D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[pemerton]

A railroad is when the DM is denying the players control over what their PCs say and do in the fiction.

Given that players controlling what their PCs say and do in the fiction is the minimum requirement for playing a RPG, what you are saying here is that railroading is incompatible with playing a RPG. I don't believe that is true, and hence I think your account of what railroading is is wrong.

 

[pemerton]

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

Well there doesn't seem to be agreement.

@Lanefan and @Maxperson have said that it can't be a railroad if the players are allowed to play their PCs.

But suppose that the player is allowed to play their PC, and the declared action is resolved, and then the GM uses their authority over the shared fiction to introduce some extra bit of backstory or revealed fiction that makes the outcome of the declared action irrelevant.

I think a lot of RPGers would call that a railroad, but it is not an example of Maxperson or Lanefan's definition.

 

[Maxperson]

Given that players controlling what their PCs say and do in the fiction is the minimum requirement for playing a RPG, what you are saying here is that railroading is incompatible with playing a RPG.

Correct. That's why it's a pejorative and viewed very close to universally negative. If you are railroading players and they haven't explicitly agreed to it, you(general you) are in the wrong.

I don't believe that is true, and hence I think your account of what railroading is is wrong.

It's not my account. It's the generally accepted definition.

 

[Maxperson]

Well there doesn't seem to be agreement.

@Lanefan and @Maxperson have said that it can't be a railroad if the players are allowed to play their PCs.

But suppose that the player is allowed to play their PC, and the declared action is resolved, and then the GM uses their authority over the shared fiction to introduce some extra bit of backstory or revealed fiction that makes the outcome of the declared action irrelevant.

I didn't simply say playing the PC. Also in my account was removal of choice. If you are invalidating the player's choice by making it irrelevant, that is railroading.

From my post, "A railroad is when the DM is denying the players control over what their PCs say and do in the fiction. Denying them choice."

More specifically, it also includes invalidating the meaning of their choice. Illusionism is also railroading. If nothing they choose matters, it's railroading whether they are aware of it or not.

 

[pemerton]

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.

What issues?

I mean, yes the question is unanswered at the time of resolution. Any fiction contains many unanswered questions - eg how long are Thurgon's toenails; what colour is his hose; etc. If they come to matter, then the game has ways of making sure they get established.

In this case, Aramina subsequently found some spellbooks - I can't remember if it was via a some sort of check or if, in the context, the GM said "yes". (Probably the former, given that this related to one of Aramina's Beliefs, but I don't remember any details or how intricate it was; it might even have been something consequent on a failed check by Thurgon.)

 

[pemerton]

Why on earth can't you do both at once? Your character ends up on the Isle of Dread and suddenly has to put all those other concerns aside for a while and focus on sheer survival. If and when your character get back to civilization you can, if desired, pick up those other threads and continue.

That's not playing a character's dramatic needs! It's playing a completely different game, about a character whose needs are (say) survival.

I mean, think of it this way: if a film was said to be all about an anti-hero who seeks vengeance for the death of his spouse, blaming his father in law, a high-ranking port official - but perhaps there is still a hint of goodness in this spiteful, bitter person, as when his mind wanders he still sings the Elven lays.

I turn up to watch that film, and it's actually a film about the character just described surviving on a monster-populated island.

The film has been misdescribed. It's not about what it was said to be about at all.

I think the above is a fairly straightforward point.

 

[pemerton]

In order for this to occur, the DM also needs to be roleplaying all of the PCs as well. If the players have choice to say what their PCs say and do, then the whole game space is not some sort of combination of things predetermined by the DM.

Yes it is. Action declarations involve the PCs doing things with A, B, C etc. Wondering about and looking for X, Y, Z etc.

If all the As, Bs, Cs, Xs, Ys and Zs are authored by the GM, then all the game space will be is a combination of things predetermined by the GM (plus extrapolations therefrom) - combinations of A, B, C, X, Y, Z etc plus whatever the GM has extrapolated from them.

 

[Lanefan]

As I posted upthread, a module like White Plume Mountain or The Isle of Dread will basically break down if the players adopt dramatic needs for their PCs beyond "complete the adventure".

