D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, but this is one of those cases where I have to think degree matters. There's a difference between having characters that actually fit the campaign structure, and having ones that can be reliably moved along in the direction of what the AP wants (and to be clear, I have no objection to the latter, and I'm enjoying the one I'm in right now, but I think the difference is non-trivial).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Right, and I've long maintained that ALL of this sort of thing has some of that character because nobody can create a world so detailed that it actually constrains their declarations in any meaningful way beyond perhaps the immediate momentary scope of a scene. That is, I think it may be justified to say "Oh, the NPC cannot jump over that chasm, so he does X" and fairly describe that as a constraint imposed by the fiction. OTOH pretending that the description of the setting and characters and whatever actually constrains the long-range plans and actions of a powerful NPC? I don't buy it. Only to the extent that it will likely define what is clearly genre (in)appropriate (IE demons don't show mercy). Other than that any given GM could find a way to justify anything on any given day, and is thus simply telling a story when he or she frames a scene. The only kinds of constraints which make any sense at all are meta-game ones (IE the aforementioned genre constraints), including process and principles built into a game's design. This is the BEATING HEART of the reason why there is an unavoidable gulf between old school Gygaxian game play (which is all tactical hard constraints) and more wide-open play ala 2e and now 5e.

Yeah, I mostly agree. I just don't see any of this as a problem. The GM decides these sort of things, that's why they're there.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I expect this is the kind of thing that will vary from person to person. There's nothing about an encounter with a wild animal that's hurt and/or hungry that I think can't be improvised on the spot. Especially if you're rolling on a table and get what would appear to be an odd result. You have to come up with an idea why this creature would be here and that need can be the source of some great inspiration. Often, those kinds of encounters where you have to come up with a bit of a spin are the ones that wind up being the most memorable precisely because there's something about them that makes them different.

Now, as I said above this'll depend on the GM and their strengths/weaknesses. If having to improv such details causes a GM to lock up and the game grinds to a halt....sure, that's no good.

Yeah, randomness certainly can spark imagination. And there really wasn't anything particularly special about this encounter that would have been impossible to improvise; an aggressive wounded animal isn't super novel. Then again, that it could provide information about the thing that had attacked it was kinda neat, and that of course was only possible because thing that had attacked it was preplanned too. There really is all sort of interconnectivity that is pretty hard to do with randomised elements.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

This is the GM using their backstory authority to manipulate the players' use of their authority over action declarations, in order to try and bring a pre-conceived event (the PCs' arrival at and exploration of Dark Clouds) into play.

To borrow some language from @Campbell, the GM is not a curious explorer of what happens when the PCs get to Rainbow Rocks.

For my own part, I don't really understand why this GM is faffing around with Rainbow Rocks at all - why not just frame the PCs into Dark Clouds? The only reason I can see is to maintain an illusion that the GM is indifferent to what actions the players declare for their PCs. But in fact the GM isn't indifferent to that! So why pretend otherwise?

So to answer the faffing, there is a type of game where the players agree to play an AP and want the GM to use Force/Illusionism if needed to keep them on the major Plot Points, but also allows for some side stuff.

So, say the PCs become aware of slaves being kept in Rainbow Rocks and decide they want to free these slaves. This is not detailed in the AP besides a one off line in a description of something else which piqued the player's interest.

The GM makes up some content about Rainbow Rocks and slavers. The PCs exercise their agency to try to free the slaves. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't. Maybe they recruit the slaves into the main AP action, maybe the freed slaves come into play in another adventure with an entirely different party (same players). There is a certain amount of agency and word influence allowed, but inevitably the hooks or clues or whatever are dangled and you are off to the Dark Clouds. This is what the players want.

Given this discussion, I'm not going to even attempt to label this.

 

[Malmuria]

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've played in games where it wasn't participationism - because I (and others) ceased to participate!

But when I point this out, by contrasting "situation first" with "backstory first" RPGing, I get told I'm not allowed to use that terminology either because it is demeaning or caricaturing of non-situation-first RPGing.

