D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Lanefan]

Are you saying that the word has a different definition when applied to RPGs?

More that the word doesn't really apply to RPGs at all, which is what the various editions' PHBs have been trying (maybe not always very well) to point out.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

If @soviet has the high score on the campus Pac-Man machine, what does soviet get? Nothing but the kudos of having the high score.

Until the campus closes down and the high score is wiped for all time. (HOLES! I NEED HOLES.)

 

[pemerton]

No, from all your accounts, you are barely playing 4e, you ignore most of the rules and transform fighting a tough boss in 3 rolls that the boss cannot even make (probably because you realised that there was no way for the PCs to even scratch him at the time). This has nothing to do with the way 4e has been written. The rigid rules (once more, explain to me how you can only hop on the battlefield and not truly fly ? Ah yes, because 4e is totally incompatible with 3d) don't cause you a problem, since you ignore them, so you don't have to maintain the consistency.

I don't understand any of this.

I've seen you keep going on about "hopping on the battlefield" but I've been ignoring it because I don't know what you're talking about. Why is 4e incompatible with 3D? We had 3 dimensions in many of our 4e combats starting with the first, in which (as best I recall) a NPC was in a tree, and in which some PCs took cover by ducking down in a boat. There are even rules for resolving 3D combat on pp 47-49 of the DMG, and advice on the use of verticality in play on p 44.

What 3 rolls? What non-hope of scratching whom? Ygorl's published stats are standard for a mid-Epic elite creature/NPC. In my game I increased his level to 30th and enhanced his damage and his action economy, as well as giving him an ability that made it impossible to kill him (given that he is travelling backwards in time).

I would also add - for someone who has posted about there being no such thing as winning or skilled play, you have very prescriptive views about how RPGing should be approached and what counts as a legitimate "win"!

You also seem to assume that a lot of decisions that my players made are being made by me. That confirms my impression of your approach to RPGing - ie extremely GM-directed - but also shows a misapprehension of what is going on at my table.

As for Skill Challenges, claiming that having a formal structure enhances creativity is like claiming that driving like when you passed your license enhances your chances of success driving in Mad Max.

Well, this thread has already shown that you (i) are not familiar with the rules for skill challenges, and (ii) are not familiar with other RPGs - like MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic - that use closed scene resolution.

There are multiple relationships between the skill challenge structure and creativity. Here are two:

(i) The GM is obliged to establish fiction that keeps the challenge "alive" until the resolution state is reached. This creates extended, evolving, open-ended sequences of fiction, that are surprising to all the participants.​

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(ii) The players have to think of ways for their PCs to engage that fiction. As @Campbell posted upthread, this is the basic skill of RPGing. In 4e it requires a good grasp of the genre and established fictional context (especially at Paragon and Epic tiers, where common sense won't get anyone very far), and also a good technical grasp of one's PC.​

And I've never seen a game of 4e played that way.

I'm sure you haven't. By your testimony, your 4e games were boring and rigid. Mine were neither. From that I infer that my 4e games didn't look much like yours!

Yeah right, a boss with 25 intelligence preferring trying to roll arcana checks against a DC of 40 (and failing miserably three times) instead of using any of his awesome powers makes total sense. There are effectively reasons for him having at will teleport (at least the ridiculously underpowered version of 4 which is like a misty step) and phasing.

<snip>

how do you grapple a being more or less made of smoke, who can teleport and phase ?

The same way you can stop time and/or come back from the dead multiple times per day? The same way you use your chaotic power to seal the Abyss? We're talking here about Epic tier 4e D&D, not 1st level Moldvay Basic.

You seem to think that Ygorl is (in some fashion) far more mechanically powerful than he actually is. The PCs who defeated him were 5 28th level PCs. They had already reduced Ygorl to zero hp, probably multiple times; they had defeated Shkiv (level 30 artillery), Skirnex (level 27 elite controller/leader), a White Slaad (level 26 elite lurker), 2 Acolytes of Entropy (level 26 skirmisher), 2 Void Slaads (level 28 skirmisher) and 8 Black Slaad Entropics (level 28 minion brute) - including Ygorl, this was a level 33 encounter; and Ygorl was alive (but fleeing) only because of an ability that I had added to his stat block, that you can see here:

Ygorl, Lord of Entropy Level 30 elite soldier (leader)​

Medium elemental humanoid, slaad XP 38,000​

Hp 384 Bloodied 192 Initiative +22​

AC 44 Fort 41 Ref 39 Will 39 Perception +24 low light vision​

Speed 8, teleport 6, phasing Immune disease, fear Resist insubstantial​

Saves +2 Action Points 1​

Traits​

Entropic presence (aura 5): each slaad ally in the aura rolls twice and takes the higher roll for melee basic attacks; each enemy within the aura gains a +2 bonus to attack and gains vulnerable 10 all damage​

