D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Pedantic]

If my declared action is "I search for spellbooks" and the GM decides the answer to that unilaterally ("alone"), whether by consulting their notes or making up what they think is "logical" on the spur of the moment, then that absolutely is a railroad. The GM has decided everything that happens.

I don't think that can be true. The room with stuff in it sure, but the character looking for spellbooks and not doing handstands, or brewing potions or whatever else they opt to do is entirely down to the player. We can probably map out the time searching a room takes, and point to the 5 minutes of time in that room and clearly point out which things were down to one player's choices, and which were down to the GM.

You could have (an admittedly very boring) game session that was nothing but a massive library keep, devoid of anything but romance novels, that a character wanders through looking for spell books, evaluating room by room. I'm pretty sure that could be handled much more easily/efficiently by noting the time that would take and moving on, but it certainly would still happen, and be different than if the player had decided to stop after the first room. If for no other reason than after that's done, I'd start describing the scene outside with a different time of day.

You're adding some kind of relevance criteria here to "things happening" that I don't entirely understand enough to define yet.

 

[pemerton]

Players do this in D&D, too.

The post you quoted was actually talking about what GMs do. But anyway, I don't know why you think I'm unaware of your point. Upthread I posted (more than once) that I have played AD&D and 4e in ways that are not railroads.

It is other posters - @Oofta, and now apparently you - who are falsely imputing the belief to me that D&D must be played as a railroad.

 

[pemerton]

One of them is: the player deciding that the situation becomes charged is making decisions on behalf of the NPCs present; namely that they now feel they are (or have become aware that they are) in a charged situation. This feeling, which is being forced on those NPCs by declaration of the player, can't help but influence their in-character reactions.

Why can one person not, unilaterally, make a situation charged? Eg if an assassin is sneaking up on me to kill me, that is a charged situation (in virtue of the intentions of the assassin) even if I'm blissfully unaware.

In the episode of play, the situation is charged because Marie is there to visit grief upon Isle. (Hence Baker's reference to how the music would change if it were a film; just as it would in the assassin example I described.)

Were the NPCs fully under the GM's control they could choose to react in whatever manner even including completely ignoring the PC's arrival, and a combination of those reactions and what the PC then said or did (and how) would organically determine the 'charged-ness' of the scene as it proceeded.

And what do you know about how Vincent Baker has the NPC's react, in that example of play?

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Ok, but those descriptive casual processes don't require jargon like we're seeing here, and suggestions that might improve your game and rules you have to follow are very different things.

 

[Oofta]

-- never mind --

 

[pemerton]

I'll give you White Plume, but there's loads of dramatic potential in Castle Amber! I mean hell, the whole module revolves around what was no more than a great big family drama, and given that the PCs (almost certainly) meet numerous members of said family while exploring the Chateau, it's pretty easy to draw the players/PCs into that family drama unless said PCs are the shoot-first-ask-questions-never type.

Suppose a GM does this: do you know what I call "drawing the players into the GM's pre-authored family drama"? I call it a railroad.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

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.

The problem I think I'm having here is that you're using your, very specific to your experience definition of railroad so casually, as if it's shared by everybody and you're just telling it like it is. That simply isn't the case. Can you at least say you prefer the ones that don't feel like railroads to you? Because that's a lot more accurate.

 

[Oofta]

All @AbdulAlhazred is pointing out is that some posters appear not to understand how AW (and some other, more-or-less similar RPGs) works.

And frankly that seems correct - because as soon as I talk about RPGing that does not involve railroading, and even explain how it works, you misdescribe it! You say it involves the players making decisions about fiction outside of/beyond their PCs. But it doesn't. The key difference from how you play D&D is not to the role and power of the players, but the role and power of the GM. But you seem to repeatedly fail to grasp what that difference consists in!

I'm going to say this one last time. Railroading is a derogatory term. A game that doesn't have player generated fiction for things outside of the control of the PC is not railroading under anyone's definition but yours. It's becoming a dog whistle and it's insulting to everyone who doesn't happen to enjoy that style of game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sorry, I misswrote and left a word out. Does the time spent rolling dice and not having anything happen cause the game to be more interesting?

And if so, how?

Because I've been in games like that and they're incredibly boring and frustrating.

Most D&D games have stuff like that happen from time to time, where you fail a check and nothing happens. Is your experience that different, or do you often feel incredibly bored and frustrated when playing D&D? I don't recall anything about insisting on failing forward in Level Up, for example.

 

[CreamCloud0]

That is, the players pick from what the GM offers. That's the railroad.

that is not what i was saying with that, see following comments

This is contradictory. Consider my PC I posted about upthread, who wishes to get vengeance for the death of his spouse, who hates the Elven Ambassador to the port, the father of his spouse whom he blames for his spouse's death, and who when his mind is elsewhere quietly sings the Elven lays.

i didn't see that, or at least i don't recall it if i did see it, there have been alot of messages here in this last few hours/days

If the only options I as a player have to choose from are whatever the GM has come up with, then I can't play out the themes and dramatic needs of that PC. Unless the GM is shaping situations and stakes so as to ensure that I can. In which case it's no longer a railroad, it's exactly the sort of RPGing that I enjoy!

your backstory is a plothook that [should] exist in the world that you created with your backstory, it is possible for you to seek it out to resolve that narrative and drama, BUT IT IS NOT THE GM'S DUTY TO PUT IT IN FRONT OF YOU IF YOU ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING TO FIND IT, if you just EXPECT your plot to come to you without any efforts on your end that's what i mean by it being given to you it on a silver platter.

EDIT to add:
Right. This is the railroad. And the players cannot create their own drama and theme. They're stuck with the ones the GM has written, none of which speak to a Dark Elf become embittered and spiteful because of the death of his spouse.

players create drama and theme through the seeds planted in their backstory, the actions they have their character take and the things they interact with, the GM can place the ambassador or the father in the world, but nothing will come of that if your character never does anything to interact with them, if you instead chose to deal with the northen werewolves the ambassador/father will not come to you on. that. silver. platter.