On "Illusionism" (+)

[GrahamWills]

But mostly here I'm annoyed that I suggested you go back and read the OP as well as the linked essay on railroading and you clearly didn't do so, and are so now off on a tangent of your own making

Oh, I read the OP carefully. It's all about Illusionism, which is what I wrote about. Your response then equated that style with railroading (which, despite your personal definition, is a pejorative term). Your definition of railroading is so fundamentally far from the common use that I rejected it; there's no point reading an article "How to cook meat" when the author's definition of meat doesn't match my supermarkets.

I never would have said "record of the encounter". The term I use for that would be "transcript". So, what you are half remembering here is not an accurate account of what I wrote, or what we discussed, or really anything. It's a mixed up jumble of half-remembered thoughts taken out of context that has nothing at all to do with my actual use of game terms or how I define them.

So ... the difference between "transcript of the encounter" and "record of the encounter" is so fundamental that if I use one rather than another, it makes your position completely different?
If there is one thing I definitely have learned from 30+ years of internet debate, it's that anytime someone starts saying they have special meanings for common words that are different from standard use, there is little point conversing with them.

But if you had actually read the essay I suggested, you would have noted that right at the beginning I wrote:
"Some distinction should be made in my opinion between the act of limiting player choice (“railroading”) and a game which has limited or no player choice as its most salient feature (a “railroad”)."

If you had read that and understood it, then you would never have preached to me about the following as if that had never occurred to me:

It's not that I don't think it occurs to you, it's just that you say it, and then post as if you have never read that yourself! Let me be very specific -- My example of the GPC campaign with a fixed position of "Arthur dies in the final battle" which I falls under the first definition, you then characterize as "a game running on rails" which is your second definition. This lack of ability to draw the distinction is exactly why your position comes off as extreme; you see one trace of "railroading" and the next thing you define the campaign as running on rails, and then sum up your post with "[players] play a grand campaign in which the PCs can do whatever they like, but they can only observe great events and never change them."

Please re-read how you are doing this; read exactly what (three times now) I have stated exactly one fixed point for the GPC example campaign and how you consistently conflate that with a game where the PCs "can only observe great events and never change them". You have moved from my single example of restricting player agency to asserting that I restrict player agency for every great event. And you have done so even when I made it abundantly clear that I do not.

If you do that, can you see why I feel you are pushing things to extremes?

 

[GrahamWills]

One question I have for the group is: What are people's thought on the interaction between buying into a premise and railroading/illusionism?

A: If I start a one-shot with the premise "you are all adventurers sworn to protect the Duke", and the players accept the premise, then is it railroading to expect them to protect the Duke? Specifically if I start a scene with "You meet the next morning with the captain to discuss how to protect the Duke from the assassination", would you consider that railroading?

B: If I started a one-shot with an intro scene that has an assassin attacking the duke and you defending him and then jumped back a week, is that railroading because we're going to get that scene no matter what, or is it the players accepting the premise that we're playing to see how we get to that point?

C: If I run a campaign where I say "The Duke is a key character and will survive as the Duke no matter what", and the players like that idea, buy into it and in play support the premise; is that railroading?

Now if I do not set up the premise, then for (A) forcing the players to turn up to protect him does feel like railroading (assuming the players made non-guard characters). For (B) Without the intro scene you could well argue that it is illusionism if I ensure that we get to that final scene no matter what, and for (C) an invulnerable Duke, over years of play, certainly will seem like illusionism.

So, as a summary question: Given that players buying into a premise is explicitly giving up some agency, does the fact that they have done so essentially make railroading (which is the GM forcing players down a route) not applicable?

 

[payn]

One question I have for the group is: What are people's thought on the interaction between buying into a premise and railroading/illusionism?

A: If I start a one-shot with the premise "you are all adventurers sworn to protect the Duke", and the players accept the premise, then is it railroading to expect them to protect the Duke? Specifically if I start a scene with "You meet the next morning with the captain to discuss how to protect the Duke from the assassination", would you consider that railroading?

Not necessarily, this is just playing out a scenario or type. At some point, Id expect to get free reign over the character, but I would respect the parameters of the one shot. I think folks that want to explore a particular and specific experience should embrace the one shot like this instead of shoehorning it into a long campaign..

