D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[jmartkdr2]

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.

So any time the dm does something not transparent, that's railroading? That's another overly-broad definition.

 

[tetrasodium]

So any time the dm does something not transparent, that's railroading? That's another overly-broad definition.

No the context is important. way back many pages ago someone asked a question along the lines of what a game where a gm doesn't railroad & doesn't use xyz type things only to have another poster say that it would probably look like one of these systems. THat of course resulted in the "So - to not railroad, don't play DnD?" I quoted where I noted the kinds of mechanical differences. tht cause that

 

[Ovinomancer]

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" ?

Is that what you're trying to go for -- humble bragging to shame others?

Why do you feel the need to cast yourself as virtuous against other's imagined villainy?

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).

I have not once used dishonest or unfair or suggested it's bad DMing. I can say this because I don't think it. You've cast villains again, and imagined the villainy.

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.

I don't even follow what you're trying to show here -- that you playacted the role well enough? I dunno, I do that well, too, and have a number of memorable NPCs I could list. You just seem to be reiterating that you have all kinds of prep involved -- which is an odd response to me saying that a no prep method actually works as well. I'm not confused that prep can work -- that was the primary way I played for 2 decades. I tend to avoid it these days because what I want from the game has changed. So, I know prep works well enough, but I also know that the method I've provided works equally well enough. I'm not sure what you're trying to establish here.

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

Okay. You asked how you could do it without doing it your way, I provided that. You've dismissed it because it's not your way. I am confused as to what you're doing here, unless I use the lens of assuming you're just attacking everything that doesn't explicitly validate your preference because you feel attacked there are other ways to play the game?

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

Okay, then you're using a useless metric that represents lots of possibilities and cannot select between them. And, given that you're adamantly resistant to other approaches that also generate great deals of fun, it appears that there's actually a different metric that you're using.

 

[Arilyn]

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...

Pemerton's play notes thoroughly demonstrate how the game that he is reporting on works. It's not supposed to be just a narrative description of the created story at the table.

I find them very useful, personally. They have directed me toward Prince Valiant and Cthulhu Dark. I also enjoy trying different styles and the play notes have helped me understand "Story Now," which I have been trying out of late.

 

[pemerton]

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,ctacular critical hit.

For me the point of an actual play report is to explain how the game played. It's not to write a story.

A film and a novel might both have the same story; but an account of how each was produced would be very different. This is what an actual play report (as opposed to, say, a "story hour") tries to do.

I'm satisfied, from the interactions I've had with many posters over the years, that some people have found my actual play reports valuable. I also find them useful, because eg when someone says something-or-other can't be done in RPGing, or can't be done without GM pre-authorship and manipulation of secret backstory, I often have a counter-example I can point to.

Since writing the above paragraphs, I have seen @Arilyn's post. Thanks! I'm glad you've found them helpful. I enjoy discussing RPGing with you!

 

[prabe]

I'm satisfied, from the interactions I've had with many posters over the years, that some people have found my actual play reports valuable.

I have found them helpful, sometimes, and interesting sometimes, even though keeping track of the play--as opposed to the narrative--isn't really the how or the why of what notes I take while playing or GMing. Different notes for different purposes.

 

[pemerton]

I have found them helpful, sometimes, and interesting sometimes, even though keeping track of the play--as opposed to the narrative--isn't really the how or the why of what notes I take while playing or GMing. Different notes for different purposes.

I don't take notes keeping track of play while playing. I write them from memory. That's why sometimes I say that I can't remember exactly how some episode unfolded, or what some precise sequence of things was.

 

[prabe]

I don't take notes keeping track of play while playing. I write them from memory. That's why sometimes I say that I can't remember exactly how some episode unfolded, or what some precise sequence of things was.

Yup, and the notes I use in the campaigns I DM are the notes my wife takes in play; I use them to keep the fiction consistent. In principle I'd write something on my prep notes if I felt I needed to remember some mechanical thing; in practice that hasn't happened.

 

[pemerton]

And maybe, just maybe, I'm a bit more realistic about my capabilities than people here

My impression of @Ovinomancer is that he has a good sense of his capabilities. I hope he won't be offended if I also say that he is confident both in his abilities, and his sense of them. That observation is certainly not intended as a criticism.

@Manbearcat is the same - he has a robust sense of what he is able to do.

As you can see from his posts, @Campbell writes differently, and perhaps more "openly" or "intimately" for lack of a better word, about how he comes to RPGing. It is very evident in his posts that he is coming from a place of sincere engagement with a very wide variety of games and groups. Among many others, I believe he has played with some pretty serious indie RPGers which I imagine would hold anyone's feet to the fire!

