D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Manbearcat]

It's not one sided like that, though. The players are also drawing things that force the DM to adjust his drawing, so it's a shared drawing experience.

Example. DM draws an ogre, thinking that there will be a fight. Players see the ogre drawing and the party illusionist casts a spell drawing himself as an ogress and begins to speak to the ogre. Now the DM and player jointly draw an ogre interaction instead of a fight.

That's how Story Before goes. It's a joint art project, even though the DM has backstory. Unless the DM forces the backstory(or parts of the back story) to happen no matter what the players try and do, there is no force or railroading going on.

Well done Story Before features a lot of things that ham-fisted Story Before does not (my response to prabe which I C/P above about railroading vs not in Story Before attempts to capture that).

Also, there are a lot of folks (I sense you're one of them...ER is clearly another) which have some kind of synthesis of Story Before and Story Now happening simultaneously.

But in the above analogy (for explanatory power I'm examining at the zoomed out concept level), I'm just trying to cite a particular instance of play for both Story Now and Story Before, not the entire composite of play (eg from Session 1 all the way to Session Donezo).

For that (one unit of play), it basically looks like this formulation:

STORY BEFORE (as Pictionary)

Unrevealed backstory > GM draws picture > player's make inferences/solves > players either solve or they don't based on a composite of (a) GM skill in drawing and (b) player skill in inferring and integrating

(In Story Before play, backstory now revealed can then be relevant to subsequent player moves or GM situation framing...or we can move on to a new section of play where play moves to a new suite of unrevealed backstory and rinse/repeat above)

STORY NOW (as Telephone)

Inciting thing > filtered through snowballing procedure (for Telephone that is a chain of whispering and listening) > evolved and established thing

(In Story Now play, this evolved and established thing can be any/all of character/setting/situation...we learned about Bob, we learned about Bob's hometown, we learned about the clustereff relating to Bob's brother and how that fallout is haunting us presently)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Are those laws openly known to the whole table and the player forgot them? Sure. Are they not known to the player? No, you have a conflict. Is the setting so dense that it's easy to not know these kinds of details? You, again, have a conflict.

What does it mean to be 'openly known'? Is it openly known how inheritance of 9th century English noble titles work? I mean it is knowable, but do the players actually know it? Also, why it matters if the players in theory knew the thing and just forgot, didn't know it in the first place, or couldn't even have known? In all of the cases they don't actually have the information available when making the decisions unless someone provides it to them.

 

[niklinna]

I know the games you speak of and I understand what you say just fine. It just seems to be rather removed from the actual thing I'm talking about. I am not really talking about 'secret backstory' in a sense that it is something the play endeavours to uncover, I'm merely talking about basic information about the setting. Can the GM say: "No, that action declaration makes no sense, as laws pertaining inheritance of noble titles doesn't work like that in this country"?

Well the GM can say it, but then it likely won't really be either Story Now or No-Myth play (which, again, is fine if you're having fun). The goals of the two styles are fundamentally in conflict. Which can be negotiated and maneuvered between, if you're aware of the conflict and of particular instances as they arise in play.

And as @Ovinomancer said, there's a big difference between:

"No, that action declaration makes no sense, as laws pertaining inheritance of noble titles doesn't work like that in this country, and you learned that two sessions ago."

and

"No, that action declaration makes no sense], as laws pertaining inheritance of noble titles doesn't work like that in this country, a fact I made up without revealing (whether earlier on on the fly) and you don't get to assert facts about the world (at least not right now)".

Which, again, is fine if you're all having fun. But it still isn't either Story Now or No-Myth play, and if you want to try to mix the two, again, you need to be very clear about when the GM gets to shut the players down (and possibly vice-versa).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Well the GM can say it, but then it won't really be either Story Now or No-Myth play (which, again, is fine if you're having fun). The goals of the two styles are fundamentally in conflict. Which can be negotiated and maneuvered between, if you're aware of the conflict and of particular instances as they arise in play.

And as @Ovinomancer said, there's a big difference between:



and



Which, again, is fine if you're all having fun. But it still isn't either Story Now or No-Myth play, and if you want to try to mix the two, again, you need to be very clear about when the GM gets to shut the players down (and possibly vice-versa).

So you're basically saying that you cannot play Story Now in an established setting. Which to me seems perfectly coherent, but I don't think that's how everybody sees things.

