D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[pemerton]

Probably because their words have gotten taken out of context when leaving that off in certain discussions.

I don't think that's all there is to it. There are some posters who think not only that players' agency is limited to action declaration, but that the GM has - and/or should have - unfettered authority over the consequences of such declarations. Stressing the idea of attempting or trying can be one way of reinforcing that point.

 

[pemerton]

Given my absolute anti-fudging stance (I 100% see fudging as cheating and neither do it in my own game nor accept it being done in games where I play), I was assuming DMs that don't do that. It would be arguing in bad faith. I also consider "X thing made unjustifiably and arbitrarily high" close kin, but sure, not formally fudging as I define the term (that is, secretly changing either the statistics or the roll result in order to cause a specific outcome, despite pretending that the outcome was the natural result of what happened with zero manipulation). It's the unjustified nature that bothers me so, and what makes it such close kin to fudging and other such methods.

But yes. If the DM is playing in good faith, using the system consistently, not trying to pass off false or manipulated results as true and unaltered ones, and not secretly fixing the results in advance by making absolutely insurmountable obstacles without justification, then I see no reason why an attack roll that results in a miss would count as "railroading." I find it rather tedious that I must make so many caveats on what should be a simple, straightforward statement, but I guess that's unavoidable at this point.

Well, part of the point is that it's not so straightforward! I'll explain:

* Some people think it is perfectly acceptable, even skilful, GMing to manipulate the backstory so that a pre-conceived series of events unfolds in play - and to do that without fuding, or making X thing arbitrarily high. Having extra NPCs show up as needed; having extra clues turn up as needed; having the weather or the terrain unfold as needed; these are all ways of doing that.

* I personally regard that sort of thing as railroading. The use of such techniques means that, while players have choices to make at action resolution time, the actual outcomes of those choices don't make any difference to what happens next - at least, not the "bit picture" of what happens next. For instance, even if a player's declared action results in the BBEG being killed, or the house being burned down before the PCs can explore it, the GM uses the sorts of techniques I've described to introduce another NPC to play the BBEG role, or to place the assets and/or information the PCs (and players) were "supposed" to get from the house somewhere else.

I was trying to work out whether you incline towards the first or second of my two dot points. I gather you incline towards the first, but perhaps I've misinterpreted you. I'm not 100% sure.

 

[pemerton]

Players can say, "I cast fireball, save or take 8d6 damage," and the GM can negate this. How?

• He can describe the PCs as having entered an antimagic zone (even if they haven't).
• He can roll a saving throw and modify the roll result so it is successful.
• He can grant an NPC fire immunity.
• He can grant an NPC additional hit points so he doesn't perish from a fireball.
• He can have the NPC unleash counterspell even if he doesn't have it prepared (or cast spells otherwise).
• He can give the NPC a magical item that foils all fireballs cast at him.
• He can declare that the PC bites his tongue, foiling the spell.

The players cannot do any of this...at least not without cheating. The GM is given authority in D&D where he can manipulate outcomes without it being considered cheating.

That last sentence is something that I regard as up for grabs. I don't think its true that all approaches to D&D give the GM the sort of authority that you posit here. I agree that some do.

 

[FrogReaver]

Again, I do not see this as "railroading," because players simply, emphatically do not (in general) have the power to declare that such events happen. DMs do have that power, consistently.

I gave one example where a player that wanted combat could achieve it simply by declaring he attacks.

If you want to say GM's have more of an ability to railroad because they have more power then I'm in total agreement. But players can intend to force certain outcomes and have the means to do so.

But--again--there are key differences between "player who doggedly pursues disruptive actions" and "DM that does not permit disruptive actions." The former, yes, can as a consequence change the state of play so that some events are no longer realistically possible, but--again--that is true if LITERALLY ALL player behavior that has meaningful consequences. If "player burns down the docks" counts as "railroading" solely because it alters the future events of the game, then "player choosing to make a heroic sacrifice with the character" is "railroading" because it prevents all future interactions between the now-dead character and all other characters, PC or NPC. This, again, means literally anything that causes consequences with any degree of permanence is "railroading" your party, which is obviously nonsense.

I'm fairly certain that was precisely @ScottChristian's point when he said 'The players create the rails'.

IMO, there's actually a few different DM behaviors that tend to get lumped into DM railroading. That's part of what makes this discussion difficult.

1. GM stops being a neutral arbitrator as expected and pushes/forces a specific outcome in a particular situation
2. GM designs and runs a linear adventure that is designed in such a way that at a high level it mostly plays out the same way regardless of what the players do.
3. Feel free to add additional types as this list isn't intended to be exhaustive.

