigue is when there are plots all over the place, various powers at work in the shadows, politics, factions, etc.

Solving a riddle and making a decision is something that I find in most basic modules that I can buy.

If you think talking to NPCs is more important than talking to one's fellow players in character to try and determine possible courses of action, well that's on you too.

Because you think that talking to the NPCs precludes the PCs talking to each other ? Honestly...

OK, there's no intrigue there that I can see, just a balance of forces. I don't see how your PCs with their armies are any different to the warband led by the PCs in my Prince Valiant game, or the ship's crew in my Classic Traveller game.

You mean apart from all these devils, demon, lords, and mages all plotting and scheming against each other and the PCs ?

I've posted recently, I think in this thread, an account of how the PCs in my Prince Valiant game converted the Huns they had defeated and recruited them into their warband. And when I say how I mean not just in the fiction but as a moment of play at the table. From what you say I can't tell how it is established, at your table, that a NPC is used as a "lever" or "smashed" or "intimidated".

I think you're mistaken there. There were about 10 warlords, each with their army, each with their personality, goals, hatred and enmities. It was up to the PCs to find what they were going to do. Some they cajoled, others they threatened, others they smashed, it was their play from beginning to end.

OK. I don't see how this is different, as fiction, from any typical high-powered fantasy RPG play. I've bolded some key verbs that describe things happening in the fiction, where I would be curious to know how that was actually resolved at the table. In my accounts of play that you dismissed as "technical" I explained how the PCs negotiated with the Duergar to change their allegiance from Asmodeus to Levistus, how they discovered the name of the Raven Queen and her goal to become divine ruler of the cosmos, and how they evaded detection by Orcus by learning a secret way into his throne room.

Because it's all resolved by stories and narration and roleplaying and not by a DC 42 roll.

OK. I gather you think it is a virtue of fights to be resolved quickly: you'll therefore be pleased to know that in our Classic Traveller game we have very few fights and that most are over in a few minutes (guns being quite deadly) unless they involve Aliens (which are hard to kill).

Good for you. For us, it brings more time for roleplaying and intrigue, what does it bring you ?

And you seem to think it is a virtue of trials to take a long time to resolve, so you'll be pleased to know that in our Prince Valiant game we once spent quite a while resolving the outcome of a witchcraft trial, including one of the PCs going off to find the cat that was an alleged familiar of the accused witch.

Good, it's just that I was particularly proud of my requisitory at the trial. Trials are really good times for roleplaying without any fight, especially when there are lots of influence in the background, other merchants having some evidence but wanting to negotiate it, the king not wanting minotaurs to be freed but not daring to go too much against the queen because she is also a goddess, the clergy of a titan being in charge of the licence to sell minotaurs and which had been sort of abused, and many more factors.

As you seem to think it is a virtue to use spells in play, including for intrigue, provided they are not used to attack, you'll be pleased to know that in my most recent Burning Wheel session the only spell use - by the weather witch PC - was to persuade an innkeeper to offer a room and (later on) to persuade my PC not to murder the same innkeeper; and also to see in the dark.

Good for you too, because that is one of my biggest beef with 4e, that you resolved by using another system by the way, that you have to formalise things using skill challenges because you cannot use magic, which is either combat orientated or too slow and cumbersome to be of any use.

And as you dislike statues, you'll be pleased to know that I think there has not been a single statute in my Classic Traveller game. Though there have been murals, which also may not be to your taste.

No, it's not that I dislike statues, it's just that I prefer living, acting and scheming NPCs to inert statues as plot devices.

This is just you making stuff up. There is no "mission from a patron". There is manipulation of a patron - ie the invoker, one of whose patrons is Vecna, manipulates Vecna.

No, your PCs are on a guided quest.

You seem to have a deep aversion to action resolution mechanics.

Yep, it might not be what you are looking for, actually I'm sure it's not from the accounts of your game, but we are firmly in the "ignoring the dice" section of the DMG - so it's all perfectly correct, I reassure you. It comes from long campaigns of Amber Diceless Roleplaying where there are (obviously) no dice and where it's mostly story and description. There are also almost no mechanics (the highest attribute wins and there are only 4 of those). And it's perfectly enough to play the game.

