D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Scott Christian]

DW's scale isn't like hexcrawls where you're worrying about the interaction of a lot of high resolution PC build stuff and exploration turn movement rates.

The only scale that matters to DW is Perilous Journey is measured in days (and you consume a Ration for each day...which has knock-on effects for loading out your group/Cohorts and Encumbrance). Here is the map for @darkbard and @Nephis game for reference.

This map was less resolution at the beginning and we added sites as play accreted. I think it was 6ish months of play (so around 24 sessions?)?

Thank you so much for explaining. It is appreciated.

 

[hawkeyefan]

IMO the thread has devolved into an endless loop of the same crap on repeat.

So offer something new.

I’d honestly love to hear examples of play from 5e games that highlight how folks fight railroading or how certain rules or applications of rules impact railroading or resist it.

I’ve shared some examples in this and other recent threads. When I have, there’s been a variety of opinions on them, but the discussion has always been civil.

Do you have any examples you can think of from your recent games? Either as player or GM?

 

[Blue]

I think the point was that authoring interactions between 2 already existing characters or things in the fiction is different than adding in a new character or thing.

a wound is not an independent thing. It’s dependent on there being an already existing character to wound. Which means the difference being spoken of is still preserved even with your point here.

So if we have something existing, like an orc or an ancient and inaccessible mountain range, then someone authoring a change to it in a way mechanically supported by the rules such as adding a wound or a dwarven forge is okay?

In both cases it's taking something existing and adding something new. I know that doesn't change it for you, this is more to point out that the stated point of contention really isn't it - can you drill down further to work out what the real issue you have with it is?

 

[Thomas Shey]

A character has no intrinsic way of producing a scratch on an Orc. As we all know from watching The Prince Bride, it depends as much on the Orc's skill and training as the attacking character's. If anything, a memory is more "intrinsic" than scratching someone.

But the "memory" isn't really that; its an invitation in this case for the GM to create something new. And if you don't see why that's different, I don't see why keeping going around about it is going to change that; I can promise you a number of people in this discussion do.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But nothing has been edited into the scene that is any different from "editing in" the Orc's wound - which wasn't there at the start of the scene.

Edit: That response on my part was starting to edge into snark, so I'll simply say that I don't see them as parallel except in the vaguest and most useless sense. That makes it clear our views on this are too different for this conversation to continue usefully.

 

[FrogReaver]

So offer something new.

I’d honestly love to hear examples of play from 5e games that highlight how folks fight railroading or how certain rules or applications of rules impact railroading or resist it.

I’ve shared some examples in this and other recent threads. When I have, there’s been a variety of opinions on them, but the discussion has always been civil.

Do you have any examples you can think of from your recent games? Either as player or GM?

Sure.

So I'll start with one important piece of background information on myself. I tend to dislike highly sandboxy video game RPG's, because I tend to spend alot of time self-exploring the world instead of following any quest or side quest lines. Total freedom for me in such video games tends to yield unfun results. I need a direction to be going in.

So my first few experiences with sandbox D&D weren't very successful. The DM would give us some choices and I felt I had no good context to judge the choices which then made the whole gameplay feel rather meh to me.

However, I have learned to be more proactive and let small minor differences characterization and improv amplify themselves enough to make a decision and trust the DM will sort the rest out well enough. The DM has also learned to provide more immediate hooks that I can care about.

For example, in a recent game the starting premise restricted us to being humans in a small secure village with limited contact with anything outside our safe magically shielded and secure place. For me this was great as it gave me something to care about - that village. My decisions could be centered around doing what was best for them within the confines of my characterization. This was a fairly deadly game so I ended up playing multiple characters throughout it as I had quite a few PC's die. However, character deaths were often made to feel special so that wasn't actually a negative. One important thing to understand is that the GM had created magical shards that when found we could use to buff an item or our characters abilities. Was a really cool mechanic but possibly a bit overtuned.

Some examples of how player decisions drove play.
The great old one warlock founded a cult/church in our town for the great old one. Part of that process involved him taking one of the magical shards and jabbing himself in the chest with it, which later on caused a large center eye and some eyestalk-esque things to grow from him. This granted him some supernatural abilities which allowed his influence to grow and many townsfolk heeded his words. He picked the churches tenets. Etc. His church became a backdrop for future adventures and future characters to interact with (after the TPK we played new PC's in this same world some 200 years later).