Behaviors 1 and 2 are completely different and yet both get called by the same term, railroading. Why do people do this, because they only focus on 'outcomes'. Which is part of why player 'railroading' was brought into this. Because the focus on 'outcomes only' to define railroading makes it such that players railroad as well. But if railroading stops getting defined by an 'outcomes only' approach then DM behavior (2) above doesn't make the cut of being defined as railroading.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't think that's all there is to it. There are some posters who think not only that players' agency is limited to action declaration,

We are still talking about D&D style games right? If so then that would typically be the case.

but that the GM has - and/or should have - unfettered authority over the consequences of such declarations.

I think your going further than those people would in describing the GM authority over consequences as unfettered.

To drive this home - A GM doesn't just declare you stab and kill yourself with your sword because you attacked and they want you to die. A GM doesn't drop rocks on your characters head in the middle of an open field because you said/did something he didn't like. This would all be examples of what would universally be seen as bad GMing.

So describing GM authority over consequences expectations as unfettered goes to far. But the boundaries between what is acceptable and what isn't are often a bit fuzzy and tend to vary a bit from table to table.

Stressing the idea of attempting or trying can be one way of reinforcing that point.

Well - a similar point (see above for where your diverging from them).

 

[pemerton]

I don't think it should be controversial that RPGs don't have clear win conditions in the same way than say, chess or monopoly do.

I don't think it should be controversial that not all RPGing is oriented towards winning in the same way.

As I think I've already posted upthread, some RPGing doesn't have win conditions. Some does. @hawkeyefan gave an example where it did. I can give an example where it didn't: the Wuthering Heights on-off I played last year. My example doesn't negate @hawkeyfan's, nor vice versa.

Here's another example from my own play: a Prince Valiant actual play post, written well before these debates about win condition broke out:

In the previous session they had rode off the same way to fight Saxon raiders, but got distracted by the crimson bull, and so when they now arrived at the coast they could hardly complain about Saxon raiders on the coast beseiging a fort! This was the Robin Laws scenario in the Episode Book, Fort Seahawk.

<snip>

I used the Saxon Warband scenario from the main rulebook to get Saxon stats, though reduced their numbers from the 100 that's written there to a force double the size of the PC's band. Unfortunately neither Justin nor Gerran had Battle skill at that point (Gerran developed it at the end of the session). At first the knights of St Sigobert fought bravely and were not repelled by the Saxons - but in the second round Sir Gerran was out-generalled by the Saxon leader, and Sir Gerran and Justin themselves retreated (both had Presence reduced to zero in the mass combat process, and also suffered loss to Brawn from fighting). We decided that 5 of their retinue were also lost - a pretty terrible defeat.

But as luck would have it, at that moment a band of soldiers lead by Sir Vroca rode down the slope to rout the Saxons - it turned out that Vroca was younger brother to the lord of the castle, and a better knight and leader, who had turned up in the knick of time. And when this happened Morgath (with a successful presence check from his player) heard the Saxon chieftain complain about "Vroca the treacherous".

The PCs were invited to receive hospitality in the castle by the brother, Ora, although Vroca seemed none to happy about it. Sir Morgath approached Ora in private to ask him the meaning of the Saxon chieftain's words, but a failed check meant that Ora took the matter to Vroca, who insisted on a duel to prove his innocence. Sir Justin agreed to fight him at dawn; and meanwhile Morgath - with the help of the castle chamberlain (successful Fellowship check) tracked down his Saxon slave who had left the hall during the hubbub looking rather suspicious, and in return for a promise of baptism and safety as a soldier of St Sigobert learned that Vroca had had his servant convey a message to the chieftain that this day would be a good one for a raid, as Vroca and most of the castle force would be out hunting. (It was amusing that Sir Justin's player worked out pretty quickly that this must be what had happened - whereas even though it was Sir Morgath who was actually eliciting most of the information, he and his player were somewhat confused by what was going on, and why Vroca was so angry, until the slave spilled the beans.)

When dawn came, Sir Justin jousted with Sir Vroca and continued his losing streak - he avoided being unhorsed but in 3 rides was clearly defeated. They both started with 14 dice each (Sir Justin was down a point of Brawn, but had a bonus dice after praying to St Sigobert), but Justin got much the worse of the death sprial, and his player concluded that there was no point continuing on foot. So he proclaimed Sir Vroca's innocence, and the knights of St Sigobert rode on to find passage. It was some days later that news came to them that Ora had suffered a tragic accident, and Vroca was now the ruler of Fort Seahawk.

This was only the second real loss for the players in this campaign, after being defeated by the Wild Hunt in the first session.

I've left in enough description of play to make it clear what happened, and have bolded the salient final phrase. It was a loss for the players.

Here's another example, from the 13th Age rulebook (pp 166, 171, 187):

Fleeing is a party action rather than an individual action. At any point, on any PC’s turn, any player can propose that the fight is going so badly that the characters have to flee. If all of the other players agree, the heroes beat a hasty and successful retreat, carrying any fallen heroes away with them. In exchange for this extraordinarily generous retreating rule, the party suffers a campaign loss. At the GM’s discretion, something that the party was trying to do fails in a way that going back and finishing off those enemies later won’t fix. If the heroes were on their way to rescue a captive from unholy sacrifice, then naturally enough the captive gets sacrificed. Don’t worry, overcoming setbacks is exactly what heroism is about. The point of this rule is to encourage daring attacks and to make retreating interesting on the level of story rather than tactics. . . .

