D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[CreamCloud0]

The gameworld is not a real thing. It has no cares. It does not have its own agency, nor its own nature, not its own causal influence.

i agree with all but one of these, a world can have it's own nature, you can play in Middle Earth or Wonderland or Oz or Westeros and they all have an inherent nature, there are things that are or are not likely to be in those worlds and the GM interprets as best they can that world to the players, the only real difference between these 'official' settings and the GM's own creation is how many people know about them, but people are up in arms if you put a T-rex in mordor but are perfectly willing to advocate to change up the GM's setting to their whims.

In saying that the gameworld is what it is and that things happen regardless of how the players feel about them you are prioritising the GM's vision of the fiction over the players. Of course that's your prerogative to do so. But how can you be shocked that some RPGers - eg me - would see that as railroading?

because you being unable to directly shape the world itself isn't undermining or denying your character agency, ie: railroading,
the fact your character cannot imagine/roll/declare a bridge into existence over a canyon or as was previously mentioned spellbooks into the wizard's tower, into the fiction, does not prevent your character from taking any action available to them at any given moment or neutralise the consequences of doing thereof.
the fact the GM is the person to define the fiction over the others is not a flaw, it is just a feature, a feature that you personally don't care for but a feature not a flaw nonetheless, likewise the fact that DnD doesn't prioritise character drama and narritive themes quite as much as DW or any other system you prefer is a feature of the system not a flaw.

 

[Aldarc]

Secondly, to be fair, Ron Edwards' opinion of simulation in his categories was so low and without justice that he doesn't even consider what I value to be a real playstyle. Everyone has their biases.

To be fair, what does Ron Edwards have to do with anything I have said or argued?

Thirdly, "punching down" in this context sounds like an excuse to freely denigrate something because its popular, and everyone's supposed to just be ok with that. I don't hold with that.

That's "punching up." "Punching down" is when popular trad gamers punch down to and delegitimize less popular tabletop gaming preferences from a position of privilege.

an excuse to freely denigrate something because its popular, and everyone's supposed to just be ok with that. I don't hold with that.

Dude! How is that any different from what you have been doing throughout this entire thread? You appear to be freely denigrating PbtA playstyles in this thread at nearly every opportunity. Is that what you want? To freely denigrate my preferred playstyles? Because that's what you are doing. When others push back against you denigrating PbtA and narrative games, you retreat to the motte that you are entitled to voice negative opinions and claim that your preferences are under attack.

 

[Oofta]

By this definition of railroading, no RPG in which the players build their PCs, or in which the players declare actions for their PCs, can be a railroad. That strikes me as obviously absurd, because (i) every episode of RPGing ever involves the players declaring actions for their PCs, and (ii) most of the time the players authored those PCs, and yet (iii) some of those episodes of RPGing were railroads.

As I posted upthread,
Again, and by way of reiteration: a game doesn't cease to be a railroad because the players declared actions for their PCs. But if everything that flows from those actions is some combination of GM-authored elements and extrapolations therefrom, then I characterise it as a railroad.

I think that this is the sort of thing that @Oofta has said he doesn't want in his RPGing because it spoils immersion.

Typically, of course, going to the blacksmith may not be all that high stakes. What about if the player declares "I go to Evard's tower"?

Your definition of railroading has nothing to do with the standard definition of railroading:

Railroading​

Railroading is a GMing style in which, no matter what the PCs do, they will experience certain events according to the GM's plan. In general, this is considered a flaw, displaying a lack of flexibility, naturalness of the scenario, and lack of respect for meaningful choices by the players.​

Railroading as a pejorative​

Because railroading essentially negates the central activity of a role-playing game, it is generally used to refer to a dysfunctional role-playing style. Consequently, it is often used to characterize whenever the GM constrains PC choices to the detriment of the players' enjoyment.​

 

[Maxperson]

If the decisions the players can make that affect the fiction are low stakes things like there's a blacksmith in town but not Evard's tower is near here or there are spellbooks for the taking in Evard's tower then the agency you are pointing to is trivial and more-or-less illusory.

That's not true, either. If it were, the DM would have to spell out every word of the module before gameplay so that the players can be making informed choices right out of the gate. Hidden knowledge does NOT invalidate agency. It's just not the kind of agency that YOU prefer.

Take the two doors. One is the exit out and one has two ogres behind it at the end of a hall. If that is set in stone, then regardless of the fact that the players don't know either fact, their choice still has meaning. It matters, because if they choose the left door they get out of the dungeon like they want, and if they choose the right door everyone could die. However, if it's a quantum ogre situation, then regardless of the "choice" the players make, they will be fighting ogres and they really had no choice or agency at all. Only the latter is a railroad.