 

[niklinna]

So you're basically saying that you cannot play Story Now in an established setting. Which to me seems perfectly coherent, but I don't think that's how everybody sees things.

I said there's a fundamental conflict, and I also said you can mix them (as some people on this thread have described doing), but you need to be clear about it. You can have Story Now play occurring within an established setting (that is, established by the author/GM), but at some point Story Now—which is about creating the setting as you go—will bump up against contradictory facts that haven't been previously introduced in play. And then you have to switch modes, as it were, or at least make it clear to the players that this is where the bounds are. The GM could even do that before play starts in whatever setting description they provide.

It's not about what's allowed, or that things can't be done, full stop. It's about recognizing which mode you're in, from moment to moment. If you are mixing and matching, it's an additional cognitive load to switch modes. Some people don't enjoy switching modes in a single game/campaign, some do. But the modes of play are distinct.

 

[Ovinomancer]

What does it mean to be 'openly known'? Is it openly known how inheritance of 9th century English noble titles work? I mean it is knowable, but do the players actually know it? Also, why it matters if the players in theory knew the thing and just forgot, didn't know it in the first place, or couldn't even have known? In all of the cases they don't actually have the information available when making the decisions unless someone provides it to them.

If one of the important things in your game is fidelity to fiddly bits of setting detail, including looking up 9th century English title law, then it's perhaps best that you select a system that engages here rather than one that does not. I would say that if the setting is as important a character as your question makes it out to be, a game that focuses on the dramatic needs of characters foremost would be a poor fit. To use one of my go to statements, it looks like you want to play Risk so don't set up a Monopoly game.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So you're basically saying that you cannot play Story Now in an established setting. Which to me seems perfectly coherent, but I don't think that's how everybody sees things.

No. Totally incorrect. If you want to prioritize a setting that has deep details (or look up 9th century legal systems), then it's likely that you're intending the setting to be very important in play. If so, you should probably select a system that doesn't fight this. On the other hand, if you want to run a game in a setting where the focus is on what the characters' dramatic needs are, you absolutely can.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No. Totally incorrect. If you want to prioritize a setting that has deep details (or look up 9th century legal systems), then it's likely that you're intending the setting to be very important in play. If so, you should probably select a system that doesn't fight this. On the other hand, if you want to run a game in a setting where the focus is on what the characters' dramatic needs are, you absolutely can.

This is wishy washy. Either the external setting details can be used to limit action declarations or they can't. And if they can't, an established setting cannot be used in any meaningful sense, as it cannot be binding.

 

[Ovinomancer]

This is wishy washy. Either the external setting details can be used to limit action declarations or they can't. And if they can't, an established setting cannot be used in any meaningful sense, as it cannot be binding.

Is finding traps in 5e a WIS(perception) check or a INT(investigation) check or is it just something the GM provides if the right actions are taken?

There has to be only one answer.

 

[niklinna]

No. Totally incorrect. If you want to prioritize a setting that has deep details (or look up 9th century legal systems), then it's likely that you're intending the setting to be very important in play. If so, you should probably select a system that doesn't fight this. On the other hand, if you want to run a game in a setting where the focus is on what the characters' dramatic needs are, you absolutely can.

This is wishy washy. Either the external setting details can be used to limit action declarations or they can't. And if they can't, an established setting cannot be used in any meaningful sense, as it cannot be binding.

Is finding traps in 5e a WIS(perception) check or a INT(investigation) check or is it just something the GM provides if the right actions are taken?

There has to be only one answer.

What is it on some of these threads with the absolutes?

I just said a few posts above that a group can mix the use of external setting details to limit action/fact declarations with Story-Now play—as long as they're clear about the bounds and the mode-switching. But it's extra work! @Ovinomancer's point was that you'll be better served by a system that meshes with your goals for play, so you have less work to make it, er, work.

As for finding traps in 5e, while I do detect sarcasm, I'll take the straight reading and say no, there doesn't have to be only one answer. It can depend on context. Some traps are simple but subtle, some are devious and complex. Or, the check could allow for whichever the character is better in. Or, the GM could decide based on the actions the player describes doing to search for traps, which check to roll for, or maybe the actions are just what's needed to reveal the trap without a die roll at all. Hm, that's starting to sound pretty old-school, I'd better stop there!