I don't think it's reasonable to infer, from the fact that people play in a range of ways that differ from your favoured approach, that they have an overinflated sense of what they can do.

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" ?

Who in this thread has said they're perfect? I linked to an old post of mine which discussed the impact of a technical rules error - ie getting the 4e surprise rules wrong, which hosed my NPCs! And I think in a recent post in this thread I commented on my limitations as a Burning Wheel GM because I tend to be too soft - ie I find it hard to drive consequences home as I should, and I don't always overcome that reluctance on my part. My friend who GMs me is better at following through!

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.

Good intrigue is when there are plots all over the place, various powers at work in the shadows, politics, factions, etc.

<snip>

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

<snip>

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.

This is all consistent with the impression of your play that I had already formed. The "plots" and "intrigue" appear to exist primarily in the GM's notes. And quite a bit of play is the players learning what is written there - it was up to the PCs to find in this sort of play generally means that the players declare actions for their PCs which oblige the GM to reveal (via some appropriate means in the fiction - a found document, a NPC's testimony, an observed event, etc) the content of those notes.

Here is an example of another way of introducing plots and intrigue - it's a post made by me on rpg.net, of the opening session of a BW campaign:

One of the players had bought rulebooks and built a BW PC (a noble-born Rogue Wizard inspired by Alatar, one of Tolkien's blue wizards of the East).

<snip>

The rogue wizard, Jobe, had a relationship with his brother and rival. <snippage> [The player] wrote a belief around defeating him: in Jobe's case, preventing his transformation into a Balrog

<snip>

I had pulled out my old Greyhawk material and told them they were starting in the town of Hardby <snippage> and so [the player] came up with a belief around that: I'm not leaving Hardby without gaining some magical item to use against my brother

<snip>

I started things in the Hardby market: Jobe was looking at the wares of a peddler of trinkets and souvenirs, to see if there was anything there that might be magical or useful for enchanting for the anticipated confrontation with his brother. Given that the brother is possessed by a demon, he was looking for something angelic. The peddler pointed out an angel feather that he had for sale, brought to him from the Bright Desert. Jobe (who has, as another instinct, to always use Second Sight), used Aura Reading to study the feather for magical traits. The roll was a failure, and so he noticed that it was Resistant to Fire (potentially useful in confronting a Balrog) but also cursed. (Ancient History was involved somehow here too, maybe as a FoRK into Aura Reading (? I can't really remember), establishing something about an ancient battle between angels and demons in the desert.)

My memory of the precise sequence of events is hazy, but in the context the peddler was able to insist on proceeding with the sale, demanding 3 drachmas (Ob 1 resource check). As Jobe started haggling a strange woman (Halika) approached him and offered to help him if he would buy her lunch. Between the two of them, the haggling roll was still a failure, and also the subsequent Resources check: so Jobe got his feather but spent his last 3 drachmas, and was taxed down to Resources 0. They did get some more information about the feather from the peddler, however - he bought it from a wild-eyed man with dishevelled beard and hair, who said that it had come from one of the tombs in the Bright Desert.
Jobe, being unable to buy Halika any lunch, suggested he might be able to find some work for them instead.

At about this point the elf player finished building his PC: as a sword- singer he had to choose whether he had left the Citadel in good graces or not, and he decided that he had. But the lord he served had been killed by an orc archer, and the elf (ronin-like) had felt unable to continue living in pride among the elves. So he had left to travel the human lands (as he had a long time ago, as a wanderer). His beliefs included that he would prove himself among the humans, and also that he would always keep to the Elvish ways. Having starting Resources 0 (his last coin being spent on the ferry and toll to enter Hardby), his immediate goal was to obtain work as a sell-sword. The two human PCs saw him in the market at Hardby, and (through some contrivance the details of which I've erased from my memory) persuaded him to join them in looking for work.

Jobe, having both nobility and sorcerers in his circles, and a +1D affiliation with both (from Mark of Privilege and a starting affiliation with a sorcerous cabal), initially thought of trying to make contact with the Gynarch of Hardby, the sorceress ruler of that city. But then he thought he might start a little lower in the pecking order, and so decided to make contact with the red-robed firemage Jabal (of the Cabal). With Circles 2 he attempted the Ob 2 check, and failed.

