D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[pemerton]

some days I just want to stab somebody (metaphorically), or see what's beyond the horizon. And what I have does that just fine.

OK? I don't think I've made any comment about what you do, or should, want.

 

[pemerton]

And yet you keep doing it.

No. You keep misdescribing my position. I can only assume it's because you don't know how AW, BW etc work.

EDIT: for an example, see post 1414 just downthread.

 

[pemerton]

??? But you wanted this plot thread? You created it in your backstory. Your actions will influence how it goes on to develop, the GM put it in the world for you and says let’s find out how this develops together but now suddenly you’re all offended at it’s existence and want to go play another game???

It's the notion of "plot thread" that tells me I want another game.

I'm not interested in a game with pre-authored plot threads. That's why the sort of RPGing I enjoy has been called, by some of those who did important design work in relation to it, "story now". The now in that phrase is doing a lot of work. Plot threads are antithetical to now.

For the same reason I assume movies don’t begin at the climax and then only run for 15 minutes, finding out how you’re getting to that point is half the fun

So if the GM doesn't frame the PC into a scene with the ambassador, but instead frames the PC into a scene which is a type of prelude or foreshadowing to the ambassador, or is some other sort of situation on the docks - where the ambassador's presence looms even if they're not onscreen - that's good stuff.

Now the GM is not making me jump through hoops to play the game I want to play, in which the concerns I've authored for my PC are front and centre in establishing stakes and consequences.

If that's the sort of game you run, then it would not be something I would consider a railroad.

 

[pemerton]

If I've misunderstood please explain what you mean because
...about the techniques that are used to establish stakes, consequences, and "what happens next". Which are all about the GM, not the players.

To me means the player gets to control fiction of the world. That when your character goes to investigate the library you get to add your ideas on what is there. If the DM is the sole author of what is in the library you consider that railroading.

If I'm wrong, I apologize. But you haven't corrected me yet.

Please read the following description of play closely:

The player authors the action declaration, "I search the upper floor of Evard's tower for spellbooks". Now, this happened in BW, so the rule for the GM is "say 'yes' or roll the dice". The GM is expected to say "yes" if nothing is at stake (where what is at stake is relative to the players' evinced concerns for their PCs). In this case, there clearly was something at stake: Aramina, Thurgon's travelling companion, had brought them to the tower to find spellbooks, and that was why Thurgon was searching for them. So the GM called for a check (my guess would be Scavenging, though I can't recall for certain anymore).

If the check succeeds, then intent and task are realised: Thurgon finds spellbooks for Aramina.

If the check fails - which it did - then Thurgon's intent is not realised. What he actually found were letters, that appeared to reveal that his beloved mother Xanthippe is, in fact, the daughter of the evil wizard Evard.

The player (me) did not author the fiction, but plah was not a railroad: the stakes and consequences are not being established solely by the GM. They are being authored having regard to my (the players') evinced concerns for my PC - his Beliefs (about Aramina and Xanthippe), his Relationships (to Aramina and Xanthippe), etc. To use the language of AW/DW, this is an example of the GM being a fan of the characters.

All I have done, as player, is - at PC build - author my character, including relationships to Aramina and Xanthippe; and, in play, author my action declaration: "I search the upper floor of Evard's tower for spellbooks".

The GM then applies the basic rule for resolution - say 'yes' or roll the dice - and then narrates the consequence. As it happens, this did not involve finding spellbooks, because the check failed. If it had succeeded, the GM would have narrated Thurgon finding spellbooks.

To reiterate: all that I authored, in play, was Thurgon's action - his searching for spelbooks. That is not fiction outside of the PC.

 

[Pedantic]

Please read the following description of play closely:
All I have done, as player, is - at PC build - author my character, including relationships to Aramina and Xanthippe; and, in play, author my action declaration: "I search the upper floor of Evard's tower for spellbooks".

The GM then applies the basic rule for resolution - say 'yes' or roll the dice - and then narrates the consequence. As it happens, this did not involve finding spellbooks, because the check failed. If it had succeeded, the GM would have narrated Thurgon finding spellbooks.

To reiterate: all that I authored, in play, was Thurgon's action - his searching for spelbooks. That is not fiction outside of the PC.

Okay, that's a bit facetious. The outcomes were either, you found spellbooks, thus, you as the player narrated something about the setting, or you didn't, and the GM narrated something that was related in a principled way to something the player authored about the setting, the character of their mother.

It's not a big transformation here to see "the player declares something about the setting." You're focused a lot on the rules that are necessary/helpful to make that interesting and constrain what and how the player can author things and the ways in which the GM's declarations are constrained by the player's declarations, but that's the primary differentiator between what you've said is a railroad and what isn't.

Do you have a counterfactual? Is there a case that satisfies your test but doesn't involve that? You're assigning the importance to the rules around the declaration instead of the source, but those are really second order concerns from the other side of the question.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The setting is at least as important as the characters. It's just not as important as the players.

That's interesting. What do you do if you have to choose between the two? Like if there's some kind of conflict between player satisfaction and setting verisimilitude?

And do you include gamist concerns in that? Like my example of always sharing DCs so players make informed choices. Do you mean that kind of player element? Or just like their overall satisfaction?

Yes, I certainly do. The players can also go off on their own and pursue personal stuff if they so choose. It's all up to them, and it's all their choice.