Do you want language that allows you to identify styles of play that you personally do not prefer? Or do you want language that is merely descriptive? My sense is that a term like "participationism" claims to be the latter while more accurately being the former. Similarly the strength of the situation/backstory distinction is that it enables to you to identify what you like and what you don't like about games; the weakness is that it does not have a lot to say about a style of gaming that you generally don't prefer.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yeah, randomness certainly can spark imagination. And there really wasn't anything particularly special about this encounter that would have been impossible to improvise; an aggressive wounded animal isn't super novel. Then again, that it could provide information about the thing that had attacked it was kinda neat, and that of course was only possible because thing that had attacked it was preplanned too. There really is all sort of interconnectivity that is pretty hard to do with randomised elements.

I don’t know if I can agree with that. Not entirely anyway. Connectivity with random elements isn’t that hard. I mean, the revelation of the connection only really mattered because the players decided to communicate with the sabertooth. If you’d not already determined how the saber had been hurt, and the players did that, it likely would have inspired an idea.

Again, it depends on each person, and preferences are what they are. But I don’t think that there’s as strong a need to predetermine a lot of these things as is sometimes stated.

 

[pemerton]

Given this discussion, I'm not going to even attempt to label this.

Fair enough!

But I think we can say that, in the game you describe, (i) player authority over action declaration is under some sort of (consensual) constraint, and (ii) the GM is using their authority over backstory and framing to help make sure that constraint is honoured.

Is it controversial to point this out?

 

[pemerton]

Do you want language that allows you to identify styles of play that you personally do not prefer? Or do you want language that is merely descriptive? My sense is that a term like "participationism" claims to be the latter while more accurately being the former. Similarly the strength of the situation/backstory distinction is that it enables to you to identify what you like and what you don't like about games; the weakness is that it does not have a lot to say about a style of gaming that you generally don't prefer.

You (and others) have suggested that all or most RPGing sits on a sandbox-railroad continuum. When I point out that there is RPGing that does not sit on that continuum, and that AD&D - hardly a radical RPG system! - can be used to play in a style that does not sit on any such continuum, I'm apparently using "demeaning", "non-inclusive" language. When I try and coin more language, that gets policed too.

Is there any onus on those who continue to talk as if sandbox and linear/railroad exhaust the possibilities to recognise that they are wrong?

In this and other threads I see the terminology that I have helped introduced to ENworld being used by lots of posters - "backstory", "unreaveled/secret backstory", "the fiction", "the scene/situation", "story now", etc. I reckon I'm doing my bit to contribute a shared vocabulary for analysing RPGs. It's not my job to invent terminology to describe the difference between @bert1001 fka bert1000 example where the PCs can step off the AP journey to rescue the slaves at Rainbow Rocks provided they then get back on board, and a different more "linear" AP approach where even the Rainbow Rocks detour is out of bounds. I'm sure that there are RPGers to whom that difference is super-important, but I'm not one of them.

 

[FrogReaver]

p

Fair enough!

But I think we can say that, in the game you describe, (i) player authority over action declaration is under some sort of (consensual) constraint, and (ii) the GM is using their authority over backstory and framing to help make sure that constraint is honoured.

Is it controversial to point this out?

I'd just add that the GM isn't unilateral in that though. He has the players implicit consent to use the authority they have given him to produce framing and consequences that lead back to the adventure path when the players decide to unknowingly do things not involving the adventure path.

Is it really force/railroad if the GM is giving the players what they agreed to at the start of the game that they wanted?

To me that detail makes all the difference in the world.

 

[Scott Christian]

Nope. I meant as in "now that I know what's happened, I can set up things so that further actions on the part of players are unlikely to throw the game off the course I planned". Its much easier to do that when you know what the PCs did in the first half of the game than when you don't.



See above. My comment was in the context of trying to railroad.

Thank you for the clarification.