My wizard had a very mad scientist vibe that would push toward anything mysterious to learn more of it. He would 'experiment' to see what worked. He took detailed notes of everything. He imbued his book of notes and spells with a magical shard and when he died a fragment of his consciousness moved over to the spellbook which created a really cool book of knowledge type item that could display information when the players asked about something.

Or consider the time we were exploring and first encountered the underground dwarves. One of the PC's introduced them to alcohol which was quite entertaining. They were having problems with some underground burrowing creatures. We aided them (hopes of forming an alliance between them and our village). My character was a monk at the time and we had previously found a strong magical spear. We learned it was actually a sacred weapon to the dwarves. So after helping the dwarves drive out the enemies and position themselves to fight and win a war against those creatures I had the choice to give them back the spear. I did so and it helped secure the alliance and opened up dwarves as a playable race for our future characters.

Or the time where we were transported to a dying world with tieflings (their sun god was dying). There was a way to save his people but one of us would have to stay behind. No one had to make that decision but one of the players did. PC death.

Or when I played my tempest cleric and I asked the DM what the weather was and had my PC make omens based on the weather and other natural happenings. The DM jumped on that opportunity and often gave my character hints through weather happenings.

The experience was very organic. I cannot say how much the DM had preplanned and how much he improvised, but regardless - my choices mattered, the other players choices mattered, we could shape play based on our characters and their decisions and I'm sure with different characters some radically different things would have happened.

 

[Manbearcat]

But the "memory" isn't really that; its an invitation in this case for the GM to create something new. And if you don't see why that's different, I don't see why keeping going around about it is going to change that; I can promise you a number of people in this discussion do.

On the first sentence, can I get some clarification please?

Are you saying the accumulated knowledge or the memories of a a character can't be represented by (a) declaring an action to consult your accumulated knowledge/memories in order act upon it and then (b) rolling the games fortune resolution mechanic to find out what happens because no PC actually has accumulated knowledge or memory as they (the PCs and/or their accumulated knowledge/memories) are imagined things? Therefore, anytime these faculties are deployed in a game to effect a change in the gamestate, it can only be an invitation for the GM (or system) to change the gamestate (thereby creating something new)?

If that is indeed the correct reading of what you're saying...then how is any facet of character exempt from this?

How is facility with weapon or climbing or rhetoric exempt from this? Just like accumulated knowledge/memories and the PC who deploys them, they are imagined things. Hence anytime these faculties are deployed in a game to effect a change in the gamestate, it can only be an invitation for the GM (or system) to change the gamestate (thereby creating something new)?

The game and its pieces and its fiction has no internal causality and no volition without us (the participants). We invest it with that the same way that a computer modeler parameterizes a model with an algorithm and parameters and hits "run" or an author or puppeteer or jazz musician breathes life into their work.


If I've missed the mark and that isn't what you're saying...can you clarify what it is that you're saying?

 

[FrogReaver]

So if we have something existing, like an orc or an ancient and inaccessible mountain range, then someone authoring a change to it in a way mechanically supported by the rules such as adding a wound or a dwarven forge is okay?

In both cases it's taking something existing and adding something new. I know that doesn't change it for you, this is more to point out that the stated point of contention really isn't it - can you drill down further to work out what the real issue you have with it is?

I’ve listed the differences in more detail than most anyone else in this thread. If you don’t accept that those differences matter then no amount of drilling into the differences is going to help.

 

[Thomas Shey]

On the first sentence, can I get some clarification please?

Are you saying the accumulated knowledge or the memories of a a character can't be represented by (a) declaring an action to consult your accumulated knowledge/memories in order act upon it and then (b) rolling the games fortune resolution mechanic to find out what happens because no PC actually has accumulated knowledge or memory as they (the PCs and/or their accumulated knowledge/memories) are imagined things? Therefore, anytime these faculties are deployed in a game to effect a change in the gamestate, it can only be an invitation for the GM (or system) to change the gamestate (thereby creating something new)?