B: If I started a one-shot with an intro scene that has an assassin attacking the duke and you defending him and then jumped back a week, is that railroading because we're going to get that scene no matter what, or is it the players accepting the premise that we're playing to see how we get to that point?

This is what I would consider a prologue and can set up a scenario nicely. Again, I would expect at some point to be given reign over the character. If there will be multiple cut-scenes like this, it would feel railroaded to me.

C: If I run a campaign where I say "The Duke is a key character and will survive as the Duke no matter what", and the players like that idea, buy into it and in play support the premise; is that railroading?

Sounds like plot armor for the Duke. The GM would really really have to sell me on what's going on here and why I should go along for the ride. The particulars would help determine the extent of the railroad. If the Duke is just a benefactor with little concern over the gameplay and PC decisions, it wouldn't really matter to me.

Now if I do not set up the premise, then for (A) forcing the players to turn up to protect him does feel like railroading (assuming the players made non-guard characters). For (B) Without the intro scene you could well argue that it is illusionism if I ensure that we get to that final scene no matter what, and for (C) an invulnerable Duke, over years of play, certainly will seem like illusionism.

I think this is the biggest mistake folks can make. They want the "Duke" scenario, but they let the players believe they are free to explore whatever in a generic campaign. I dont think railroading is bad (to a degree) if the premise is well stated up front. It's the hidden GM agenda that usually makes this an issue.

So, as a summary question: Given that players buying into a premise is explicitly giving up some agency, does the fact that they have done so essentially make railroading (which is the GM forcing players down a route) not applicable?

It becomes a matter of degrees I suppose. I don't mind following a particular scenario, especially for the short term, but I still expect to have some agency and control over the character and story. There still has to be a game here or I wont be interested. YMMV.

 

[aramis erak]

Does anyone else think that the classic "fade to 3 days previously" is an example of railroading? That it takes away from player agency so much that it puts the whole adventure on rails? Again, your extreme use of the term means that even exceptionally common GM techniques that most people would agree are cool and fun fall into the pejorative term "railroading"

I think it often is a strong bit of railroad-like play; it's a technique that only works well when players buy in, as if the players choose to step away, it needs a fade back in rather than the TV-show style "Now" bumper, then after the opening credits, " X U ago..." and the story rolls on through the bumper and onward to climax...
In a few games, esp. 3:16, the use of flashbacks is to far enough back that they don't directly affect the story state at the point invoked; they show a lesson learned that applies to the current situation, changing the outcome of the current situation.

Flashbacks are also a straightjacket for the GM... any threat to a PC's health or sanity may invalidate story.

The longer they are, the more railroady they become.

Again, the extremism. I state that I plan, in probably 5 years of game time, to have a one fixed final scene, and Celebrim translates that to being a campaign running on rails. If I correlate time with distance, this is like saying that if lay 20 miles of track into Berlin, that is enough to establish a railroad between Chicago and Berlin.

I tend to agree with you about that not being a railroad for the whole campaign; I've not had a campaign make it to that tail end, because in Pendragon, I grant no character script immunity, not even Arthur; Arthur's 565 prescription is only if the PCs or the battles that PCs are in, do not cause it to be earlier.
Thus most of my campaigns end in the 550s, and not the plot railroad final destination. There is a railroad there, in GPC... but it's one that moves at the same pace as PCs, and PCs can easily divert from it for large periods.

 

[aramis erak]

One question I have for the group is: What are people's thought on the interaction between buying into a premise and railroading/illusionism?

A: If I start a one-shot with the premise "you are all adventurers sworn to protect the Duke", and the players accept the premise, then is it railroading to expect them to protect the Duke? Specifically if I start a scene with "You meet the next morning with the captain to discuss how to protect the Duke from the assassination", would you consider that railroading?

No. It's a social contract of the campaign. Straight jacket? Yes, Railroad, no.

B: If I started a one-shot with an intro scene that has an assassin attacking the duke and you defending him and then jumped back a week, is that railroading because we're going to get that scene no matter what, or is it the players accepting the premise that we're playing to see how we get to that point?

Depends upon the players. See my above post.

C: If I run a campaign where I say "The Duke is a key character and will survive as the Duke no matter what", and the players like that idea, buy into it and in play support the premise; is that railroading?

No. Again, it's a social contract. At least it is if you obtain informed consent.