I mean, consider Aedhros the Dark Elf: that character has no reason to sail to a far island and fight whatever those brain-spiders are called (Rhagodesa?). So if I play that character, X1 doesn't even get off the ground.

And I guess in the systems you play there's no chance of Aedhros unexpectedly getting shipwrecked on Isle of Dread while sailing to somewhere else, and then having to both a) find a way off and b) survive; as you'd count that to be a railroad?

 

[Lanefan]

What issues?

I mean, yes the question is unanswered at the time of resolution. Any fiction contains many unanswered questions - eg how long are Thurgon's toenails; what colour is his hose; etc. If they come to matter, then the game has ways of making sure they get established.

And yet the answers to those questions were always there in the fiction, just waiting for someone to ask them.

So with the spellbooks, it seems on a broader scale that failure really can't be due to in-character bad luck or incompetence - it appears the situation can't exist where the spellbooks are/were in fact right there in the tower all along and the Thurgon-Aramina team simply failed to find them; because in order to have them appear elsewhere (e.g. a library attached to a local Mystra temple) all they need to do is go and successfully search there.

It's the "quantum Ogre" problem again, only with items this time rather than opponents. Hence, it's an issue.

 

[Lanefan]

That's not playing a character's dramatic needs! It's playing a completely different game, about a character whose needs are (say) survival.

I mean, think of it this way: if a film was said to be all about an anti-hero who seeks vengeance for the death of his spouse, blaming his father in law, a high-ranking port official - but perhaps there is still a hint of goodness in this spiteful, bitter person, as when his mind wanders he still sings the Elven lays.

I turn up to watch that film, and it's actually a film about the character just described surviving on a monster-populated island.

The film has been misdescribed. It's not about what it was said to be about at all.

So the main plot of this film is all the bits about his dead spouse etc.; only partway through the film while sailing from one port to another he gets stuck on this dangerous island and has to fight to survive for a while, then he gets back to civilization and carries on with his search for vengeance - and is perhaps a lot richer now due to some loot he scooped off the island while he was there.

I'm looking at Isle of Dread here as being one adventure in what might be a 20-adventure-equivalent campaign (in movie terms, it's a very long film). I mean hell, if I were the GM a story like that could and would spawn any number of side adventures, that I might storyboard into the main tale something like:

--- introductory piece where the spouse dies, maybe or maybe not at the hands of the father-in-law, and the basics are established
--- the PC has to go to his father in law's birthplace (a dangerous city these days) to research some family records there (on-story)
--- the PC gets unlucky and finds himself in a violent situation in town that goes wrong, putting him on the run (off-story distraction)
--- before doing anything else the PC has to clear his name via performing a quest for some high-ranking type; this quest consists of [insert whatever adventure module you like here] (off-story distraction; but as a pleasant side effect the PC should come back much richer, which will help him going forward)
--- the family research shows a disturbing history of dealings with unsavory people and groups, mostly pirates; the PC then returns home (on-story)
--- the PC learns his father in law might recently have been dealing with pirates, and so goes off to talk to said pirates (and maybe even recruit them to his cause?) (on-story)
--- the PC gets shipwrecked on the Isle of Dread en route home and has to fight his way through the inhabitants (off-story distraction)
--- while on the Isle the PC receives a vision to do with Elves (on-story but not obviously so yet)
--- on returning to civilization, when next he enounters him his father in law is singing one of those Elven lays; this brings the vision into perspective and the PC realizes (then or later) that gettng some info from the Elves might be an idea (on-story)
--- journey to-from the Elves, who tell him some deep dark secrets about Daddy-o and some long ago dealings with Elves that went very wrong (on-story)
--- final confrontation with father in law, resulting either in an Elvish curse on him being lifted or his death at the hands of the PC, depending how things shake down.

That would be the storyboard, malleable as all hell given I've no idea how the player will approach anything, but still more than enough to give me ideas as to lots of things I can introduce along the way if I need to.

And while I'm sure you'll call this a railroad, I just call it planning ahead.