D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[AbdulAlhazred]

People who have experience playing and running the game seem to be unable to explain why these things cannot be done. Appeal to authority alone will not suffice, you still need to back it up with something. It is perfectly possible I am wrong, but if that is the case, coherent argument for why that might be has not been made.

Prep the desired outcome, frame situations that are likely to evoke actions that take the play towards the desired outcome, when deploying consequences use ones that take the game towards the desired outcome. It is highly likely that we get to the desired outcome eventually. Why can't this be done?

Also note that the huge branching flowchart with several directions and paths things could take was deemed as a railroad by some. It didn't require one specific predestined path or destination. So if having sever preplanned scenes that might happen and several things that might happen after them is enough to make thing a railroad, then the GM doesn't even need to have one specific preferred outcomes in mind, they can have several and nudge the game towards which seems most feasible, and it still would be railroad.

Well, but in the case of games like DW, or BW, PbtA generally and IIUC FitD games, all explicitly decry this kind of thing explicitly. A GM in a Dungeon World game who frames everything in terms of their 'desired outcome', who even HAS a desired outcome, is NOT 'playing to see what happens' and following the other parts of the process and principles stated in the DW rules VERY explicitly! So I would say they are playing some other game, and thus any argument of this basis that tries to state that DW has force is simply wrong because it isn't talking about DW. I THINK the same is true for Burning Wheel from what I've experienced and been told (I played Mouse Guard many years ago), and likewise for FitD-based games which have very explicit structuring and processes.

Yes, in these sorts of games, as a general statement, there are strong inputs for the GM in terms of what details they place in scenes and such. I don't think it is unfair to say that, human nature being what it is, that GMs are likely to have no opinions about where the game is going. It is just that their opinions and ideas should have similar weight to that of the other participants, ideally. If a player declares an action in DW, and it is fictionally appropriate, then the GM isn't in a position to judge it, the dice will do that. When a new scene arises the GM has a specific set of 'moves' which generate that new situation, and those moves MUST on principle follow from what came before, which was largely shaped by what the players declared for their moves, how they answered questions (which the GM is obliged to ask), etc.

Force in a DW, or the other systems I mentioned as a general thing, is in violation of the explicit process of play laid out in the rules. We can certainly criticize individual instances of playing DW for involving 'force', but it isn't a part of the game, it has to be imported in violation of the rules.

 

[FrozenNorth]

This is the "gentle guidance" and "manipulation" that is described in my quote upthread from The Traveller Book.

I realize that Story Now players aren’t a hive mind, but when I provided this example earlier, this wasn’t considered an example of GM Force.

What do you, @Malmuria, @Crimson Longinus and @FrogReaver let me and @Campbell call this? We are not allowed to call it Force (ie manipulating the backstory so as to provoke the players to use their authority over action declaration in a certain way).

The issue is not what it should be called, but lumping in something like the Rainbow Rocks scenario, where player agency is not affected, with something like @hawkeyefan ’s example, where to all intents and purposes, the PCs are in a cutscene.

Ditto.
don't understand what this means. If the players are allowed to declare whatever actions they please for their PC, how does the table play the AP? Eg the AP contains places A, B and C and events D, E and F. What happens if the players declare action X for their PCs?

Let’s try with an example: one adventure within a campaign. The party starts trapped in a demi-plane filled with various biomes and factions.

How the party got trapped is not relevant for the example:

• it could have been GM Force;
• it could have been bad luck (a poor roll in trying to identify what a magical item does);
• it could have been the premise of the adventure (“Hey guys, what do you think of an adventure where your party is trapped in a demi-plane and is trying to escape?”)

The module provides several ways out of the demi-plane. Notably, the players can ally with various factions. As they wander through the demi-plane, they can learn more about the wizard that created the demi-plane.

The table plays out the adventure in the usual way: the party goes from place to place, interacts with the various denizens of the plane and the locations, and try to find a way out. Some of the factions have their own plans for the characters, and potentially, if the players do not act, the equilibrium in the demi-plane can shift, potentially catastrophically.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, I've played with GMs who clearly did this kind of thing and thought they were doing so on the sly, but it was obvious. I've also played in games where I couldn't say if the GM did it or not.

There are always going to be people who are better at managing this than others, and of course people who's operating procedure can look vaguely like they might be doing it when they aren't. But, well, when it comes to their understanding of what is and isn't working in games, the Dunning-Kruger effect is in full force in the GMing part of the hobby.

I agree with you that sometimes it's easy to tell. More importantly, I think just the need to roll behind a screen or to not share DCs is a pretty strong indicator that Force is going to be applied. Otherwise, why hide the rolls? Why not share the DCs?

