D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[FrogReaver]

Not everything a GM (or other player) does that impacts player agency is railroading. Railroading requires the motive to push the narrative in a given direction in order to tell a particular story. If I make a ruling based on the fictional situation that your wizard cannot beat an owlbear in a wrestling match that is most definitely not railroading because it lacked the motivation to present a particular sort of narrative. It still impacts player agency though.

IMO, when dealing with a wizard and owlbear wrestling match, you have a particular outcome in mind - the wizard must lose the wrestling match. That little tiny piece of fiction is a particular story, yes? The only other disqualifier to describing that interaction as railroading I see in your definition is that of 'pushing the narrative'. I suppose that you don't view the GM decision that the wizard loses that wrestling match to be 'pushing the narrative'. Which means I guess I'm not really sure what 'pushing the narrative' actually means.

 

[pemerton]

@FrogReaver (and also I guess @Campbell)

I personally tend to think of Force as a certain approach to the use of authority the GM enjoys as GM - ie certain ways of exercising authority over backstory, situation/scene-framing, resolution and adjudication, etc.

Whereas pressuring players via social cues about preferred action declarations (eg as per FrogReaver's example just upthread, about the consequences of declaring an attack) I think I wouldn't consider Force because it is not the GM using their GM's authority, but simply the GM acting as a participant.

(I know that @Maxperson upthread suggested the GM has more of this social authority than other participants - eg "Don't let the door hit you on the way out" - but I agree with whomever it was who replied, I think @FrogReaver, that that assumption is not one that holds in general.)

 

[FrogReaver]

@FrogReaver (and also I guess @Campbell)

I personally tend to think of Force as a certain approach to the use of authority the GM enjoys as GM - ie certain ways of exercising authority over backstory, situation/scene-framing, resolution and adjudication, etc.

Whereas pressuring players via social cues about preferred action declarations (eg as per FrogReaver's example just upthread, about the consequences of declaring an attack) I think I wouldn't consider Force because it is not the GM using their GM's authority, but simply the GM acting as a participant.

(I know that @Maxperson upthread suggested the GM has more of this social authority than other participants - eg "Don't let the door hit you on the way out" - but I agree with whomever it was who replied, I think @FrogReaver, that that assumption is not one that holds in general.)

I'd just add that I think it's these kinds of nuances that makes this discussion on force/railroading/etc so difficult to have. We all define these things slightly differently and in ways that aren't particularly clear at the start of the conversation. These slight definitional differences tend to cause significant differences in our thoughts about force/railroading/etc as we get into more complicated areas of the subject.

 

[FrogReaver]

@FrogReaver (and also I guess @Campbell)

I personally tend to think of Force as a certain approach to the use of authority the GM enjoys as GM - ie certain ways of exercising authority over backstory, situation/scene-framing, resolution and adjudication, etc.

Curious your thoughts on whether the social contract can imbue with GM role with additional authority and whether that counts as force, or whether force is limited to the gm acting in the authority the game alone grants that role?

 

[FrogReaver]

I am treating the first quote here as presenting an example of the sort of thing being asked about in the second and third quotes.

For my part, I don't see how the GM can "decide the fiction and use the module as a guide" while remaining neutral in the adjudication of declared actions, and remaining neutral towards the actions the players declare for their PCs. For instance, based on my understanding of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, if the players decide that their PCs become Tiamat cultists then the GM cannot run the adventure path as written.

Seems to me the adventure path runs just fine if they do that (it won't be much of an adventure for them but how that plays out is easy to establish). You just fast forward to

Spoiler

Tiamat being summoned and devouring the players as she does other cultists, if memory serves.

Game over.

Likewise, I think, if the PCs kill all the Tiamat clerics early on in the adventure. So the GM would have to deflect action declarations that might lead to the first outcome (eg by reminding the players that their PCs are supposed to be heroes who are opposed to Tiamat) and to manipulate the fiction so that any action declarations that might produce the second outcome (I'm not sure what this might be in 5e D&D, but in AD&D it could be a Wish or an appeal for divine intervention) doesn't do so.

I don't believe this course of action is feasibly possible with the resources the players have vs the resources the cultists have early on.

IMO, still seems to me the GM can be a neutral arbiter and still run the adventure?

