D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[pemerton]

And just to continue the chain of inspiration, it was definitely @pemerton's posts about 4e all the way back in 2008 that shook me out of trad RPG constraints and got me to try a host of games and techniques I never would have considered otherwise.

That's a really generous thing to say. Thank you!

 

[pemerton]

So you're arguing that the DM authored which race, class, abilities, spells, etc. of each PC? Because if he didn't, he can't have authored everything. At least some of those letters were authored by the players.

No I'm not arguing that. It's never occurred to me that someone might argue that an episode of RPGing was not a railroad because the players got to choose their own PC builds.

I'm talking about what happens next, in play, as a result of the players declaring actions for their PCs. And I'm saying that a game in which the totality of what happens next is either a combination of things the GM pre-authored, or the GM's extrapolations from those things, is by my lights a railroad. Because all the elements were pre-determined, or else extrapolated by the GM from their predetermined stuff.

Further the players inevitably bring up things the DM didn't think of that would be in the setting. The DM isn't the sole author of those things, either.

Inevitably? In this thread I've been told by multiple posters - @Oofta, @Micah Sweet, @Lanefan I think - that in their RPGing only the GM can establish setting elements.

 

[Aldarc]

This is "you" as a proponent if a style that is being denigrated. Its not personal, but if I disagree with someone's assessment of something I appreciate and enjoy, I see zero problem with defending it, even as I respect the right of that person to express their opinion.

Maybe that is the problem. I don't think that trad gaming needs your defense from a bunch of nobodies on the forum.

You would prefer that narrative players just get to make potshots at classic or trad play (I guess I have to use these terms now) unchallenged?

My honest preference would be a moment of self-awareness, if not some self-reflection, that you are punching down from a playstyle preference that enjoys a position of mass market dominance against a playstyle preference that gets regularly marginalized, othered, and disregarded with "bespoke" language on this forum.

classic or trad play (I guess I have to use these terms now)

You are aware that the article Six Cultures of Play was written by an OSR-enthusiast blogger? If you read the section on Story Games, it's pretty clear that his opinion about them is neither particularly high nor all that interested in depicting them with any justice.

As you say, it is a D&D General thread. I have seen few threads explicitly about narrative games on this forum at all, and when I do see them I try not to engage, as I'm not likely to have anything positive to say.

At this point, I would love to see you have something positive to say about anything in these forums.

 

[pemerton]

You would prefer that narrative players just get to make potshots at classic or trad play (I guess I have to use these terms now) unchallenged?

Well, you have called certain sorts of play "artificial", and when challenged did not feel any obligation to change your description.

Given those norms of conversation, I don't really see that I am obliged to keep secret my own opinions and feelings about railroading.

I think the issue here is that for us, an RPG is not a film that has to be about something. It is instead a depiction of a world and the activities of characters in it.

I don't fully agree with this. Nearly every RPG that I'm aware of actively elides many of those activities, in the interests of "excitement" or "engagement" or similar sorts of concerns. (To continue the comparison to film, there is no RPGing I'm aware of that resembles Warhol's Sleep.)

Furthermore, the worlds of RPGs are normally highly contrived, in order to generate opportunities for action adventure.

Let's use the TV series analogy. Many characters have long term goals in a series, but not every episode is about the character working to fulfill those goals. Sometimes, there's an episode where they end up on the Isle of Dread for a little while. I can't see how they cease to be a character during that period.

Some of those series do have rather weak authorship of character, with the character being little more than a device through which the action plays out. It's invidious to give examples, because inevitably they impugn someone's favourite show, but Castle past season 4 strikes me as an obvious one.

Still, for a certain sort of character, in a certain sort of (very unrealistic) world, it is possible to have character play out against a rather procedural backdrop. Rather than TV, I think a better illustration of this is super hero comics - I'm thinking to some extent of 60s/70s and even some 80 Spider-Man, but especially Claremont-era X-Men.

There is a RPG that emulates this: MHRP. The players' contributions (expressions of character) and the GM's contributions (provision of super-villains to confront) play out together in the game. But to make it work, the players are given all sorts of capacity to affect scene elements, background, NPCs etc that - given your posts in this and other threads - I would expect you to reject rather forcefully.

 

[Oofta]

...
Inevitably? In this thread I've been told by multiple posters - @Oofta, @Micah Sweet, @Lanefan I think - that in their RPGing only the GM can establish setting elements.