If the party is short of a heal-up but is too beat up to press on, they can retreat, tails between their legs. Provided they can find some sort of safe place, they can get the heal-up that they haven’t earned in battle. But taking the heal-up entails a campaign loss. At the GM’s discretion, the party fails to achieve one of their goals, and they fail in some way that simply defeating the bad guys the next time around with your healed-up party won’t fix. Don’t worry; occasional setbacks make for a more engaging campaign. . . .

Normally, the party gets to take a full heal-up after about four battles. The point of the four-battle heal-up rule is to make players want to press on instead of holing up, which is what the traditional rules reward you for.

So what happens when the party has been weakened so badly that it would be madness and suicide to press on? If the party decides to heal-up ahead of time, assuming they are able to rest, they suffer a “campaign loss” . . . At your discretion, the situation in the campaign gets noticeably worse for the party. Ideally, the campaign loss can be traced to the decision to take the heal-up. For example, maybe it turns out that someone in the party knows a forbidden prayer to the Diabolist that a desperate mortal can say to gain healing. The party gets a heal-up, but the Diabolist gets . . . something. It might also simply be that taking time to rest gives an advantage to the characters’ enemies. The campaign-loss rule is key to making combat meaningful. We all know most GMs probably won’t kill the PCs permanently, but if the PCs can’t fight their way through four battles, the game world suffers.​

So that's (at least) me, Jonathan Tweet and Rob Heinsoo who have thought that the concept of loss makes sense in our RPGing. I don't think it's ridiculous to think that the concept of win can likewise make sense.

 

[FrogReaver]

* I personally regard that sort of thing as railroading. The use of such techniques means that, while players have choices to make at action resolution time, the actual outcomes of those choices don't make any difference to what happens next - at least, not the "bit picture" of what happens next. For instance, even if a player's declared action results in the BBEG being killed, or the house being burned down before the PCs can explore it, the GM uses the sorts of techniques I've described to introduce another NPC to play the BBEG role, or to place the assets and/or information the PCs (and players) were "supposed" to get from the house somewhere else.

I think it's worth noting that no form of D&D play embraces fudging every result. Heck most would frown on it if that technique was used any more than occasionally and even then only for a 'good reason'.

 

[pemerton]

I think your going further than those people would in describing the GM authority over consequences as unfettered.

To drive this home - A GM doesn't just declare you stab and kill yourself with your sword because you attacked and they want you to die. A GM doesn't drop rocks on your characters head in the middle of an open field because you said/did something he didn't like. This would all be examples of what would universally be seen as bad GMing.

So describing GM authority over consequences expectations as unfettered goes to far. But the boundaries between what is acceptable and what isn't are often a bit fuzzy and tend to vary a bit from table to table.

I have seen posters describe it as unfettered. Eg Saelorn. In effect, player action declarations are mere suggestions to the GM as to what might be narrated next.

I think @Helpful NPC Thom is also describing it as unfettered in the post not far upthread that I disagreed with (a bit) by saying that the key claim is up for grabs.

 

[pemerton]

I think it's worth noting that no form of D&D play embraces fudging every result. Heck most would frown on it if that technique was used any more than occasionally and even then only for a 'good reason'.

I'm not sure how you're using "fudging".

In my post I was talking about using authority over backstory + scene-framing to make sure that the pre-conceived events come to pass. I think this method is very frequently recommended in D&D modules (especially for the two things I mentioned, namely, making sure the BBEG's plot keeps going by brining in a second stringer, and making sure the players learn the clues that will propel their PCs into the intended next scene).

The same method - especially in relation to clues - is almost compulsory to make CoC modules work.

This method can be used without ever doing the things that @EzekielRaiden mentioned. That's why I said that I got the impression that his characterisation of railroading techniques (fudging dice rolls, hp totals etc - ie manipulating the mechanics of the game in covert ways - and also "arbitrarily high values" like near-unhittable ACs etc) didn't encompass the methods I'm describing.

 

[FrogReaver]

I have seen posters describe it as unfettered. Eg Saelorn. In effect, player action declarations are mere suggestions to the GM as to what might be narrated next.

@Saelorn isn't here now. So I can't speak to their thoughts. But I'd encourage you to consider whether you misunderstood their meaning. As people often use grander language in contrasting their position and another than is often called for.

I think @Helpful NPC Thom is also describing it as unfettered in the post not far upthread that I disagreed with (a bit) by saying that the key claim is up for grabs.

He's here we can let him speak for himself. @Helpful NPC Thom, do you believe that DM's have unfettered control over consequences or simply that they have broad control over consequences? And if so how do you view a DM saying 'rocks fall on you and kill you'?