D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Aldarc]

Just keep pushing on with that.

Sure, as long as you use jargon outside of natural language while condemning others for doing the same and accusing them of being pretentious.

 

[Lanefan]

If you want to get revenge on the elven ambassador you need to follow them wherever they went and confront them.

Why? Why does the game not begin with the PC and the ambassador framed into the same scene?

Let me see. From the player side:

--- because following the ambassador around for a while might give your PC more insight into what the ambassador is all about
--- because following the ambassador around for a while probably allows you to pick the time and place of the confrontation
--- because following the ambassador around for a while might alert the PC that the ambassador has defenses, protections, and-or other abilities heretofore unknown (e.g. hidden bodyguards also following)
--- because following the ambassador around for a while will very likely reveal some people who the ambassador interacts with, and maybe the nature of those interactions
--- because following the ambassador around for a while might (or might not) help the PC build an alibi
--- because following the ambassador around for a while gives the PC a chance to change its mind and decide revenge just isn't worth it after all, and abandon the chase

From the DM side:

--- because the PC following the ambassador around gives both the ambassador and others a chance to notice said PC and react accordingly
--- because playing through the PC following the ambassador gives a chance to narrate potentially interesting elements and-or introduce potentially interesting NPCs that the ambassador interacts with while being followed
--- because the PC following the ambassador around maybe allows some opportunity to get other PCs involved.

My own take: never jump from one scene to the next when there's any real possibility of something relevant happening in the time between those scenes.

 

[Lanefan]

I would assume the players decide what's important to them. And if declared actions involve interacting with an NPC, as they very often would, the GM responds as the NPC. How else would it go? Is the player talking to themselves in this scenario?

There's a small but not-zero possibility that the player is talking to another player, if those actions etc. revolve around another PC (e.g. one has an unrequited crush on the other and they need to sort it out).

 

[Maxperson]

I mean, "railroad" means a specific thing to me when I use it: it means play where all the fictional outcomes have been decided by the GM (see my reply to @Pedantic not far upthread for a slightly more technical setting out of this point).

The DM isn't deciding all of the fiction outcomes in traditional play, though. Consider the following.

Player of weak wizard: "I walk up and punch the big barbarian in the face."
DM: "The barbarian laughs at your weak blow."

Did I decide that outcome? No. I only decided half of it. Without the player's declaration, there's nothing for my half to attach to. Without my half the scene is unfinished.

DM: "The barbarian laughs at your weak blow."
Players: "But no one did anything to him."

It takes both of us to decide the fictional outcome of that scene. We are just authoring different portions. The player authors what his PC is doing. I author how the world responds. Both together combine to decide the fictional outcome of that scene.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, as long as you use jargon outside of natural language while condemning others for doing the same and accusing them of being pretentious.

Is there anyone here who doesn't know what railroad means in gaming terms? Even @pemerton knows what others here mean by it!

 

[Lanefan]

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.

The question remains unanswered, though: were the spellbooks in fact there (or could they have been there) and Thurgon just didn't find them, or did Thurgon's not finding them dictate to the fiction that they weren't there to be found (and thus could be later found somewhere else)?

It's the second piece that raises issues, I think.

 

[pemerton]

If this came up in a Burning Wheel game that I was running (I'm more familiar with BW than AW or DW), we'd have established during our first session, as we were creating characters, that (1) there were bandits south of town, (2) that they were part of the situation in the game, and (3) various relationships between or beliefs about the characters, the town, and the bandits. We'd all have some idea of what sort of bandits were there, what their MO was, and why we were concerned about them. As some of my prep for that game between the first session and the second, even if I didn't know the players were going to go bandit hunting, I'd be remiss as GM if I didn't have some bandits written up for when they came up in play, identify some of their leaders, and figure out what they want. I may not stat them out fully, as it's highly unlikely that there'd be a full on combat right away, but I'd have information in my notes to be able to play the bandits because the players and I already know that this is what the game is about right now.

Good post. I just wanted to add that, while the system and framework for preparing fronts in AW or DW is a bit different from this in its detail, for the purposes of the present discussion I think it can be thought of as being very similar.

 

[Maxperson]

It's definitely a different way to wrap your head around the concept of role-playing. But on the other hand... I can't remember a single piece of fiction I've consumed where somebody has tried to pick a lock and completely failed that wasn't also based on D&D. The idea that somebody proficient at picking locks will find some basic locks easy to open and other, nearly identical locks fully impossible... that feels more artificial to me than a lot of the ways a "fail forward" approach would take. Creating complications like making noise, taking longer than usual, breaking a tool, etc.

That's an issue that I've had with that particular skill since 1e.

Me: "What do you mean I have to roll to open this lock. I opened a lock on the other door 5 minutes ago and you said all the locks were the same.:

DM: "You need to roll under 20% to open this one."

Me: "......"

That's why I like the ability to just declare an attempt an auto success, and why I liked the take 10 and take 20 rules. Give enough time the PC will succeed in opening any lock that he's capable of opening. If something alters the situation like say an orc patrol about to come around the corner and you have to open it super speedy and under pressure, then a roll is called for even if the lock is easy. That added pressure could cause failure to open the lock before the orcs turn the corner.

 

[pemerton]

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.

Well, no she hasn't.

She's decided whether any spellbooks are present and if so, where they are; but she in no way has decided what action you're going to declare.

In the passage you quote, the GM decision about the answer happens after I've declared my action. They have decided everything that happens next. I took the implicit "next" to be obvious.

You did that, and the very fact you had the agency to freely to do that means you're not on a railroad.

Declaring actions for my PC is the minimum threshold for playing a RPG. If that were also sufficient for not being on a railroad, it would follow that no RPGing is railroading. Yet clearly some is. Hence your account of what makes something not a railroad is wrong.

 

[pemerton]

Were it a movie, I-as-audience would notice that change in music; but an RPG is not a movie, and as the characters in the fiction shouldn't IMO have that cue to go by then in the interests of keeping character and player knowledge aligned nor should the players (or GM, in this case).

The player knows that her character has charged the situation: she's playing her character! This is like saying it would be metagaming for the player of an assassin, sneaking up to kill a target unawares, to know that they are sneaking up to kill a target unawares.