D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Malmuria]

As an informal poll, which games have you all run or played in which you had PCs that you felt had the most depth and involvement in the story?

 

[Campbell]

And as I've said before, I think you're wanting it to be broader than everyone feels a need for, and writing off anyone who doesn't.

I mean, there are clearly people who do want the sort of "PCs are what all the game is about, and events are just ways to test and exhibit them." That's Campbell's view if I'm not misrepresenting him. But its not the degree of depth everyone feels a need for, and that doesn't mean the level they choose is trivial or insufficient.

I like a number of styles. It's really just storytelling from both players and GMs i am not enamored with for my own play, even though I make exceptions from time to time (usually for Vampire - The Masquerade if I like the GM). I am most comfortable with character focused gaming, although not necessarily player character focused. The games I run and play the most are things like Conan 2d20, Vampire - The Requiem Second Edition, Worlds Without Number, Dune 2d20, Pathfinder Second Edition (although not adventure path play) and Exalted Third Edition.

It's fairly important for my own play that NPCs are also played with a strong sense of who they are. Mostly once a scenario is designed I want both players and GMs to just play the characters/situation to its natural end. Trust in the scenario design and see what happens. I often use rules that treat PCs and NPCs pretty much the same, have strong social mechanics, broadly capable characters with minimal niche protection, and work well outside of the context of adventuring. The characters should have interesting enough lives they do not really need to adventure.

For me a sense of agency over aims and long term consequences for decisions is critical. I am deeply uncomfortable with language like adventure, heroes, villains, etc. We don't know who the heroes are, even if there are any is my sort of natural response. I also don't like anyone except the person responsible for a character deciding who their enemies and allies should be. A lot of this probably stems from being a Vampire kid and a theater/LARP nerd as well.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As an informal poll, which games have you all run or played in which you had PCs that you felt had the most depth and involvement in the story?

4e definitely produced some really memorable characters and plots. Honestly I think it is a real champ in that department. It has all the hooks D&D could dream of having in terms of classic D&D and fantasy/legend tropes, and it serves them up really well in a package that is quite easy to run in a story now PC situation first kind of way. For me it works great.

That being said, the 5e games were OK, but it seemed harder to just let the players drive things (I was only a player though).

I mean, there have been MANY other games, Traveller for example, where we had some pretty memorable and interesting characters. The new Star Wars game wasn't too bad, but I will say that the PCs did seem pretty 2-dimensional and mostly the game focused on action and not characterization. We had a fairly good d6 Space game a while back. Some Dungeon World games. There was a really fun game that we ran in PACE a few years back, with Arthurian style knights. It got a bit silly at times, but it was pretty good.

 

[Thomas Shey]

How am I trivializing it?

Since you have shown in the past that you either don't understand, or don't care about semantic loading, I don't see much point in unpacking it for you.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't think the things @Campbell, who's very clear on the games he likes and what he wants from them, is suggesting things here that are cured by free-roleplay during downtime. Or that pacing is the actual cure, either. I know that I would not, for a skinny minute, suspect this to be the case.

Given his statement that its not compatible with "adventuring" he's going to need to unpack further if I'm to believe that, then.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Since you have shown in the past that you either don't understand, or don't care about semantic loading, I don't see much point in unpacking it for you.

Ah, since I very clearly said something that didn't align with what you were saying about me, the response is to say something else about me and maintain the dismissal. Cool.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Given his statement that its not compatible with "adventuring" he's going to need to unpack further if I'm to believe that, then.

Right, I get it, he's lying (or am I lying?) until he sufficiently justifies his claim to you, in a way that you will accept. Perfectly rational.

 

[pemerton]

Let’s dig in a bit more into that Ogrish example in which you are playing a charming halfling bard.

<snip>

On the 5e side, the halfling bard would make an appropriate check (or simply succeed, if he has the criminal or urchin background), and that would lead him to the mob boss’ top enforcer, an ogre who eats halflings for lunch. In this case, if the DM placed a creature that he knows will be a challenge to the halfling player, it feels that you would conclude that this an exercise of GM Force.

Here's my post that you're referring to:

Consider a different sort of sandbox-y example: the notes say that the Ogre in the Hill Cave hates Halflings, and always attacks them. The players have failed to learn that stuff (eg they didn't pick up the right rumour, or do the right divination) and so the Halfling PC approaches the Ogre hoping to get information from it. But the GM decides the Ogre attacks. I don't think that's Force - again, guessing or figuring out the "unrevealed backstory" is part of play.

If the backstory is so complex and evolving that it's not realistic to think the players can figure it out, that becomes a bit different I think: it's not necessarily Force, but it might be a pretty frustrating game.

But if the GM places a Halfling-hating Ogre because they know the PCs use the Halfling as their "face", so that the players will be discourage from taking such-and-such an approach to the ingame situation and will instead go about things this other way . . . well, to me that looks a bit Force-ish (in this case, using authority over backstory to generate pressure on how the players exercise their authority over action declaration for their PCs).

You haven't specified enough about your example. Is the purpose of the Ogre to be interesting? Or to push the players into combat rather than trying to have their PCs negotiate? Or something else.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Right, I get it, he's lying (or am I lying?) until he sufficiently justifies his claim to you, in a way that you will accept. Perfectly rational.

I don't think you're lying, but I think I'll hear it from Campbell before I believe you've got it right.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ah, since I very clearly said something that didn't align with what you were saying about me, the response is to say something else about me and maintain the dismissal. Cool.

When you make it a line of discussion with you is useless--and you've done it more than once now--you shouldn't be surprised if I consider it useless.