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Standard Actions – at will unless indicated​

*Scythe (melee 2 vs 1 creature): +37 vs AC for 3d10+11 (crit 6d10+41) and immob til EYgorl’sNT​

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Entropic arc (enemies in cl burst 2): +37 vs AC for 3d10+11 (crit 6d10+41) Effect: creates a zone of entropic destruction that lasts until EYgorl’sNT, and any non-entropic creature that enters the zone or starts its turn there takes 20 necrotic damage​

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Word of annihilation (one creature in cl burst 5): +35 vs Fort, OG 40 necrotic damage (SE, but while within Ygorl’s entropic presence may not make saves vs this ongoing damage)​

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Minor Action​

Induce planar instability (1x/enc; non-entropic creatures in cl burst 3): +33 vs Will for 1d10+12, slide 3 sq and knock prone​

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Inescapable ending (R when an affected creature saves; 1 creature in cl burst 2): +35 vs Will, affected by inescapable endings (SE): when take a standard or move action Ygorl can take a move action as an imm reaction, and whenever it regains hp Ygorl regains the same number of hp Miss: whenever the target takes a move action Ygorl may also take a move action as an imm reaction (SE)​

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Well of Entropy (1x/enc): Ygorl’s entropic presence becomes a zone of entropy until EYgorl’sNT: any bloodied creature that starts its turn in the zone cannot move out of the zone on its turn sustain minor​

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Triggered Actions – R when reduced to 0 hp​

Already witnessed: no action, when damaged by an attack or subjected to an effect, cancel the attack/effect and teleport 10​

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Skills Arcana +27, Insight +24, Intimidate +27, Stealth +25​

STR 29 (+24) DEX 21 (+20) WIS 19 (+19)​

CON 24 (+22) INT 25 (+22) CHA 24 (+22)​

Alignment Chaotic evil Languages Common, Primordial​

I can't make sense of all my notes on the fight with Ygorl so many years after the event, but I can see that his hit points steadily dropped: 356, 328, 351, 332. 320, 312, 259, 314, 235, 204, 184, 138, something I can't read (maybe 90-something), 28, and then -21 but for his "already witnessed". (My guess would be that the various hp increases resulted from his use of Inescapable Ending.) At various times he was weakened, blinded, prone (all multiple times), slowed, at a penalty to attack, and vulnerable to cold.

I don't remember all the details of the fight against the paladin. But the paladin had AC 46. If Ygorl was blinded and had a -2 to hit on top of that, then his chance to hit would be 16+ on a d20, compared to 13+ to hit a DC 40 Arcana check.

I don't know how much Epic tier 4e D&D you have played or GMed, but your posts give me the impression that you're not familiar with either the maths or the fiction of the game at that level.

 

[pemerton]

@Lyxen is right, however, in one thing: your ruling of "teleporting while grappled brings the grappler along with you" very much sets a precedent.

The players now have a right to expect that teleportation in that campaign is going to work that way every time.

Failing that, at the very least they have the right to be able to try to learn the in-fiction logic behind why it works that way sometimes but not others.

Like @Lyxen, you seem to be assuming that you know more about what happened at my table than I do. Mostly by projecting your own extremely GM-centric approach.

As I've posted, I can't recall all the details. But the players came up with a plan to grapple Ygorl to slow him down. Like me and you, they are capable of reading the game's rules. I can't remember now what happened to stay grabbed to Ygorl while he teleported - did the players have their PCs do something (a 28th level 4e D&D PC has a lot of options)? did Ygorl pull the paladin along, knowing that the paladin can't kill him ("already witnessed") but believing he can kill the paladin, and the paladin hang on because he was confident he could soak the damage? I don't remember anymore, but I am extremely confident that it will have been clear to everyone at the table what was happening.

One of the many strengths of 4e D&D is that no one needs to keep the game's rules secret in order for it to work smoothly.

 

[Lanefan]

Like @Lyxen, you seem to be assuming that you know more about what happened at my table than I do. Mostly by projecting your own extremely GM-centric approach.

As I've posted, I can't recall all the details. But the players came up with a plan to grapple Ygorl to slow him down. Like me and you, they are capable of reading the game's rules. I can't remember now what happened to stay grabbed to Ygorl while he teleported - did the players have their PCs do something (a 28th level 4e D&D PC has a lot of options)? did Ygorl pull the paladin along, knowing that the paladin can't kill him ("already witnessed") but believing he can kill the paladin, and the paladin hang on because he was confident he could soak the damage? I don't remember anymore, but I am extremely confident that it will have been clear to everyone at the table what was happening.

