D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Thomas Shey]

What is being rearranged? What prior arrangement is being disturbed?

Rearranged was probably a bad choice of words; it does assume a prior state. Though, depending on the scale of creation, it can still feel disruptive, but possibly that scale is beyond the scope you'd normally expect with the matter at hand.

But it still comes across as one being a result that has no relationship to the character at hand, and some people are just fussy about that, especially on the fly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I’ll unpack in a bigger post when my head clears.

Entirely fair.

Things like “Danger” and “Discovery” and “Tropes” seem generic when you’re not well familiar with the rule book, the End of Session move, and the playbooks.

I’ll bridge that gap with a post tomorrow or Sunday when I’m feeling better.

That's fine. I'd assumed they were terms of art from the way you constructed the sentence, but, well, terms of art are pretty opaque when you're not familiar with them, as you say.

 

[Ovinomancer]

There isn't anything sacrosanct about structuring the authorship. But a lot of people apparently think there's a big difference between swinging a sword vs. a secret door or forge appearing on a map. If a lot of people see a difference between things... it kind of feels like there might be one. Even if it's one you don't care about.

No, they're not different because people feel like they should be. This is arguing backwards. People feel they should be different -- they have a preference -- and so find games where there is an arbitrarily applied constraint that makes it so. I think even this example is backwards, because I think that people form this preference because they learn it in games where an arbitrary constraint is placed to make this so, and that's what they become comfortable with.

And on arbitrary constraints, all games are nothing but arbitrary constraints on play. That's the purpose of a game - to place constraints on play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Eh. I think a lot of people are far better at allowing that sort of trivial inclusion in backstory than something that, say, rearranges the terrain retroactively.

Nothing is retroactive, at least not in DW, BitD is a little different in that you can IIUC play a scene from an earlier part of the chronology to explain something later, but I still don't think that is retroactive. In both cases NOTHING ALREADY ESTABLISHED is ever contradicted. The GM cannot answer Spout Lore by retconning something, the answer must be compatible with the established fiction.

Maybe at best you could make a reveal of something assumed to be true before, like "yes, and Andrew the Butler is actually the spy!" or something like that, but the burden is then on the GM to still comply with the terms of the game (principles, etc.). A GM who jerks the players around using this sort of technique is treading on thin ice at the very least. OTOH it could be a pretty sweet move if its used just right.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Which brings us back to the real issue: Gygax invented a game in which the GM has strong authorship over towers and forges but in which authorship over dodging Orcs is subjected to a roll. There is nothing particularly sacrosanct about structuring those particular authorship decisions behind those different processes.

And this, as always, seems to be the hard kernel of it all. Anything that isn't consonant with the original role allocation at the table in classic D&D, or at least the IMAGINED role allocation, is rejected. The basis of the rejection varies, but the actual effect, the terms which will actually apply at the table, never do. I don't mean it to sound insulting in any way, but I think this is the real true ultimate logic. Gygax did it this way, that is the way. Or maybe more potently, this is the way we played it when we first learned, so this is THE way. Various preferences and techniques and such build on that, but in the end those aren't the core of it, they're the supporting ideological structure.

And that is not to say preferences need any more justification than "we do it this way because we do." I think that is perfectly adequate, its not like we're discussing a factor of profound impact to people's lives. Nor is it to say that any one set of people have a better justification for what they like than another. You could as easily say the rest of us are just contrarians! lol.

 

[Scott Christian]

That's not how I see it.

The difference between the players can declare whatever actions they like for their PCs and the players are expected to declare actions that conform to a pre-established sequence of events is clear.

Correct. It is clear. One is playing a roleplaying game like D&D, the other like playing Blades. Both are roleplaying. No need to differentiate the roleplayers, because the differences are in the rules - not the players.

The difference between the GM secretly changes mechanical details like dice rolls and hp totals on the fly and the GM doesn't alter those details, and/or manages them in the open, is clear.

Yup. You are correct. And look, the DM can play D&D and be open at the same time. The definition of railroad did not insist on the DM altering dice rolls. It said they may do this. Just like a GM in a Story Now game may try to do as well. Again, seems to me there is no difference other than a narrative that makes something look negative - even when worded to try and sound unbiased.