It depends. Sometimes its a roundabout way of information management that ends up exceeding its need. This is notoriously so in perception/stealth type situations, but there are other kinds of rolls where simply revealing the rolls provides more immediate information to the players than it may be desirable that they have. Even under the best of circumstances, not everyone is good at firewalling these things away from their play decisions.

There would seem to me few arguments that support hiding dice rolls from players. Regarding sharing DCs there is at least the idea of "well the character wouldn't know the odds, so why should the player", which in my mind is a weak argument, but at least I can understand the reasoning behind it, even if I think the value add is vanishingly small compared to the value add of sharing DCs.

Eh, as you can see, I have to repeat my big ole "It depends" on this one. I don't see the point about hiding how hard a roll to climb a wall is, but I can absolutely see the reason to hide how hard it is to tell someone is lying.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Force is a very blurry continuum, and I think that all GMs utilize force, but the discussion should be on how much force is desirable or "good form."

Vincent Baker (Apocalypse World creator) would surely believe that force as described by @Ovinomancer is a gaming negative, yet hard and soft moves can both be used to "enforce a preferred outcome," regardless of player input. When the GM makes a hard move, the players can't change the outcome.

Let us take the dragon / eagle / whatever flying off with a player character. The GM views this as a preferred outcome and would like for it to happen.

The players look to him, giving him a golden opportunity. He makes a move--as hard as he likes--so a great green dragon swoops down and carries off one of the PCs. E Is this Force?

If the PC rolls a 7-9 to Act Under Fire and the GM offers a hard bargain that the player character succeeds but the green dragon is going to swoop off with his friend if he does so, is it force?

If the PC rolls a 6- and the GM uses the dragon swoop as his hard move, is it force?

Finally, if the PCs want to stop the dragon carrying off their friend but the GM says "no, I'm making my move," is it force?

Your lens is too narrow. Why is this event, this dragon flying off with a PC, something that the GM is attempting to enact? You called it a 'hard move', well in DW that means the PCs did something to evoke a hard move! They would have had some choice where they could have tried a different path. So, for instance they might have been told they could go cross-country to the mountain pass guarded by dragons, or they could take the path through the ancient dwarf ruins under the mountain. Obviously both could be fraught with danger, but this is the story of ADVENTURERS, unique individuals who's lives are filled with danger (premise of the game, don't play if you aren't into that).

I mean, YES, the GM may have something of an agenda in the sense that he created a front, and then he's making a hard move with a creature that is part of that front. However, the establishment of the front, the geography which is pertinent to the nature of the challenge, etc. was all up for debate with the players at some point, and got established through some kind of fiction (often fiction told by a player).

Thus it is pretty hard to equate what happened in your DW example with what happens in a D&D module. The players INVITED, if not explicitly added, dragons to the milieu, and then they chose to move in a way that would expose them to said dragons, and then the GM obliged them by having one of the dragons snatch a PC! Now, why that particular move? There's probably even MORE to it than that. The move must be doing something, like testing specific bonds. You alluded to this when you said something about one PC faced with the choice of dodging or saving his friend; this is a classic kind of move for a GM in DW, to say "Ah, the dwarf has a bond where he's stated he will protect the halfling with his life!" And then sure enough, since the player WROTE IT ON HIS SHEET the GM tested it!

This has nothing really of the character of GM force/railroading. If the GM arbitrarily imposed the dragon, then we might be in the realm of force, but that wouldn't be very good GMing in DW for sure! At best introducing something totally new and unexpected like that as a hard move with weighty plot consequences is a pretty bold maneuver for a GM in that game. In fact it may WORK, but its not something I would pull very often, if at all. Not without at least some foreshadowing.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Contra what @FrogReaver posted, you seemed to have no objections to the approach taken by @hawkeyefan's GM.

It is difficult for me to read an example like that without thinking what I would have done in the same situation as DM. So the party has met the villain and they have some sort of beguilement ability. The party rolls and rather unexpectedly, some of the party succeeds.

Cool! Roll initiative. I already know that the villain is going to Polymorph into a raven and fly away. I tell the players that failed their roll that they view the villain as their friend, and it looks like some of the PCs are about to attack her.

The unaffected PCs are unlikely to be able to defeat the villain before she escapes, the beguiled PCs interfering with their friends convincingly showcases the villain’s power, and gives the party that they should neitralize the power before next confronting the villain. All without having the party make unnecessary rolls or restricting the players’s agency.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Then would you mind clarifying? I think we're miscommunicating.