Generically, no. Its possible, after all, for the GM to simply be revealing something he'd already established but not yet revealed to the players, or even (and I've done this before in various games) to remind the player of something he's previously revealed, but the player had forgotten.

That does not, however, seem to be the default usage in the PbtA example presented; its an invitation by the player for the GM (within constraints) to add in a new element that had not existed in any real sense prior to that invitation. It may be something that can be fitted into the fiction seamlessly (that's at least the ideal), but it previously had not existed in any meaningful, real sense.

If that is indeed the correct reading of what you're saying...then how is any facet of character exempt from this?

How is facility with weapon or climbing or rhetoric exempt from this? Just like accumulated knowledge/memories and the PC who deploys them, they are imagined things. Hence anytime these faculties are deployed in a game to effect a change in the gamestate, it can only be an invitation for the GM (or system) to change the gamestate (thereby creating something new)?

But its really not; its changing things only in terms of in-game processes. Whether an orc dodges and gets missed, the sword cuts him, or the player fumbles it, this is representation of process that's actually going on in-game. Its being created in a sense, but in that sense its being created in world, the same way someone building a wall would be doing so.

The material created via the process at hand, is largely ex nihilio; it does not represent any actual process in-game. Remembering something is not creating it, but that's what happens here to serve the game agenda. Its not something that actually changes anything in-game contextually except informatively, but in practice it makes a reality that would not exist any other way.

And those are simply different things. People don't understand that's true (whether or not they understand why that matters to people) are really kind of hard to take seriously here, and it absolutely makes it impossible to have a discussion about why one is desirable and the other not or not, because to people on the other side they're attempting to argue that chalk is cheese because they both start with a ch.

The game and its pieces and its fiction has no internal causality and no volition without us (the participants). We invest it with that the same way that a computer modeler parameterizes a model with an algorithm and parameters and hits "run" or an author or puppeteer or jazz musician breathes life into their work.

That's true, but bluntly, irrelevant. The fact on a meta level its so does not mean the distinction does not matter.

If I've missed the mark and that isn't what you're saying...can you clarify what it is that you're saying?

I don't think you're wrong, but I still think you're struggling with either understanding the distinction or understanding why its important.

 

[FrogReaver]

Generically, no. Its possible, after all, for the GM to simply be revealing something he'd already established but not yet revealed to the players, or even (and I've done this before in various games) to remind the player of something he's previously revealed, but the player had forgotten.

That does not, however, seem to be the default usage in the PbtA example presented; its an invitation by the player for the GM (within constraints) to add in a new element that had not existed in any real sense prior to that invitation. It may be something that can be fitted into the fiction seamlessly (that's at least the ideal), but it previously had not existed in any meaningful, real sense.



But its really not; its changing things only in terms of in-game processes. Whether an orc dodges and gets missed, the sword cuts him, or the player fumbles it, this is representation of process that's actually going on in-game. Its being created in a sense, but in that sense its being created in world, the same way someone building a wall would be doing so.

The material created via the process at hand, is largely ex nihilio; it does not represent any actual process in-game. Remembering something is not creating it, but that's what happens here to serve the game agenda. Its not something that actually changes anything in-game contextually except informatively, but in practice it makes a reality that would not exist any other way.

And those are simply different things. People don't understand that's true (whether or not they understand why that matters to people) are really kind of hard to take seriously here, and it absolutely makes it impossible to have a discussion about why one is desirable and the other not or not, because to people on the other side they're attempting to argue that chalk is cheese because they both start with a ch.



That's true, but bluntly, irrelevant. The fact on a meta level its so does not mean the distinction does not matter.



I don't think you're wrong, but I still think you're struggling with either understanding the distinction or understanding why its important.

I found the idea of building the wall to be particularly insightful. If the PC's set down to build a forge (or wall) no one has any issue with a forge being authored into the fiction that way. Which points out that the issue isn't simply about the authoring of a forge, instead it's something particular with the way the authoring is being done - which I think you've explained very well.

IMO this is interesting to me because one of the most often cited differences between Story Now and D&D is that Story Now allows for fiction to be authored differently. In Story Now - there's a process (or different process) for it, there's presumably more player input that goes into it. The 'how' is what's different, not the 'what'.