The difference between the GM creates new bits of backstory - second-stringers to replace defeated BBEGs, or clues to prompt the players to make the "right" action declarations - in order to keep play "on track", and the GM doesn't do that, is clear.

Oh look, a DM in D&D can do the latter. The can do the former. Many can cast mend, and combine the two, especially when they see the player's making decisions to continue down the path or forge a new one. And by clues in quotes (my bad, clues was not in quotes, right was), you mean foreshadowing, setting dressings that create mood, and themes that orchestrate or highlight symbols. Those bastards!

The difference between the GM uses their authority over scene-framing to ensure that a series of pre-authored scenes take place and the GM frames scenes in accordance with some other principle - eg extrapolating from the prior backstory (as in a sandbox or map-and-key dungeon) or following player cues (as in Burning Wheel) or building on the fiction and the action declarations in a soft-then-hard-move pattern (as in AW or DW) - is clear.

You are right. They are all clear. One is called running an adventure path. The other is called running a sandbox. One is called a dungeon delve. All your definitions are correct. No need to cast comprehend language. And better yet, now you can disregard the terms railroading, force, and other things that aren't needed.

Who is confused about these differences? The controversy, as best I can tell, is around asserting that these difference might matter to someone's engagement with RPGing. Actually spelling out these differences, and asserting an unequivocal preference in respect of them, is taken to be some sort of tactless faux pas.

No one is confused at all. That is why this thread is 90 pages long.

The only confusion I see are the terms becoming so ambiguous, yet still being held onto because it is a philosophy some are not willing to part with.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This was helpful. It's not at all how particular examples of it come across (which is one downside to focusing too much on examples I guess).

Right, well, Spout Lore is a bit more flexible in a sense, because the player names the topic about which the spouting will reference, but OTOH the flexibility also applies to the GM, to an extent. So you can use DD to look at the current environment, you may learn some fairly specific things. You can also use SL in reference to it, but what you learn might be less clearly linked to your present situation, though it will bear on it in some way you CAN make useful, assuming you get a 10+. And that's the other thing with DD, 7+ is enough to get useful results, so its a lower bar.

 

[Scott Christian]

I don't think you've shown A. Railroading isn't a new term, it's been around almost as long as the game has, and been used well for that time to describe a specific kind of play. B follows this. It's really only recently that the railroad has become a majority approach with the advent of the large APs, especially the 1-20 APs of the 3.x and Pathfinder eras. So, you're dealing with not a term made to vilify play, but an interesting shift in play that has aligned against an older term. The term is still very useful in describing play.

So White Plume Mountain, Against the Giants, Tomb of Horrors, Sinister Secrets of Saltmarsh, Temple of Elemental Evil... all those were not railroading under this definition?

The majority of play back then was through modules. That is how people learned, especially because there were no videos and a limited number of game stores.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So White Plume Mountain, Against the Giants, Tomb of Horrors, Sinister Secrets of Saltmarsh, Temple of Elemental Evil... all those were not railroading under this definition?

The majority of play back then was through modules. That is how people learned, especially because there were no videos and a limited number of game stores.

There's not plot in these, and the GMs aren't directly to make specific events happen to serve a plot, so that line of being a railroad is out. Instead, these are straight up map and key dungeons for the most part. I actually can't speak to Saltmarsh as I'm not familiar with it, but the first three and ToEE are all map and key dungeoncrawls. Can they be railroads? Sure, a GM could turn them into one, but the nature of the these modules do not require it. In fact, Classic play, which is an approach where you can avoid Force, is based on this kind of map and key dungeon. The dungeon is fixed, nothing in it is changed to force an outcome, and the GM is adjudicating what's keyed with what the players do with their PCs. Player input, action declarations, and system say do not have to be overruled at all, and, in fact, are expected to be strongly honored and enforced.

 

[Scott Christian]

The point is that the same challenge exists the same regardless of the characters, and however it's overcome, the next one in line does as well. The challenges the game presents care nothing for what characters are present in the scene or what motivations those characters have.

I'm sorry. But this is wrong on sooooooo many levels. If that is how you think an adventure path works... well, let's just say that makes your previous arguments much clearer.