 

[Lanefan]

"I want to try to negotiate" is quite easy to back down from. "I want to physically assault them" is a hell of a lot harder to walk back. That's a clear, cut-and-dried difference. And, honestly? The respectful thing is to confer with your fellow players regardless of what you want to do, because that shows that you care what they're interested in doing. Now, maybe it "conferring" is something as simple as exchanging knowing glances (if you play at a physical table) or a simple "How we feeling about these guys?" (if you play over voice, like I do). Communication is always superior to assuming you know how people feel.

If that communication is being done in-character, that's excellent. If it's being done at the table when the PCs in fact have no means of communicating with each other, I'll shut it down hard.

Your example was a player forcing outcomes on other players by preventing them from participating at all--by zooming in so fast there's no possibility the other player could even attempt to do something else or stop them, which you claimed was a denial of agency. That's being, honestly, pretty gorram rude--as I said, it's forgivable if it's a rare occurrence, everyone gets excited now and then. But doesn't your table have an expectation that players get to participate and have a voice in what the party overall does?

As their PC, yes. But sometimes PCs act independently, one zigs when another zags, and I've no problem with this. (the number of times I've seen front-liners rush in while the wizard is halfway through casting a fireball right at where said fighters are going...)

I would absolutely not want to have the game so easily pushed around by a single player, even if it's a different player every time. I expect my players to have the patience and courtesy to, y'know, let people think through stuff and make a decision. It doesn't have to be long, a minute's thought is usually enough to get a real conversation started or come to a decision.

So. Doesn't your table have an expectation that players will get a chance to talk to each other before overt actions occur?

My expectation as DM is that players will have their characters do and say what their characters would do and say; and they have full agency to do just that.

 

[Lanefan]

And how many games have you been in where the DM throws someone out?

Several, both as player and DM.

How many games have you been in where a player decides to do something stupid and the party completely abandons them?

Several*; as all of DM, abandoning PC, and abandoned PC.

Hanging an idiot PC out to dry is a time-honoured tradition round here.

* - though more frequently the party just kills the offending PC instead.

In my experience, never. The PCs might defuse the fight or watch and then heal the railroader once they fall. But they never completely abandon the PC.

Re the bolded: that assumes there's anything left to heal.

 

[Lanefan]

Linear doesn't really involve force, though. When I make a multi-level dungeon and the party walks down the stairs to the first level, it doesn't matter which way they go on that level, because there's only one set of stairs down to level 2. That's linear, even though they can meander all over the first level. One way in, one way out.

That's a pretty harsh application of "linear", I think.

Linear adventures to me are those where the only possible exploration choice is whether to a) go forward, b) retreat, or c) stay where we are. There's no branches, no intersections, no side paths, etc. - you can't help but hit the encounters (or rooms, or whatever) in strict numeric order unless you turn back and abandon the mission.

A multi-path adventure that has chokepoints isn't linear IMO. (though there may be linear pieces embedded in it e.g. if one path goes through rooms 16, then 17, then 18 to a dead end that piece is linear, sure; but the adventure overall is not)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

OK. Do you regard the stuff that I described, that you don't do, as railroading?

Some of it, yes. E.g. the clues: more just happening to show up every time the players miss too many is Not Good. But missing clues can mean the guilty continue to act unimpeded, so more crimes might be committed off-screen. (After all, "think off-screen too" is a DW principle.) Ultimately, the sequence of events matters, and that'll be complex, mixing in- and out-of-game things. Using the murder mystery from my home game, I prepared six distinct clues, and would never have added more (because the point of the murder was to disrupt the court, not stick around and commit more crime). The party then had the responsibility to question and learn. There were false leads and a single perpetrator, not a nebulous "whoever you think is guilty actually IS guilty" thing (which I consider to be illusionism of a different color.) Their results, right or wrong, would have significant political and diplomatic consequences. Knowing I couldn't prepare for all possible accusations and consequences, I prepared loosely for a variety of options but kept myself open to change.

Well, the only event described here is that he reveals himself. Was that fore-ordained, by you as GM, to happen in a certain way? Did you manage backstory and outcomes to ensure it didn;t happen in a different way?

That's...complicated. On the one hand, if the party had failed a lot or been untrustworthy, he would never have told them. But a meeting of some kind was inevitable, for three reasons: (1) Shen is hunting the black dragon (a front), so as long as that threat remained, Shen would be relevant to the party; (2) his fiancee is Hafsa el-Alam, a trusted ally and confidant of the party ever since she gave them their first job; (3) he's only in town because the Safiqi priests (the dominant religion of the region) requested him, and the party has closely worked with the upper echelons of the Safiqi. By taking these allies and opposing the black dragon, the players made meeting Shen inevitable. The reveal didn't happen right away, it took a while for Shen to feel it was worth the risk. The party had made active efforts to earn his trust, and in turn, he saw that the party had a lot of potential and wanted to see them grow.

