D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Ovinomancer]

@Crimson Longinus
Since you have no content here to quote, I have to note that your response that you said I didn't address your point that you outlined when my response was directly to that -- the in-fiction ability is based entirely on "but magic" as an explanation. Again, this is a uncritical analysis. To that point, you're saying the player with magic can do just about anything so long as the spell says so and "but magic" is on the table. Meanwhile, a character cannot recall something because that's both not "but magic" and also because the GM should not be constrained by the system in how they answer because you're not used to the system constraining the GM in these cases. You're perfectly fine with such constraints in combat, and you're fine with outright handing over authority if "but magic" is invoked, but remembering something the GM didn't expressly tell you or that isn't passed through the GM's thinking first? No, this is bad, the GM cannot have their authority limited in this way.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

From the outside, this discussion looks to have degraded to a few diehards that will simply keep replying to each other until the other side stops. This is not constructive.

So, please be aware that this thread is being considered for closure as an attractive nuisance.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Where does the Folk Hero Rogue overthrow the feudal order? Lead a peasant revolt?

Let’s have fun with this. Let’s say the hill giants have taken one of the peasants and the rogue, being a Folk Hero, decides to get her back. He gives a stirring speech and 8 peasants (stats spearman) decide to accompany him. They follow the trail to the hill giant barrow.

Probably with a large group stealthing through the barrow is not an option, unless they use the spearmen as a distraction.

 

[Cadence]

@Ovinomancer and @pemerton - in case the thread gets closed, thank you for.your last replies to my questions. I haven't had time to digest them yet and won't for a day or two the way life is going - but they seemed helpful on a quick skim.

 

[FrozenNorth]

None of those things actually were different because of the different characters, though. The places were there both times. The people were there both times. The differences here are the choices in play, but if you swapped out a character in each party, you'd not have any really meaningful differences. The game, the goal, the locations -- all the same.

This seems to denying the agency of the characters. Where the party chooses to go, what they decide to do there, and whether they succeed absolutely depends on the character as much as the decision.

A Folk Hero Rogue will probably try to rally Vallaki against the Burgomaster, but I couldn’t tell you how that it would work out, since that depends on both the character and the dice.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I assure the APs I played in were run by human GMs, and I assure you that our characters didn't matter at all to them.

Are you sure? I recommend sneaking up on them and hitting them with a big hammer just to make sure.*

*Your results may vary.

 

[prabe]

Are you sure? I recommend sneaking up on them and hitting them with a big hammer just to make sure.*

*Your results may vary.

I fail to see what hitting an AP with a hammer would accomplish ...

 

[hawkeyefan]

I played through Curse of Strahd. Once finished I watched a playthrough of the same game by a different group (PuffinForest’s video).

The two games were meaningfully different in virtually every sense of the word. The people they met different. Places that were visited, different. Stuff that was important to the characters, different. Why we did things was different. Even when his group and my group met the same characters (such as Rictavio), they were essentially the different characters with the same name.

In order to say that they are they same, you have to zoom out to a ridiculous level.

Can you share how they were different?

Again, I expect differences. There’ll be choices made by the players that will influence the flow of events. Perhaps a GM will portray an NPC in a very different manner. I’m not denying that.

What I’m asking is of you think how to deal with the situation in Vallaki is a meaningful difference? Yes, one group might outright slay the baron. Another group may lay low and avoid dealing with the baron and his men as much as possible. A third group might ally with the baron by helping him deal with the threat of Fiona Wachter.

That the obstacle can be dealt with in a number of ways is, to me, less significant than the fact that this obstacle will exist for all who play the adventure. So will Baba Lysaga and the Abbot and the werewolves and the ghosts of Arghenvoldsthold (however the hell you spell that place’s name).

The adventure will revolve around collection of certain items/people/information and then a confrontation with Strahd. The order in which these things are gathered, the locations of them (or the identity in the case of the ally), matter far less than that they are gathered.

That’s what I mean by meaningful.

 

[Ovinomancer]

This seems to denying the agency of the characters. Where the party chooses to go, what they decide to do there, and whether they succeed absolutely depends on the character as much as the decision.

A Folk Hero Rogue will probably try to rally Vallaki against the Burgomaster, but I couldn’t tell you how that it would work out, since that depends on both the character and the dice.

No, I'm not, you're missing my point repeatedly by looking at these choices as if they even address my point. I absolutely agree that players have agency in how to deal with the challenges in the AP, and the details of play will differ, I'm just pointing out that the differences are going to be constrained by elements the players do not control -- the wickets the AP requires to move through -- and that none of the challenges are at all based on which character is there. Which character addresses them may have a difference in how they're overcome, but the challenge is the same for all of them.

As you note, a folk hero may choose to engage the challenge of the Burogmaster in one way. A paladin may choose to engage the challenge of the Burgomaster another way. The Burgomaster presents the same challenge to both, though, or to a barbarian, or to a wizard, or to an elf, or to a halfling. The challenges the Burgomaster presents exist regardless of what character faces them. You can interchange characters and the Burgomaster is the same. This is my point -- what play will be about doesn't change with the characters. The only thing that changes is how that challenge is overcome -- the details of play. This is true throughout these APs, and even in many homebrew games. It's the predominant paradigm of play in 5e -- challenges are not dependent upon the characters facing them. It's how we have PC deaths but the story doesn't radically change with that death or the introduction of the replacement character.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I am really not claiming that immersion must work in certain way. Merely that certain mechanics affect immersion of different people differently and thus it is useful to have terminology for such mechanics. It could be also be for purpose of one liking such mechanics, thus seeking games that have them. What I find bizarre is the insistence that the distinction doesn't even exist.

What if one person thinks of a given mechanic as falling into one category and someone else disagrees about that categorization?

Perhaps that person would argue notthat there are no distinctions, but rather that the distinction does not, in that case, apply.

There are games where players have no such authority at all,

Do you really think so? What game doesn’t do this?