There is however a wonderful assortment of powers, Pattern, Logrus, Trumps, and whatever else you can conjure, which makes the game fantastic just as the magic, powers and spells of D&D enhance the story and the plot.

We don't need resolution mechanics, see below.

None of this is any surprise to me. As I posted, this is standard GM's-secret-backstory stuff, which is used to determine the outcomes of action declarations, and used to frame situations. It's a style of play that I personally dislike a great deal, both as a GM and a player, because it makes the main focus of play learning what is in the GM's notes or, if there are no notes and/or retconning, learning what the GM is making up in the moment by way of backstory.

Only if you are so minded. But if you are in the right mindset, it actually becomes "writing an incredible story together with the DM (rather than trying to second guess him to gain some sort of tactical advantage)".

Well I don't think I would want to play with you, as you use techniques that I dislike a great deal. Those techniques make the GM's conception of the fiction the overwhelming focus of play. And you seem to eschew the use of action resolution mechanics in favour of "GM decides".

Yep, once again it's perfectly in line with the game as described in the DMG. And the reason for not wanting resolution mechanics is that they get in the way of the story, both when they are breaking the flow of the game or when they do not match what is happening and need to be modified.

For us, they are tools for DMs who absolutely want to justify themselves to the players in terms of them succeeding and failing (look guys, I'm sorry, but I wrote that you needed 7 success and you only had 6 so you failed). Basically, it's for people where there is not enough trust that they are working in the same direction, they need technical backing.

In our case, when the PCs fail, they know why they fail and they agree without even needing to roll dices and count failures. And sometimes, although the PC wants to succeed, the player wants them to fail because the story is more beautiful that way.

Best example of the above is in Amber, the story of Spassinando, a Prince duelling in the Courts of Chaos. We were describing the duel, and technically the PC should have won, his warfare attribute was higher than his opponent. But during the description, the player kept asking how the courtiers around were reacting to the duel (because, in a sense, he was right, it was unjust and unlawful for that duel to happen, not to mention dishonourable). So, in the end, I asked him how he felt he was doing and he told me: "But I've been concentrating too hard on the audience, and I miss that last parry." And I agreed that he had lost, for exactly that reason. Why would we need more technical resolution than this ? We trust each other and the story makes sense. There is no need for technical justification one way or the other.

 

[Lanefan]

The point of an actual play report is to report the play. So that others can see how the game actually proceeded at the table.

Your game reports go into far more mechanical detail than any other game logs I've ever seen.

To me the point of the game report (or log) is to sum up and write down what happened in the fiction, in part for posterity and in much more immediate part to remind us all what the party was doing last week when we sit down to play this week.

Hard mechanical details other than characters' classes and levels appear in my logs but rarely, and even then only as bracketed editorial notes 99% of the time e.g. I might note the amount of damage done by a truly spectacular critical hit.

 

[Lyxen]

Your game reports go into far more mechanical detail than any other game logs I've ever seen.

To me the point of the game report (or log) is to sum up and write down what happened in the fiction, in part for posterity and in much more immediate part to remind us all what the party was doing last week when we sit down to play this week.

Hard mechanical details other than characters' classes and levels appear in my logs but rarely, and even then only as bracketed editorial notes 99% of the time e.g. I might note the amount of damage done by a truly spectacular critical hit.

I agree, I'm not even sure what the point is of all those extremely technical details. In our cases, as in yours @Lanefan, it's done by the players as campaign notes, for summary for the next session or to be searchable in the future in case someone wants to remember what exactly happened. For some players, it's also the opportunity to do a bit of funny novelisation of our stories...

 

[Lanefan]

I agree, I'm not even sure what the point is of all those extremely technical details. In our cases, as in yours @Lanefan, it's done by the players as campaign notes,

Not quite my case: our game logs are usually written up by the DM of that game; in part because the logs are online on our gaming site and not everyone has access; and in part because the DM is often the only one taking notes except in specific situations.

for summary for the next session or to be searchable in the future in case someone wants to remember what exactly happened.

Yeah, if I knew anything about search engines I might consider adding one, but I don't; so people have to go the old-fashioned route and use their own eyes.