D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[EzekielRaiden]

This is 100% in my play style and it works great. For the half or so of open minded players. Experience really is the best teacher.

A 50% failure rate is not "great." It is terrible. Can you imagine trying to pitch something like that at your job, whatever job that might be? "We'll lose 50% of <insert thing here>," be it employees, customers, clients, vendors, whatever. You would be laughed out of the room.

50% failure rate is anything BUT "great."

Sometimes....ahem......the only winning move is not to play.

So, because I know the risk of misinterpretation is quite high here...

Are you genuinely saying you would rather drive people out of the hobby than alter your approach slightly so more folks would enjoy your game? And that you think everyone should take this attitude?

 

[Aldarc]

i'm saying it's the GM's job to create interesing things in the world to interact with, but it is the player's job to interact with those things, if the player says 'it's my life's ambition to hunt down my father's killer who fled to the eastern savannah' it is not the GM's duty to drop the killer in their lap if the player spends the next 20 sessions revelling and collecting bounties on no-name bandits in small towns on the western coast doing absolutely nothing to search for the killer, the GM could introduce the killer if they want to, but they have no obligation to.

when i say 'on a silver platter' i mean putting the things the players/characters have claimed interest in into their path without the players requiring any active input towards this.

Conversely, a player could be actively trying to work towards their character's goals and ambitions but because the GM has no obligation to introduce the killer (and possibly no desire to do so), then the character's arc goes absolutely nowhere despite their attempts to fulfill it, which can be a wholly dissatisfying experience for the player. This has been talked about in past discussions. And I can tell you that this has happened to me in a few campaigns that I have played. It sucks.

 

[pemerton]

Regard it as you will.

Don't expect many people to agree with you, though, given that you're taking the great majority of RPG groups out there and applying a usually-derogatory term to how they create/run/play their games and settings.

The GM establishing and controlling the setting is in itself not a railroad, end of story.

Well, you and @Micah Sweet describe the way many other RPGers play as "artificial" without qualms, because you're just sharing your feelings. So I took it that you would be fine with me sharing my feelings about what counts as railroading, because if the GM sets up all the fiction, all the stakes and hence all the consequences then I'm playing (or, if GM, GMing) a railroad.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is fundamentally the demand for perfection.

I said come close, not achieve. This is why the 5e books give such generalized wishy-washy advice. If you come down on any side you will face the unbelievers.

 

[Faolyn]

This is the thing that always rubs me wrong about these systems right here. The construction of a hard or soft move as the means of introducing a conflict and giving the PCs something to do is intuitive and makes sense here. I can see the value in introducing either one of those two scenarios, "go frame someone" or "go become infamous" as interesting problems/scenarios that PCs want to engage with. What I find baffling is that the system makes the resolution of all gameplay into yet more such moves, when I mostly feel like I'm done with that now, and ready to go see how resolving the situation turns out. I find myself wishing there was some other system that was used after a conflict was introduced, where I could do the standard game thing (minimize bad outcomes, maximize positive ones, determine the most efficient/safest/highest reward play to get to whatever goal we just established), but the loop just keeps iterating instead, which feels exhausting and unrewarding.

There is a way to do it, through PC action. For instance, the PCs could decide that they don't want to be scapegoats and tell the captain of the mayor's duplicity. Or they could threaten the mayor into giving the help now. Or they could decide it's not worth it and turn the mayor's offer down. Or they could leave town and go somewhere else. Or they could make a counteroffer. And at this point, the GM has to then decide what move to use in reaction to that. Maybe you could have the mayor offer a different deal or accept the counteroffer (which may intrigue the mayor and lead to new adventure opportunities), or tell the PCs that they're no longer welcome in town and to leave immediately under threat of arrest (which may cause a loss of reputation--which is tracked in Root--in the area and other complications).

And, of course, that example only one potential move the GM can make. The PCs go to the mayor for help. One move is "Show signs of an impending threat." The mayor can give the PCs the help they requested and also tell the PCs that there's a danger in the woods that seems to be getting closer and more violent. Alternatively, the mayor could use the move "Show them what a faction thinks of them," meaning that the mayor may be glad to help them (because he supports a faction the PC is well-known in) or may immediately call the guards (because he's against that faction); as a note, in Root, it doesn't seem to be too hard to tell what faction someone is in--it's a bit species-related, and anyway, simply observing someone for a time would also provide the information. Or, while the PCs are asking the mayor for help, you could use the "Put them in a spot" move and have someone try to assassinate the mayor!

So basically, it's all the same options as in D&D and every other game, minus the "nothing happens" option.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, you and @Micah Sweet describe the way many other RPGers play as "artificial" without qualms, because you're just sharing your feelings. So I took it that you would be fine with me sharing my feelings about what counts as railroading, because if the GM sets up all the fiction, all the stakes and hence all the consequences then I'm playing (or, if GM, GMing) a railroad.

You disagree with me, I disagree with you. I have no issue with you sharing your opinions, I just don't agree with them.

 

[Aldarc]

I said come close, not achieve. This is why the 5e books give such generalized wishy-washy advice. If you come down on any side you will face the unbelievers.

I will be curious how Christopher Perkins rewrites and reorganizes the 5e DMG, particularly in terms of the advice offered.

 

[Faolyn]

The advice I was referring to was in response to the DM being antagonistic. I've quoted the DMG a few times on that.

Yes but. Nearly every game has some sort of advice for GMs. So of course PbtA is going to have that advice as well.

And anyway, it's pretty clear that the OP hadn't read that section of the DMG, or at least hadn't learned the lesson it provided.

 

[Enrahim2]

To do what you're talking about with gaming, there would need to be actual best practices that are largely agreed upon for gaming, and we know those will never exist.

No, you dont need best practises to teach and learn. You can learn about descriptive causal processes, and be inspired by common patterns without there being any normative weight to those teachings.

 

[pemerton]

But by your definition it seems like pretty much every living person that has ever lived is on a railroad. I don't get to decide how my neighbor is going to respond when I say hello. I certainly didn't get to decide how Judy answered when I asked her to the big dance in high school.

I don't see what that's got to do with anything. I'm talking about who gets to establish certain elements of a shared fiction, not who will say yes if you ask them to a dance.

Like, in a RPG when I tell the GM "I search the upper floor of the tower; do I find any spellbooks?" I, pemerton, am not actually looking around a tower floor seeing what's there. What I'm actually doing is sitting at a table with my friend, and we're both imaging Thurgon searching the upper floor of the tower of the evil wizard Evard. And then we both have to imagine what happens as a result of that search.

There are different ways of working that out: and I prefer the ones that are not railroads.

People are pretty constrained in what realistic choices they have as well.

Yes. Like, when I GM I am constrained by not railroading my players, because otherwise I'd (i) be breaking the rules of the games we are playing, and (ii) not having a good time.