So, as the 3 PCs were sitting in the Green Dragon Inn (the inn of choice for sorcerers, out-of- towners and the like), putting out feelers to Jabal, a thug wearing a rigid leather breastplate and openly carrying a scimitar turned up with a message from Jabal: Leave town, now. You're marked. Halika noticed him looking at the feather sticking out from Jobe's pouch as he said that: it seemed that the curse had already struck!

Argument ensued, but attempts to persuade, and to intimidate, both failed, and they didn't want to start a fight in the inn. Once they got outside, however, with Athog (the thug) ready to escort them to the East Gate, the elf said something to provoke him to draw his scimitar by way of threat. The player of the elf decided that this was enough provocation to justify an honourable elf striking a blow, and brought his Brawling 5 to bear on the situation. This was the first and only combat of the session, which I decided to resolve as Bloody Versus. The elf had a 1D advantage from skills, plus the same from greater Reflex, and another bonus from somewhere else that I'm forgetting, although I gave Athog +1D for sword vs fist. In any event the elf won outright, successfully evading the sword and delivering a superficial wound to Athog as he grabbed his sword hand and forced him to the ground.

Halika helped herself to Athog's purse (+1D cash, and no longer being penniless) and scimitar, and they insisted that Athog take them to Jabal.

The trip to Jabal's tower took them through the narrow, winding streets of the city. When they got there, Jabal was suitably angry at his Igor-like servitor for letting them in, and at Athog for not running them out of town. They argued, although I don't think any social skill checks were actually made. Jabal explained that the curse on the feather was real, from a mummy in a desert tomb, and that he didn't want anything to do with Jobe while he was cursed. Jobe accepted his dressing down with suitable Base Humility, earning a fate point. (The second for the session from a character trait. During the exchange in the bar Halika, who as a one-time wizard's apprentice is Always in the Way, got in the way of Jobe doing something-or-other to earn a point.)

As the PCs left Jobe's tower, they noticed a dishevelled, wild-eyed figure coming down the stairs. This caused suitable speculation about the nature of Jabal's conspiracy with the person who had sold the feather to the peddler.

As they were walking to the East Gate their path took them back through the market, where they saw that peddler packing up: he had just had news that his wife and daughter, in a town to the south, had fallen gravely ill, and he was finishing his business in the city before taking a boat south at dawn. The players took this as a sign of the curse being at work on the feather's former owner. Jobe also took the time to make a Perception check to see if there was anything else valuable or magical among the things the peddler was packing up. I can't remember the Ob, but it was quite high, and the check failed: with his Second Sight he noticed, instead, a sending from Jabal which branded him with a +1 Ob penalty to sorcery while in the town, for having dallied on his way to the gate.

So they left town. Once outside town Halika spent her 1D of cash to buy them all some food from a vendor. She succeeded, and so raised her Resources to 1.

At this point, there was some discussion as to what to do next. The players were inclined to go looking for the mummy's tomb, to try and lift the curse. They decided that going after Jabal seemed too hard. I mocked them as weak, for two main reason: (i) overland exploratory stuff is one of my weaker areas as a GM; (ii) I didn't think that could easily be fit into the session, whereas I though a Tower of the Elephant-style tower raid probably could be.

The player of the elf had to go home, so it was decided that the elf would watch the camp while Jobe and Halika sneaked into Jabal's tower to try and overhear dinner-time conversations between Jabal and the dishevelled man. Witch's Flight took Halika over the walls, and then - after moving Inconspicuously through town - the same spell took her to the top of Jabal's tower. Jobe, meanwhile, followed in falcon form.

From the top of the tower Halika used the knife from her traveller's gear to lift open the bar of the shutters (scoring the first Beginner's Luck test for Lockpicking). She went in, and the falcon flew in after her. They were in the classic wizard library and laboratory - beakers, retort stands, braziers with burning charcoal, etc, plus - away from the fires - shelves of books.

The falcon peered at the books and recognised (successful Perception) that one of them bore the symbols favoured by her brother. Squawking and fluttering in the general direction of the book, the falcon got Halika's attention. An Observation check revealed that the book had been placed on the shelf very recently, and a Symbology check revealed that, while the symbols on the book were unfamiliar, they were written in the hand of her former teacher. Just as she had taken the book from its shelf and shoved it into her pack, she heard a sound of wings coming down to the windowsill.

She hid (successful Stealth against the homunculus’s Perception). The falcon, with a +1D advantage for being small, made an untrained Stealth check which tied with the homunculus’s Perception, but then won on contested Speed check to get to cover before the homunculus had landed comfortably on the sill.

