D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[AbdulAlhazred]

But see, you're putting "allowed" in scare quotes here. Unless the players are actively prevented from doing something--either because the GM disallows it, makes sure doing their own thing fails, or something else--they do have an actual choice and it's not railroading. The GM is just providing other things to do and places to go.

That STILL assumes that the GM will go along! In, say, Dungeon World, that's not an assumption we have to make! If I'm GMing it correctly, and Pemerton's Dark Elf character wants to search Evard's Tower for spell books to help his assistant, then its really not the GM's place to put something else in the way. I mean, GM fiction can't just say "there is no such tower", the GM should establish its existence. Say if the character Spouts Lore about the location of this tower, after establishing a genuine reason to want to find it, then the lore probably shouldn't be "its on the far side of the continent and rumored to be impossible to reach" unless everyone has concluded that the intent is to run a campaign long story arc! In DW the logical option is for the GM to ask the character where he thinks the tower is likely to be, or something about Evard, etc. I'm skeptical that most trad GMs are doing this kind of thing as a rule, though I wouldn't want to assume this is true of any specific poster here. Maybe some are!

 

[Aldarc]

That isn't really advice out of character though. The PC is familiar enough with the terrain of Middle-Earth to know what their options are.

…and so the GM tells them options that their characters may know. The process here is quite the same.

But the other problems seems like you and @Lanefan are reading “maybe” as “must.”

 

[Lanefan]

There's a difference between earning a reward after trying times and going through a dull slog.

Er...the trying times ARE the dull slog, aren't they?

My favorite example was in a GURPs game set in Golarian and using what I think was a Pathfinder AP (at the very least, it was a d20 adventure, converted). We had to get an artifact that was being held in an extradimensional bank vault. The adventure expected that we do a heist and get past terrible traps and powerful golem guards. Instead, we found the grave of the artifact's original owner, hired a lawyer, and then I cast the GURPS version of speak with dead to get the dead owner's permission. That was cool. If we had tried to do the heist, failed, and then tried the legal route, I don't think I would have been quite so pleased.

Either way, that's a hella cool workaround idea you lot came up with!

 

[Aldarc]

Because I'm using the generally agreed upon definitions of those words, even if you don't agree they should be used, which your specific definition of "railroad" is not.

Nah. The meaning of ‘railroad’ as per natural language are “train tracks.” Wait a tick. Are you using ‘railroad’ in some ivory tower jargon way that isn’t how people use and understand it in natural language?

 

[Autumnal]

There's a difference between "This is how I do it, why, and how I find it useful. Here are some other options you can look into." and "If you do it this way it's better." Because when it comes to DMing, there is no one true way.

But there is wanting to do something but not seeing how to. Never mind one true way, that’s irrelevant. I’m talking about people who want advice someone is offering - they saw an actual play and want to game like that, or see a piece that says it’s for playing like movie A or author B, or whatever. It seems like the overwhelming majority of advice I’ve seen has been more like that than alleged universal laws of gaming.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

And I call that assumption. Making the family interactions interesting can draw in the players. Is making the game interesting a railroad? I don't think so. In fact, that's exactly what @Lanefan implied when he said, "unless said PCs are the shoot-first-ask-questions-never type." It would be the interesting interactions and drama that pull them in, not the DM.

 

[Lanefan]

Now, when you (@Micah Sweet) say that play should not revolve around the PCs, I take you to mean that play should not play out in the fashion I've just described, and that if the GM has made a decision about what is in the tower (spellbooks, letters, whatever) then that's that. The players can learn about what the GM has decided is there; and the players can choose which "there" to poke around in; but the GM will not author fiction about what is there in response to the players' evinced concerns for their PCs.

Yes. A neutral GM doesn't change anything in response to which characters are in the field, because doing so violates that neutrality. It's on the players to try to follow up on their characters' concerns (and on the GM to allow table time for such to be done). It's not on the GM to shoehorn concerns of any specific character(s) into an adventure that in theory is waiting there for any adventurers who happen across it (only in this case, it's the PCs who did).

The sort of play that I have described in the previous paragraph is what I regard as a railroad. (Again, I repeat this caveat: if essentially we're playing a wargame, like Isle of Dread or White Plume Mountain, then the whole logic of things is different, and the characters are just player pawns. That's not a railroad, but it's not really a game with characters at all in any meaningful sense.

I'd like to raise an objecton to the bolded bit, as a) it's entirely possible to play those modules while running characters with well-defined goals, personalities, quirks, flaws, dreams, drama, and all the rest; and b) as phrased, this comes across as more than a little dismissive.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That STILL assumes that the GM will go along! In, say, Dungeon World, that's not an assumption we have to make! If I'm GMing it correctly, and Pemerton's Dark Elf character wants to search Evard's Tower for spell books to help his assistant, then its really not the GM's place to put something else in the way. I mean, GM fiction can't just say "there is no such tower", the GM should establish its existence. Say if the character Spouts Lore about the location of this tower, after establishing a genuine reason to want to find it, then the lore probably shouldn't be "its on the far side of the continent and rumored to be impossible to reach" unless everyone has concluded that the intent is to run a campaign long story arc! In DW the logical option is for the GM to ask the character where he thinks the tower is likely to be, or something about Evard, etc. I'm skeptical that most trad GMs are doing this kind of thing as a rule, though I wouldn't want to assume this is true of any specific poster here. Maybe some are!

I understand why it's set up this way, but quite frankly, I don't need or want the rules to protect the players from me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nah. The meaning of ‘railroad’ as per natural language are “train tracks.” Wait a tick. Are you using ‘railroad’ in some ivory tower jargon way that isn’t how people use and understand it in natural language?

Just keep pushing on with that.

 

[Maxperson]

This is the railroad. The player has to jump through hoops established by the GM (they have to "do things to find it") in order to get to the play that speaks to their concerns.

In non-railroading play, as I understand it, it is the GM's job to frame scenes that speak directly to those player-authored concerns. This is what be a fan of the characters (a slogan from AW/DW) means. The rulebook for Burning Wheel (my favourite RPG) doesn't use the slogan but similarly has instructions to the GM which explain that it is the GM's job to frame scenes in this fashion.

That's not the definition of railroad or non-railroading play, though.

A railroad is when the DM is denying the players control over what their PCs say and do in the fiction. Denying them choice. Non-railroading play would be when the players do have control over what their PCs say and do in the fiction. Giving the players actual choice.

Framing scenes that speak to player authored concerns is your preference, but it has nothing inherently to do with railroading or non-railroading. I could deny the player control over their PC while still framing the scene in a way that speaks to the player's authored concerns.