Now if I do not set up the premise, then for (A) forcing the players to turn up to protect him does feel like railroading (assuming the players made non-guard characters). For (B) Without the intro scene you could well argue that it is illusionism if I ensure that we get to that final scene no matter what, and for (C) an invulnerable Duke, over years of play, certainly will seem like illusionism.

A, potentially.
B: absolutely illusionism if done in that mode.
c; it can be an illusion, or it can be a special ability...
... I can image the poor, broken body of the duke, taking years to heal his T1-2 vertebral severance, giving orders from a litter, his beguiled knights continuing to enforce his will as he slowly recovers from wounds that would kill any human...

So, as a summary question: Given that players buying into a premise is explicitly giving up some agency, does the fact that they have done so essentially make railroading (which is the GM forcing players down a route) not applicable?

No. Not railroading, if they aren't agreeing to one sole path.
Looking back at the many D&D modules I've run, most dungeons have a finite number of ways through them, but the player accessible ways are often far fewer.

One underground dungeon I wrote up for T&T had 3 possible means of ingress/egress... but only one guarded. (The guarded section used the Toilet float valve mechanism to dump a measured amount of naphthalene upon the door opening individual with the metal door containing a striker throwing sparks down into said fluid. This lead to a hallway 20' long 5' wide separated from a room 20×15' by a fixed array of bars... with guards in the room... a separate bolt, worked from the far wall of the guard room, opened each of the doors on the hallway; a third bolt disengaged the trap.) The two unguarded were less easily traversed... one was the kitchen's hot-flue, the other the cesspit vent. The players never found the cold influx flues for the firepit... The hot flue was 10" across - only the fairy could make it down. The Cespit flue was 15" across... the hobb might have made it. The Wizard made third level, and could have used Slush/Yuck to both put out the fire and go down that way safely. They could have used other means to listen for the code word and use it to bypass the trap. (which they eventually did.) They could have blown the door down... but didn't want to risk it, seeing as the door was 50' under the surface.
Was that a railroad? In many ways, yes. There were three separate spur routes leading to the switching center (the main hall of the goblinhold)...
It took them six sessions to break in... and raised them three levels... but they had fun figuring it out. They didn't object to picking a rail for entry... and they slaughtered one and all inside. They didn't even mind the treasure being trapped... a rasta puppet dragon.

 

[Celebrim]

One question I have for the group is: What are people's thought on the interaction between buying into a premise and railroading/illusionism?

A: If I start a one-shot with the premise "you are all adventurers sworn to protect the Duke", and the players accept the premise, then is it railroading to expect them to protect the Duke?

No. This is basic session zero stuff, and when they accept the premise you are all good.

Specifically if I start a scene with "You meet the next morning with the captain to discuss how to protect the Duke from the assassination", would you consider that railroading?

No. This is just a basic start of campaign or adventure bang. You haven't really taken any agency away at this point. It's at this point that the players start making choices. Whether they decide as a group to go along with the plot and how far they go along with it, who knows. I have plenty of times had players zag when I expected a zig and utterly refuse a hook and go their own way. Before I know it they are making friends with the guy who is secretly the BBEG and they've decided to take a personal dislike to the Duke. Recently, I had the players decide that rather than do the adventure in order to smooth things over with an NPC they'd just hire a lawyer and sue him.

B: If I started a one-shot with an intro scene that has an assassin attacking the duke and you defending him and then jumped back a week, is that railroading because we're going to get that scene no matter what, or is it the players accepting the premise that we're playing to see how we get to that point?

Yes. That's railroading. Because if you jump back a week's time, during that week all sorts of things could happen, including the party deciding they don't want to help the Duke, finding and killing the assassin before the planned time, and so forth. You've not only exercised metagame direction in basically telling the players "If you don't play along with my plot you'll ruin the game", but you are also going to need to have cleverly constructed the scenario to get it to play out such that what you intend to have happen will happen.

And in my case, I'd probably need to smooth this over out of game and explain to the players out of game what was going on, because my players would probably have the first inclination when I did a flashback that they had literally jumped back in time and that they were stuck in a "Cause and Effect" time loop of some sort and that they game would keep going in circles until they figured out how to break the loop.

C: If I run a campaign where I say "The Duke is a key character and will survive as the Duke no matter what", and the players like that idea, buy into it and in play support the premise; is that railroading?

Yes. That's railroading. If the players like idea and buy into it, then it's "All aboard, choo choo!" My players would probably literally make that sound.