Why is that a problem if it only applies to our RPGing? You're being told that the default for D&D is that only the DM can establish setting elements. Which, since this is a D&D forum on a D&D thread, means that assumption is accepted by most people that actually play D&D on a regular basis. There are other options of course, D&D has a fair amount of flexibility that way.

I prefer that style because it makes the world feel more real to me and because it feels more immersive, I can focus on how my character reacts to the world around them. I don't want to establish setting elements or even think about establishing setting elements during the game. The fact that you prefer a different style of game is not the problem.

 

[Gradine]

Ah, the "what's over that hill" problem. This is really just a difference in Aesthetics of Play between Expression and Discovery.

Some players want to be asked to describe what they find over the next hill. Others want to know that there was something pre-existing on the other side of the hill that they get discover. Both are perfectly valid if more-or-less mutually exclusive desires. Some games are better at modeling one versus the other. Other games don't really address it.

It's certainly possible to describe both of these desired Aesthetics of Play without resorting to pejoratives.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I think the DMG advice is pretty lackluster, honestly. It’s a lot of “some people do A, others do B, lots of folks do a mix of A and B. You should do what feels right.” That’s not all that useful.

GMs don’t spring into existence fully formed. They learn over time. Advice is one way, absolutely, but so are the rules themselves. Or alternate rules. Or ideas from other games. All of these things can help a GM improve.

I agree with this 100%.

First page of the DM’s section for MotW and other PbtA games is:

• Here is your agenda as DM: this is what you should be aiming for;
• Here are the core DM principles.

This very much clarifies the DM role and what should be “top of mind” as you act as DM.

The 5e DMG doesn’t do this. It COULDN’T do this: when it came out in 2014, it was supposed to be the compromise edition to bring the 2e, 3e, Pathfinder and 4e players back into the fold, and those games simply don’t agree on a core DM agenda or common principles.

Something as simple as “Be a fan of the players” is not consistent with the “DM as neutral referee” playstyle.

This inconsistency of approach continues all through the book, with certain passages supporting fudging die rolls while others come out against it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I gave up talking specifics about PbtA a while back. I was curious and wanted to understand more but the attitude if you ask questions or state something slightly wrong ... not worth it.

I don't think anyone has a problem with questions, or with misunderstanding or misstating something.

I think there were a few instances where someone made assumptions and treated their assumptions as fact and got some pushback. I don't think that's really very surprising, though.

But like you said, this is a D&D General thread. So I go back to the question myself and others have been asking. For all of those who say other ways of gaming can help prevent bad DMing through application of rules, what would those rules look like for D&D? Because if we have to switch to a PbtA game, I'm not interested and it's not applicable. What rules, specifically would we add to D&D that's not already in the DMG as advice that gets ignored?

I think plenty of suggestions have been made in regard to the OP. Suggestions of all sorts, from trad gaming, narrative gaming, to basic human etiquette.

In the case of the OP, I'd say that many of the principles that tend to guide PbtA play would have helped. I'd also say that my GMing of D&D has benefitted greatly from many of them. I'd expect it could likely do so for many others, depending on what they were interested in and looking for.

I'm done having this conversation. You know full well that railroading does not apply to the play structure of D&D as it is used by everyone else. You can express your feelings without using a pejorative.

But yes, having something always happen on a failure other than simply not accomplishing my goal feels artificial to me.

If you don't want someone to use a pejorative about your style, then you should not follow up that request with a pejorative about theirs.

 

[Campbell]

Why is that a problem if it only applies to our RPGing? You're being told that the default for D&D is that only the DM can establish setting elements. Which, since this is a D&D forum on a D&D thread, means that assumption is accepted by most people that actually play D&D on a regular basis. There are other options of course, D&D has a fair amount of flexibility that way.

I prefer that style because it makes the world feel more real to me and because it feels more immersive, I can focus on how my character reacts to the world around them. I don't want to establish setting elements or even think about establishing setting elements during the game. The fact that you prefer a different style of game is not the problem.

Then why do you keep speaking to the way roleplaying games should work as if they should all work the same way?

 

[Xamnam]

Something as simple as “Be a fan of the players” is not consistent with the “DM as neutral referee” playstyle.

I don't know if I agree with that, as long as you are talking about the role of referee specifically, and the advice is given enough explanation to fully unpack its intentions/point.