Stakes are a purely preference part of the game. I like high stakes situations like the party being beat to hell, but because of time crunch we have to go face the BBEG and his crew anyway or the town will be destroyed. I also like low stakes situations like placing 5 coppers on the brown horse to win. And then there are no stakes situations that I enjoy like going to the general store to buy rations.

The one thing I demand, though, is that my steaks be juicy. Overcook my steak and there will be hell to pay!!!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Right. I've been saying for years that bad DMs are rare, and therefore should not be included in game design. There aren't enough of them to warrant rules being included to try to stop or mitigate them. Such efforts are doomed to fail anyway.

So, have you ever had a conversation with someone who is super into the DM having ultimate authority over the fiction? And you try to explain a game with player authority over the fiction? And the person responds, "Yeah, dude, but then a player will totally have his character jump over the moon. How do you stop that? Huh? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THOSE EVIL MOON JUMPING PLAYERS?????"

It's aggravating, right? Because we assume good-faith play, and we assume the players are going to act in a manner consistent with the fiction. So answering repeated variations of, "But what if the player is a jerk," isn't helpful.

A fundamental issue that seems to bedevil a lot of these conversations, about the division of authority, and about rules in TTRPGs, is this- what happens when there is an inconsistent view of the fiction between participants in the game? How do you determine what "really happens?" There are rules, there are principles, but fundamentally you need to assume that the participants aren't jerks, right?

The reason I note that is that this is an uncommon conversation; but there does seem to be an awful lot of concern about the need to combat bad-faith DMs. And it seems that this is constantly trotted out ...

As is often remarked, a lot of theory washes away in the actual practice of, "Play with people that aren't jerks. Don't play with people that are jerks. Q. E. to the D."

 

[pemerton]

i agree with all but one of these, a world can have it's own nature, you can play in Middle Earth or Wonderland or Oz or Westeros and they all have an inherent nature, there are things that are or are not likely to be in those worlds and the GM interprets as best they can that world to the players, the only real difference between these 'official' settings and the GM's own creation is how many people know about them, but people are up in arms if you put a T-rex in mordor but are perfectly willing to advocate to change up the GM's setting to their whims.

Why is it the GM who "interprets as best they can the world to the players"?

Why can the players not interpret Middle Earth, or the Marvel Universe, or the World of Greyhawk, or whatever other setting is being used?

When I started my Torchbearer campaign, one of the players built a PC whose hometown is a Forgotten Temple Complex. When I pulled out my Greyhawk maps, and showed them where I envisaged the action being set (the area of, and to the north and east of, the Bandit Kingdoms) that player pointed to a part of the Theocracy of the Pale and said that that's where the Forgotten Temple was located.

Another player built a PC whose hometown was a Wizard's Tower. That player pointed to the Bluff Hills as the site of the tower.

There's nothing more magic about my ability (as GM) to interpret Greyhawk than theirs.

In saying that the gameworld is what it is and that things happen regardless of how the players feel about them you are prioritising the GM's vision of the fiction over the players. Of course that's your prerogative to do so. But how can you be shocked that some RPGers - eg me - would see that as railroading?

because you being unable to directly shape the world itself isn't undermining or denying your character agency, ie: railroading,
the fact your character cannot imagine/roll/declare a bridge into existence over a canyon or as was previously mentioned spellbooks into the wizard's tower, into the fiction, does not prevent your character from taking any action available to them at any given moment or neutralise the consequences of doing thereof.

The character is a fictional thing. The character has whatever agency the authors of that fiction care to give them. I can imagine someone paralysed, or imprisoned, or with the powers of Galactus or the Beyonder.

When I talk about railroading, I am not talking about what sort of character I am imagining. I am talking about what real people, playing a game together, are doing in the play of that game. No one thinks that Thurgon can roll dice and make spellbooks appear - he is not a magician. The thing I am talking about is how to make a decision, in the real world about what happens next when I, playing Thurgon, declare that Thurgon looks for spellbooks. In the example of play that I gave it was I, pemerton, a flesh-and-blood person, who rolled some dice. the outcome of that roll determined - in accordance with the rules of the game - what consequence followed from that declared action.

I repeat: if the only person who gets to decide the content of the shared fiction is the GM, how can you be shocked that someone might regard that as a railroad, that is to say, an entirely GM-determined exercise?

the fact that DnD doesn't prioritise character drama and narritive themes quite as much as DW or any other system you prefer is a feature of the system not a flaw.