As the homunculus (which I described as crow-like, but with a human-ish face and all bones and feathers with little or no flesh) sat on the sill, they heard footsteps coming up the tower stairs, and Jabal opened the door. He seemed surprised that the window was open, but had a brief conversation with the homunculus - the homunculus spoke in a strange magical tongue, but from Jabal's side of the conversation the PCs could work out that the homunculus had been checking that they had left town, and so knew where they were camped outside the walls.

Jabal then shut the window, and went to take the book from the shelf. When it wasn't there, seemed puzzled again but muttered that he must have left it downstairs, and went down again with the homunculus. The PCs decided to take this chance to leave. Halika opened the windows, the falcon flew out, and then she climbed out. But before using Witch's Flight to leap down to the ground, she decided to shut the window behind her.

I decided that the tricky part of this was the climbing rather than the lockpicking - hanging from the roof while fiddling with the shutters - and so called for a Beginner's Luck Climbing check: Speed 5 against (from memory) Ob 2 doubled to Ob 4. This failed, so the knife she was using fell, landing on the windowsill in the room below, where Jabal was looking for his book.

Halika's player then came up with a plan - Witch's Flight down, but bouncing off Jabal's head on the way down as he looked out of the window. Witch's Flight is 4 actions to cast, and Jabal had to walk to the window, pick up the knife, and look up - so I figured Halika had enough time to cast her spell. I resolved this as a Charge/Tackle attempt, with Halika getting the stride bonus from Witch's Flight. Her charge attempt beat Jabal's Speed check (I used the Evil Mage stats from the NPC list in BW Gold), and so as she leapt down she bounced on Jabal's head, sending him sprawling in his dining room. He bellowed out for Athog to give chase, but Halika easily won the Speed contest, and I didn't require dice rolls to jump back over the wall.

After a bit of debate the PCs decided to move their camp. The elf put on Halika's cloak, to try and conceal armour and features. Halika cast Mask. And Jobe swapped his blue satin finery for ordinary travelling clothes, and they then walked around the city walls to the West (river) side, to find rooms in the diviest inn they could. With the only non-zero Resources, Halika made the check - it failed, but I allowed a gift of semi-kindness: they got rooms, but with bed bugs inflicting a +1 Ob penalty to the Health checks for the mages trying to recover their Tax (each had suffered -2D in the course of their spellcasting). By the light of a gentle Magelight spell they found that the book they had taken from Jabal was a spellbook with five spells (The Fear, Firefan, Witch’s Sleep, Wyrd Light and Unbind/Ungag).

With the penalty, neither was able to reduced the recovery time from a base 5 hours per die, so they were still at -1D each when they were roused at dawn by guards turning out everyone, hunting through the docks. At first the PCs (and their players) assumed they were being hunted, but it turned out it was the dishevelled man, who was knocked unconscious by a guardsman while trying to run away, and then taken away to a ship. They then saw the peddler boarding this very same ship.

They decided that this was the ship to be on, to get more information about the curse and the dishevelled man, so they decided to try and gain passage. Unfortunately they had no money. They approached the mate and offered their services as swordhands. A successful Persuasion check from the elf (with a flourish of swordplay FoRKed in, plus some help from Jobe pointing out the Ugly Truth of attacks from orc-crewed galleys) persuaded the mate to arrange for them to meet with the captain.

I don't thinkk @Ovinomancer has ever GMed or played Burning Wheel, but the approaches described here are similar enough to those he has described. They require no prep. And they produce intrigue: rival wizards, strange curses, mysterious histories, etc.

No, your PCs are on a guided quest.

No they're not. I mean, in the fiction, sure, some of them are doing what the Raven Queen wants, and the chaos sorcerer is trying to do what Chan (Queen of all Good Air Elementals) and Corellon want. But at the table the players are the authors of all this, not me.

In our case, when the PCs fail, they know why they fail

Well, in my game the PCs sometimes know why they fail. Sometimes it might be mysterious. At the table, the players know why they fail. They can see what they rolled!

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.

I don't know why you're asking me this question - rhetorically or otherwise. I'm not trying to tell you how you should play RPGs. But upthread you said that certain techniques are necessary, or close to unavoidable. That is what I responded to, because that particular assertion is not true.

 

[pemerton]

Yup, and the notes I use in the campaigns I DM are the notes my wife takes in play; I use them to keep the fiction consistent. In principle I'd write something on my prep notes if I felt I needed to remember some mechanical thing; in practice that hasn't happened.

I normally rely on my own notes, made during play, to keep track of the fiction. Those notes serve a different purpose from an actual play report. (Although they sometimes overlap in content, naturally enough!)