I had feared my players would hate him. Thankfully, they found him interesting and mysterious immediately, and then later they started shipping him and Hafsa. I'd have been sad if the players had rejected him, but would've bowed and left him as background. The black dragon would still be there though, and because the party would be ignorant of the threat, the dragon and their gang would be able to act with impunity for some time before the party learned of their escalating activities.

The revelation of other backstory elements raises the same questions as the revelation of this NPC as a backstory element: Was that revelation fore-ordained, by you as GM, to happen in a certain way? Did you manage backstory and outcomes to ensure it didn't happen in a different way?

I did not, no. Several of the revelations have occurred in contexts I never imagined even six months ago, let alone three years ago when I started this game. Some were improvised on the spot, others from careful thought and prep. E.g. that "why devils are Always Evil" thing I blather about came to me...last year IIRC. I already had four obvious sources for who would tell this story: a devil the party has worked with named Al-Ikhino (an arabicized "Alichino," from the Divine Comedy), the party bard's succubus great-grandmother, or an expert/book from a Safiqi or Waziri institution. None of these were the true first glimpse. Instead, a character accidentally had a soul connection with a (different) succubus as she was dying, the result of a partial success on a roll, and saw the darkness within. Wanting to know WTF that was, he turned to the bard's family, specifically his mother. I hadn't thought of that, but she made perfect sense. The party also consulted Waziri texts and Al-Ikhino for further details (the broad strokes were the same, but each group drew different conclusions.)

I work to make sure (a) the info is there, (b) there's at least one way they definitely could learn, and (c) that one way is not the only way to learn. Any person, place, thing, or event that depends on one and only one sequence of actions is always to be avoided. If I ever run into such a thing, I step back and re-work things as much as possible to avoid it. If there's genuinely no possible way around it for some reason, I'll be frank with my players that I have screwed up. (I am quite open about mistakes I make, though usually only after a session is done.)

Sending the party to important locations seems a different thing. Those are actions declared by the players for their PCs (at least I think they are - I don't think you mean the PCs were teleported to those locations). For me. this raises questions about who, at the table, established those goals for the players (and thereby their PCs), and how did those locations become important in relation to them? I think there are contexts in which answers to those questions exhibit something like railroading, but maybe of a different form from what I've described above: the GM determines outcomes and resultant scene-framing not by mechanical fudging, and not by backstory manipulation, but by social/metagame pressure on the players to declare particular actions.

I'd hate to learn that my players did a thing solely because they thought I wanted them to. I do have OOC expectations of courtesy etc., but I'd feel like a huge failure if my players ever said, "Oh, yeah we did that only because we thought you wanted us to." The very first adventure--Hafsa offering a contract to investigate a recently-discovered ruin--did have a little bit of "you're all okay with this as a starting adventure, yeah?", but many campaign starts are like that, so I hope that is forgivable. After that, I used other hooks. Family members making requests, Hafsa discovering something in her research, the Sultana requesting the aid of adventurers that had already helped protect the city, a friendly NPC disappearing, etc. Things I truly hope weren't done because I wanted it, but rather because they found them interesting, or felt their characters would respond to them in adventuresome ways. Edit: And, of course, the times the party has gone searching for stuff to do entirely as they liked, such as "what's on the contract board today?" (cue me making up three contracts) or "hey, that one archaeology librarian we know, does he know any abandoned digs we could check out?" (inventing an archaeology dig on the spot...with some fun surprises baked in) or "I want to find homes for those people we rescued from Zerzura. What does Fahd [important priest NPC] need so that can happen?" (led to the above-mentioned murder mystery in a Jinnistani noble's court)

I can say that two different players have, separately, said that they value the fact that they COULD choose to just say, "Nah, none of this is interesting anymore, we wanna take a boat out to the ocean now" or the like, and that I would roll with that. It would be pretty disappointing, but I'd roll with it nonetheless.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If that communication is being done in-character, that's excellent. If it's being done at the table when the PCs in fact have no means of communicating with each other, I'll shut it down hard.

That...honestly sounds kind of unplayable, for me at least. I don't think I could maintain character every single second of a gaming session.