Well, when I play 4e D&D, or when years ago I played OA AD&D, D&D did do what I wanted it to do. Not everyone plays D&D the way that you do.

the fact the GM is the person to define the fiction over the others is not a flaw, it is just a feature, a feature that you personally don't care for but a feature not a flaw nonetheless,

What do you mean when you say it's not a flaw?

I'm telling you that from my point of view, the GM defining the fiction to the exclusion of other participants is a flaw, and it is a flaw that has a well-known description: railroading. The fact that you don't find it to be a flaw, and don't find it to be railroading, doesn't affect my experience and preferences.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To be fair, what does Ron Edwards have to do with anything I have said or argued?


That's "punching up." "Punching down" is when popular trad gamers punch down to and delegitimize less popular tabletop gaming preferences from a position of privilege.


Dude! How is that any different from what you have been doing throughout this entire thread? You appear to be freely denigrating PbtA playstyles in this thread at nearly every opportunity. Is that what you want? To freely denigrate my preferred playstyles? Because that's what you are doing. When others push back against you denigrating PbtA and narrative games, you retreat to the motte that you are entitled to voice negative opinions and claim that your preferences are under attack.

I apologized to @pemerton . Their style isn't illegitimate, I just don't like it personally and don't feel it has anything to do with the playstyle I do prefer. And my preferences were under attack just as much as theirs were. I don't care if one style or the other is more popular; it doesn't change anything.

I mentioned the Forge thing because you mentioned the Six Cultures of Play thing. Both have similar goals, but widely divergent biases.

 

[pemerton]

Hidden knowledge does NOT invalidate agency.

Really? Never ever?

So if I don't know what is at stake in an action declaration, and what in-fiction consequences might flow from it, that has no bearing on my capacity as a player to contribute to the shared fiction?

I mean, maybe that's your opinion but to me it is obviously absurd.

Take the two doors. One is the exit out and one has two ogres behind it at the end of a hall. If that is set in stone, then regardless of the fact that the players don't know either fact, their choice still has meaning. It matters, because if they choose the left door they get out of the dungeon like they want, and if they choose the right door everyone could die.

As you describe this scenario, it is no different from a choose-you-own-adventure book.

Those books are interesting as puzzles, but not from the point of view of authorship - all the authoring has already been done, and is there on the page.

 

[Xamnam]

Railroading, of RPGing, means the GM exercising authority to the detriment of the players' capacity to shape the fiction. I'm explaining what I take that to be.

That's a very reasonable definition, in that it does encapsulate most every instance that comes to my mind. However, if you'll allow an overly semantic exercise, I think the pushback that you're receiving to your use of the term lies in the distance between your definition, and:

the GM unreasonably exercising authority to the detriment of the players' capacity to shape affect the fiction.

I think this one more closely tracks to the more common usage of it. That said, I know full well there's little point in arguing over what the "correct" definition of something is, especially for as subjective a topic as this. I really don't want to come across as saying yours is wrong. I write this just to try and to point as to why when you say:

What the GM actually says, in the X1 example, is "please make a character who will cheerfully travel to the Isle of Dread".

And people are puzzled that I would regard that as a railroad?

I say personally (sincerely, with all due respect), yes. But, it does make sense in the context of the your definition of the term.

 

[Maxperson]

So, have you ever had a conversation with someone who is super into the DM having ultimate authority over the fiction? And you try to explain a game with player authority over the fiction? And the person responds, "Yeah, dude, but then a player will totally have his character jump over the moon. How do you stop that? Huh? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THOSE EVIL MOON JUMPING PLAYERS?????"

It's aggravating, right? Because we assume good-faith play, and we assume the players are going to act in a manner consistent with the fiction. So answering repeated variations of, "But what if the player is a jerk," isn't helpful.

A fundamental issue that seems to bedevil a lot of these conversations, about the division of authority, and about rules in TTRPGs, is this- what happens when there is an inconsistent view of the fiction between participants in the game? How do you determine what "really happens?" There are rules, there are principles, but fundamentally you need to assume that the participants aren't jerks, right?

The reason I note that is that this is an uncommon conversation; but there does seem to be an awful lot of concern about the need to combat bad-faith DMs. And it seems that this is constantly trotted out ...

I 100% agree, which is why it's so frustrating when people constantly drag out bad faith DMs as a reason to change the rules. As an example, getting rid of Rule 0 because these bad faith DMs use it to oppress the masses!

This is also why I fight so hard against those arguments and consistently point out just how rare they are. As you say, you don't play with jerks and it's assumed that those playing the game aren't jerks, which is almost always the case.