I would suggest re-reading my prior post without assuming I'm talking about foreshadowing. It's not unclear, as it talks about how the moves are being deployed, how you've overreached on the DW hard move and included more than what you're supposed to (and thereby moved into obvious Force), and how if you're doing that and introducing Force into DW that the comparison isn't unfair because it's apples to apples. Your post was mostly positing the DW apple was an orange (and allowed by the rules when it's not) and then saying it's unfair.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I'll start with something @FrozenNorth posted not far upthread:

See how, in @FrozenNorth's examples, whatever actions the players declare for their PCs, the GM-established fiction - either directly established by the GM, if they wrote the AP; or deemed to be part of the game by them, if they bought someone else's AP and declared this is what we're playing - pulls the action back in the GM's pre-conceived direction.

I think this is exactly the point. Going from @Ovinomancer ’s definition of GM Force, I don’t see how these examples qualify.

They meet the first criterion: the GM has a preferred choice, but they don’t meet the second: they are not not overriding player action declarations, input or system mechanics.

If the players try to "fight" that pull, and really keep fighting it, the GMing technique that @FrozenNorth describes will break down: either the GM has to relent, and abandon the AP, or the game busts up.

Isn’t that always the case? If the players or the GM fight against the principles of PbtA, they also break down (such as with the hawk example).

Incidentally, this is why I tend to prefer principles over rules (which is an element I like about PbtA). You cannot use rules to enforce good play or the social contract. Using principles is generally easier to understand which means that the social contract is less likely to breakdown by accident.

What label am I allowed to use to describe the second approach, and to contrast it with the first approach, so that I can pithily communicate what I do and don't prefer in RPGing?

I would simply call it traditional RPGing or non-sandbox play. I’m sure other people have different terms for it.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I didn't see any reason from what @hawkeyefan wrote to think that having the group make the save was inappropriate, or that the escape was DM force rather than just the fey woman being ready to escape when the PCs arrived. It could have been force, but I'm not going to assume it when there is a reasonable explanation that doesn't involve force. Unless they show otherwise through gameplay, I feel that DMs should be given the benefit of the doubt in situations like these.

To @Crimson Longinus and @Maxperson :

What about the players who had succeeded the save not being able to do anything? To me, that is the real restriction of player agency.

If the PCs who had succeeded
were allowed to act, attack (even knowing that they would be unlikely to one-shot the opponent), I don’t think @hawkeyefan would have had a problem with the scene.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Did I mention that you're a tolerant person?

EDIT: @Crimson Longinus, @Malmuria, @FrogReaver. Read hawkeyefan's account of play. Then tell me how it is unreasonable to describe that as "GM storytelling".

Yeah, it is the GM telling a story. In isolation I don't have a strong feeling about it though. That is to say, it could be seen as simply a foreshadowing, a way to show you something about a threat. Yes, it involved being directly in a position where action MIGHT have been possible, in theory, but I'm not that picky myself. What DID bother me was the "and we found out our fort had been taken over." Now, again, I don't have enough backstory to really know if that was bad or not, but it SEEMED potentially bad. Like the PCs staked something to take over/build/acquire this fort, or it was somehow a part of their 'legacy', and all of a sudden it is just lost. They didn't have a chance to thwart this loss, etc. I guess the fact that the GM's villains were clearly not up to the task of KEEPING it kinda negates the whole thing, the PCs reacted to the threat and dealt with it, it could have been a siege instead and obviated my objection, so its not a really toothy objection. Still, I've had GMs just take stuff away like that before, and not provide any way to get it back, and that burns me! lol.

 

[Maxperson]

To @Crimson Longinus and @Maxperson :

What about the players who had succeeded the save not being able to do anything? To me, that is the real restriction of player agency.

As I said, if the fey woman had the equivalent of a readied action going on to leave as soon as the heroes entered, then I have no issue with it. If she didn't, they should have been able to attempt something. The way it was described, it could be either way, so I'm going to assume in favor of the DM who is supposed to be working to make an enjoyable game for all, not forcing his own thing.

Now, if the DM had a history and had proven he was the kind of DM to force his way, I wouldn't grant that benefit of the doubt, but then I wouldn't still be in the game, either.

If the PCs who had succeeded were allowed to act, attack (even knowing that they would be unlikely to one-shot the opponent), I don’t think @hawkeyefan would have had a problem with the scene.

I agree. That's why my post answered his question on whether I would have an issue with it or not. I wouldn't. I didn't tell him that he shouldn't have an issue with it. He knows the game better than I do, so he'd have a much better grasp on whether the DM was the kind of DM to remove agency that way or not.