You're committed to your idea that "railroading" is a pejorative all the time and that seems to color how you are phrasing things. Further, you don't seem to distinguish between the verb "railroad" and the noun "railroad". The result is that you are trying to have a binary where either something is "a railroad" or it is "not a railroad" rather than having like a scale of 0-100 on how much "railroading" is going on in a campaign.

So, as a summary question: Given that players buying into a premise is explicitly giving up some agency, does the fact that they have done so essentially make railroading (which is the GM forcing players down a route) not applicable?

This is "metagame direction" technique in my essay on railroading. You are telling the players how they will play out the scene and maybe even the whole campaign. If you get agreement, great, but it's still railroading. For me, as a GM I spend the whole time thinking that probably at least one player is very unhappy with the premise but is keeping quiet and going along with it because they don't want to spoil the game. I'd never advise a novice GM to use the technique because my suspicion is that it would just end up with GMs bullying players into getting aboard their railroads.

 

[Lanefan]

@Celebrim I've noticed that when you start using game terms, you seem to use them in the most extreme version possible. When we were talking about fudging, you defined it as "anything that changes the record of the encounter", meaning that use of X-cards, deciding not to narrate a villain death scene, shortening a scene for pacing -- everything is defined as "fudging".

Similarly here, you seem to be defining any constraint placed on players actions that is not requied by the world definition as railroading.

Now here's the thing about railroads. They have rails. Lots of it, and you stay on it all the time. Having one fixed piece of track does not make a railroad -- you need it all the way. If I put a piece of track outside my front door in Chicago, and a friend in Berlin put a piece of track outside their front door, it would be ludicrous to suggest I had built a Chicago-Berlin railroad. Now perhaps some small gaps are admissible, but in the normal sense of the word, a railroad is an essentially complete system of transport on rails where little to no deviation is allowed.

In game terms, it's ok to broaden this a little bit, but for a game to be a railroad, it must remove player agency at least a high percentage of the time. Maybe not 99%+, as a real-world railroad does, but it's got to be the predominant fact of the campaign. We can debate the exact percentage of the time, but your assertion that a Pendragon campaign that lasts 5 years is a railroad because it has one fixed point in it is like my proposed Chicago-Berlin railroad. It's a ludicrous suggestion.

I do not accept your extremist definition of railroading. One piece of track does not make a railroad. To be railroading, you need to be continually removing player agency to ensure a given fixed point.

There's an in-between state that I think many would still define as railroading, that being that there's lots of different rails that go lots of different places and crisscross numerous times while doing so (think the London Underground) and the primary player-side choice is which rail to ride until a crossing point comes along, where they can - if they like - transfer to a different rail.

Does anyone else think that the classic "fade to 3 days previously" is an example of railroading?

Very much so, yes; in that enough elements of the outcome are already known (e.g. if all the PCs with all their gear are present now, none of them can have died or lost everything three days ago in the flashback) to make it one.

That it takes away from player agency so much that it puts the whole adventure on rails? Again, your extreme use of the term means that even exceptionally common GM techniques that most people would agree are cool and fun fall into the pejorative term "railroading"

Flashbacks in RPGs are neither cool nor fun. They work great in books and movies where the end-state of the plot is written down but don't work in situations where the story is emergent and the end-state is by definition unknown and unforeseeable. If played through as normal you have to railroad the hell out of the flashback in order to prevent it changing too many elements already established in the "present day".

I'll finish this response with your quote, because I think it shows the problem you are generating for yourself. You feel that a foreordained conclusion is exactly equivalent to a railroad -- indeed, anything anywhere along the way that is foreordained makes things a railroad.

As the quote goes -- "you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does". Now, maybe I'm wrong and one instance of fixed point means a "campaign on rails". But I'd need to hear that from a larger pool of people

The whole campaign might not be on rails but everything that allows that foreordained conclusion to occur has to be, or else it doesn't occur. (I was thinking about this just the other day after re-reading some of The Belgariad, the entirety of which works on this premise with the key thing being that many of the protagonists don't always realize they're pawns in a greater game and just go about their lives; lives which in fact are one great big railroad)

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, if done in moderation (Eddings massively overdoes it), but let's call it what it is.

 

[Lanefan]

One question I have for the group is: What are people's thought on the interaction between buying into a premise and railroading/illusionism?