How does personal stuff get introduced to play? You said you don't prefer to focus on individual character goals, so I'm not sure what this looks like.

 

[Faolyn]

To add to what @TwoSix said:

If all the player is allowed to choose, and if the significance and consequences of those choices, are all settled by the GM's prior authorship of setting + "logical" extrapolation from that authorship, then (it seems to me) everything that happens is some sort of complex combination of GM-authored elements plus extrapolations.

That's why I call it a railroad: everything that happens in the fiction falls within an already-GM-defined set of possibilities and combinations. And GM pre-definition is the essence of a railroad.

That others enjoy some GM pre-definition, but not others (eg where the suite of permitted possibilities and combinations is more narrow) is naturally their prerogative. But their preferences aren't mine!

So then I guess my next question is: when you game, and the PCs do something, who determines what happens as a result? Random dice rolls on a table? If the GM decides that if the PCs don't do a thing, something happens--is that railroading?

 

[pemerton]

I think you actually are supporting my earlier proposition that the primary difference is the player's ability to dictate elements outside of their direct PC actions.

<snip>

So, this is player authored fiction.

No. A rule that says, if the dice come up a certain way, everyone agrees that a certain things happens, isn't player-authored.

The player declares the action: "I search for spellbooks". This now has to be resolved. There are some ways of doing it.

One is to let the GM author the outcome. This is what you, @Oofta, @Micah Sweet, @Lanefand and @CreamCloud0 prefer. (For the moment, I am ignoring that sometimes you might interpose a Search or Research or Use Library or Investigate or whatever check. Let's suppose that the spellbooks, if they're there, are very easy to find so no check is required.)

Another is to let the player author the outcome. An example of player authorship, in my example, is that Xanthippe is Thurgon's mother, though that was done in PC build and not as part of action resolution.

Yet another is to use a mechanic to establish a constraint on who has to believe what. In that case, the outcome is jointly authored: the player put the possibility of Thurgon finding spellbooks into question (by declaring, as Thurgon, "I search for spellbooks"). Everyone has agreed to a system for resolving such action declarations, which can include - as one possible result - that everyone has agreed to make the possibility a part of the shared fiction. The authorship - the fact of making it part of the shared fiction - is collective and mediated via the rules.

Perhaps you think the distinction between the second and third ways of doing things is uninteresting. But working it out is a good chunk of Vincent Baker's life work as a RPG designer, and for that reason if nothing else I regard it as extremely interesting.

The player's action declaration, through a game mechanism, caused a change in the setting outside of their character's control.

Suppose that, in your preferred approach - which I take to be the first of my three - the player declares the action, and the GM realises they have no notes on the contents of this tower! So now they have to make a decision. At that point, the player's action declaration, through a game mechanism, has caused a change in the setting outside of the character's control.

But we would hardly say the player is authoring it. The GM is authoring it, prompted by the player.

In my example, the table is jointly authoring it, as per the rules of the game (the "game mechanism"), prompted by the player.

the player's choices are a constrain on the GM, and there's a separate mechanism that requires the GM to say something. Essentially, it's just speeding up the plot hook process to happen on every given roll, with specific constraints on what kind of hooks can be offered.

You say this as if it's trivial. Whereas - as this very thread shows - it is a fundamental difference in RPG design and RPG play.

I mean, the difference between the player hooking the GM (Burning Wheel) and the GM hooking the player (every WotC adventure that I own) is night and day.

You could try a little harder with "character." If you're setting your own goals for the pawn, repeatedly, I don't know that it actually needs anything else to be a character, except a retelling of events.

<snip>

Are we doing the same hobby? Because I'm increasingly not sure we're actually doing the same hobby.

I think there is a degree of tension between these two paragraphs.

My view is that if I try to play X1 Isle of Dread, as that is presented for play in the Moldvay/Cook/Marsh version of D&D, and I give my character dramatic needs beyond "complete the adventure", the game will break. That is why I say there is not really any character.

Ditto for ToH, White Plume Mountain, and similar sorts of scenarios.

 

[Micah Sweet]

We might use a resolution system where the player gets to contribute stakes and hence help inform consequences.

Here are some actual play examples (the system is Burning Wheel):

Does the "I" in this example switch from you to the PC at some point? It seems that it does.

In understand that some form of social combat is being engaged in here, but I'm confused about who is playing who. I also saw that the player early on simply  decided that someone showed up to move the action along. If that is what you need for a story to not be a railroad, I can see why we are at odds here, as that is something I would not want as either a GM or a player.

 

[pemerton]

So then I guess my next question is: when you game, and the PCs do something, who determines what happens as a result? Random dice rolls on a table? If the GM decides that if the PCs don't do a thing, something happens--is that railroading?

I use the action resolution rules prescribed by the system.

If they're incomplete (see eg Cthulhu Dark, and in a more subtle way bits of Prince Valiant), then I default to Burning Wheel's intent and task together with "say 'yes' or roll the dice".

As for the GM making (what AW would call) a soft move in the circumstances you describe, it's not railroading if the move engages stakes and enlivens consequences that the players have evinced as their concerns through the build and play of their PCs. Which is exactly what AW says a soft move should do! (Because "badness", "opportunity", "cost" etc are all terms that get their meaning relative to those player-evinced concerns.)