Given they were 28th level, I have to ask whether the teleport-while-grappled rule had ever come up before and thus whether you'd already set that precedent sometime earlier during the campaign? If yes, and if this event agrees with that precedent, then carry on sir!

If yes, and this event disagrees with that precedent, your players might justifiably raise a few eyebrows at you.

One of the many strengths of 4e D&D is that no one needs to keep the game's rules secret in order for it to work smoothly.

This isn't about secret/not secret, it's about precedent and consistency.

 

[Maxperson]

This makes no sense.

If @soviet wins a game of chess against me, what do they get? Nothing but the pleasure of having bested a bad chess player.

The player also gets a win, because unlike D&D, Chess has a win condition. That's the difference. Checkmate the king and the game instantly ends. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. That's a win condition for the checkmating person, and a loss condition for the checkmated person.

Getting a reward for a PC in D&D has no such win condition attached to it. The game doesn't end just because the PC saved the kingdom or got 1000 gold pieces. The only thing the player gets out of is enjoyment or not. He gets no win or loss.

If @soviet succeeds in a D&D game, and their PC gains a vorpal sword, what does soviet get? Nothing but the pleasure of having been good (or lucky) in their D&D play, together with whatever kudos might accompany that.

He gets the enjoyment(or not), but no win or loss since there is no win/loss condition attached. The game doesn't end because the PC got a vorpal sword.

 

[Arilyn]

I've never heard a player sit back and say, "Yay, we beat backgammon!" or "Yay, we beat five hundred!" The notion of "beating the game" is closer, at least in this way, to solving a crossword or a maze.

In five hundred one can win a trick, a hand, or a game/round (the latter only if scores are being kept), but not the game as such. And there is no limit on play - ie how many hands can be dealt and played - other than physical exhaustion or the university campus centre shutting down for the night!

In the case of RPGs it's clearly not customary to talk of winning or losing, but I think RPGs often (not always) establish implicit success conditions - ie goals that everyone at the table is orienting play around, like eg recovering the stolen weapons from White Plume Mountain. While it's not typical to refer to those goals as win conditions, I don't see that anything is lost by doing so, and to some extent I think it can help clarify things. Eg if a group of players cheerfully talk about those being their win conditions, while the GM of the group is insisting that when they GM there is neither winning nor losing, I would suspect that there are going to be culture clashes at that table!

I was using cooperative games as an example, where players as a group are pitted against the game. In these cases, there is a definite "we beat the game."

I feel there are lots of little win/loss conditions within an RPG. Players beat their hated enemy at last or achieve their goals. It's different from winning a board game, however. Lines blur I guess. In the Marvel Champions card game there are campaign modes where players go through set scenarios racking up victories until the final win. This is a little closer to winning in a rpg.

I think this debate is definitely a semantic one in terms of the word win. Winning at an RPG opens up the typical definition of winning that occurs in other games or sports. I'll accept that.

 

[Older Beholder]

Running a game for new players and then getting to play in campaigns run by a couple of those players a few years later is my idea of winning at D&D.

 

[Scott Christian]

The term is used interchangeably to describe moving a scenario from Point A to Point B to Point C, which is typical of adventure path design, and it is likewise used as a descriptor of GM behavior that usurps player agency. In the RPG community at large, this has strongly negative connotations, whereas the other two terms less so. But the basic gist of railroading is that the players don't get to do much beyond what the GM deems acceptable. Because this term spans a host of behaviors and rouses tempers, I don't think it's particularly useful when discussing GMing techniques.

I sometimes think it needs to be remembered that both DMs and players might railroad - for both the good and bad of the game.

A DM whose social contract was to run the game and let the players choose their own path; and then removes those paths, is railroading.

A player whose social contract was to run the game the table or DM suggested, and then refuses, is a form of railroading as well.

For most adventure paths, some DM railroading is needed. But the railroading shouldn't be viewed as such because the players entered with the intent to play said adventure path. (This doesn't mean they don't have choices.)

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

A player whose social contract was to run the game the table or DM suggested, and then refuses, is a form of railroading as well.

Railroading describes GM behavior, not player behavior. This is a misappropriates of terminology. Players cannot "railroad" because they lack the power to do so. They can be disruptive, they can be jerks, they can derail the game, but they cannot railroad.

Dogs bark. Cats meow. GMs railroad. Players derail.