A: If I start a one-shot with the premise "you are all adventurers sworn to protect the Duke", and the players accept the premise, then is it railroading to expect them to protect the Duke?

If they accept the premise, it's fine. But that 'if' is doing a lot of work there; and even running just a one-shot I don't think I'd ever ask players to accept that fine-tuned a premise in that it hard-codes too many things about their characters up front without their input:

--- their alignment (clearly they're lawful or they'd never have sworn to anything and meant it, and here the premise revolves around their having meant it)
--- their support of not just monarchical rule in general but of that Duke in particular (otherwise why would they swear to protect him?)
--- a general sense that their social class is not low (what Duke would have low-life alley rats for protection, even if their sworn word was good and true?)

And I'd never try anything like this in an ongoing campaign. Hell, I have enough trouble just starting and ending with "You are all adventurers".

Specifically if I start a scene with "You meet the next morning with the captain to discuss how to protect the Duke from the assassination", would you consider that railroading?

In a one-shot, railroading is often acceptable for time purposes. However, as one-shots are a specific sub-type of game with quite different parameters and conceits than standard campaign games they're probably not a good example to use in more general discussion.

B: If I started a one-shot with an intro scene that has an assassin attacking the duke and you defending him and then jumped back a week, is that railroading because we're going to get that scene no matter what, or is it the players accepting the premise that we're playing to see how we get to that point?

It's a waste of time, in that the players know that no matter what they do or how successful their characters are they still can't prevent that assassin from getting to the Duke in a week.

Better IMO would be to start a week prior and say up front (with a bit more flavour added) "Your goal is simple: keep the Duke alive for a week."

C: If I run a campaign where I say "The Duke is a key character and will survive as the Duke no matter what", and the players like that idea, buy into it and in play support the premise; is that railroading?

It's...something odd, but it's not really railroading.

So, as a summary question: Given that players buying into a premise is explicitly giving up some agency, does the fact that they have done so essentially make railroading (which is the GM forcing players down a route) not applicable?

No. What it does is make railroading acceptable - and accepted by agreement - at that table.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Flashbacks in RPGs are neither cool nor fun. They work great in books and movies where the end-state of the plot is written down but don't work in situations where the story is emergent and the end-state is by definition unknown and unforeseeable. If played through as normal you have to railroad the hell out of the flashback in order to prevent it changing too many elements already established in the "present day".

I'm not sure I agree with this.
1) For my recent time-loop adventure, whenever the characters were doing the opposite of what the BBEG desired, they would receive "new" flashback dialogue scenes with x or y that would provide hints that when applied now would suggest they make a different choice to the one they were making. These flashback scenes were clues that someone was messing with either their mind or with the past.
2) One may roleplay historical fiction of a setting or RL history where the outcome is known. You're suggesting an entire genre of roleplaying is neither cool nor fun.
3) The rpg Summerland deals with characters suffering from some sort of Trauma and they begin with a short descriptor about that Trauma such as It was a dark Friday evening
In the course of the roleplaying game the player is allowed to add to that tying it to the current narrative in order to get a benefit mechanically. Essentially there is a link between the current fiction and the character's trauma and the character leans into that in an effort to overcome some portion of their trauma. For instance,
It was a dark Friday evening, bitterly cold and pouring with rain.
After gaining the mechanical benefit to some action they were performing, the character makes a Trauma check and either recovers some portion of their Trauma (making them more vulnerable to the Call of the forest which has its own challenges) or does not recover any Trauma. So the game continues with these "flashback" scenes adding to the above descriptor until the character deals with their Trauma and become as vulnerable as normal folk to the Call.
I have the first edition of the game - I can confirm it is both fun and cool.

 

[AnotherGuy]

One question I have for the group is: What are people's thought on the interaction between buying into a premise and railroading/illusionism?

C: If I run a campaign where I say "The Duke is a key character and will survive as the Duke no matter what", and the players like that idea, buy into it and in play support the premise; is that railroading?

So I ran a similar mini-campaign once taking into account the historical fiction of a setting (Mystara's Soderfjord), where the characters were possibly instrumental in changing the political landscape of the setting (bringing the Treaty, later known as the Treaty of Allied Dominions to the Thing). I decided that if the characters died, then they were not the heroes who succeeded in instigating the change, but if they did - their names would have become part of the nation's history.
So in my version there was no plot armour and the characters had free reign and the risks of death were ever present.