D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Oofta]

So if the GM always has agency, is that artificial?

For my part, when I am sitting down at the table to play a game, I want all the participants to be participating, not just one. If the game is principally about establishing a shared fiction and seeing how it unfolds, then I want everyone's imagination to contribute. And if the game is going to involve the distinctive, asymmetric roles that typify RPGing, then I want the allocation of powers and responsibilities to those roles to be well-designed to ensure that everyone gets to contribute.

To me that's not artificial, it's just common sense game design. The idea that RPGs should be distinctive, in that the so-called "players" don't get to do much playing, isn't one I can get on board with.

It's statement like the bolded that is insulting to everyone who enjoys playing D&D. You have to know that's not how virtually all people feel at the table.

Artificial: not like real life. Example: Having full knowledge of consequences of every action you take is artificial.

 

[pemerton]

Again, why do you insist on presenting your opinion objectively? Your feeling that what you described is a railroad is not objective fact.

Where did I use words like "objective" and "fact"? The opening words of the post you quoted were "When my RPGing looks like the paragraph just above, it is a railroad". Am I not allowed to comment on the features of my GMing as I experience it?

 

[pemerton]

I don't actually see much that the GM is doing in your ideal game, other than making sure the rules are followed.

This is a ludicrous comment. In this thread I've posted actual play examples, and discussed method. For someone who complains so much about others being "dismissive", you do a good job of showing zero respect for other peoples' RPGing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So if the GM always has agency, is that artificial?

For my part, when I am sitting down at the table to play a game, I want all the participants to be participating, not just one. If the game is principally about establishing a shared fiction and seeing how it unfolds, then I want everyone's imagination to contribute. And if the game is going to involve the distinctive, asymmetric roles that typify RPGing, then I want the allocation of powers and responsibilities to those roles to be well-designed to ensure that everyone gets to contribute.

To me that's not artificial, it's just common sense game design. The idea that RPGs should be distinctive, in that the so-called "players" don't get to do much playing, isn't one I can get on board with.

Perhaps many games are not principally about establishing a shared fiction and seeing how it unfolds. Or perhaps many games don't require the player to author all the fiction to achieve that goal. Or perhaps everyone is participating in the game even one person is doing most of the fiction authoring.

 

[Maxperson]

Blind guessing isn't agency.

By the definition of agency, you are incorrect. Do you have control of your PC's actions? Yes. Does the choice have meaning? Yes. It means something that right door has ogres and left door is the way out, even if you don't know the meaning in advance. Meaning exists even if you are ignorant of it at the time of choice. That's agency.

Opinions on "liking" or "not liking" are immaterial.

They you guys need to stop using the kind agency you like to mean "all agency" and those you don't like as "no agency."

You wouldn't be blind guessing in a dungeon, you'd always have some kind of information guiding your choice.

Sure, but not necessarily about what is beyond the doors.

 

[pemerton]

I mean, it seems glaringly obvious to me that @pemerton is being deliberately provocative in order to challenge the normative language usually associated with trad/simulation play and the usual "othering" of narrative play.

Sometimes I don't express my true thoughts and feelings. But many other posters in this thread started expressing their feelings about what is artificial and quantum and all that, so I thought that they would welcome someone else sharing their feelings too. It seemed to be what the thread was inviting.

I don't understand why only certain feelings are considered legitimate to express.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Where did I use words like "objective" and "fact"? The opening words of the post you quoted were "When my RPGing looks like the paragraph just above, it is a railroad". Am I not allowed to comment on the features of my GMing as I experience it?

You are not to my mind making clear in your phrasing that the above is your opinion of the situation, which leads me to conclude that you see your opinion as objective fact. I say "in my opinion" or "i feel that" or "in my view" all the time for example, because that's what my posts are, and I want people who read them to know that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sometimes I don't express my true thoughts and feelings. But many other posters in this thread started expressing their feelings about what is artificial and quantum and all that, so I thought that they would welcome someone else sharing their feelings too. It seemed to be what the thread was inviting.

I don't understand why only certain feelings are considered legitimate to express.

You're free to express whatever feelings you want of course, I would just prefer that they are presented as feelings.

 

[pemerton]

Let me ask you this: most versions of D&D talk about railroading as a concept and GMing technique to be avoided, true?

Which ones. Moldvay Basic doesn't, as best I recall: in any event, the whole idea of railroading has no purchase in the sort of play Moldvay sets out. If the GM is doing what Moldvay says to do - ie designing a dungeon, and then refereeing the players' exploration of it - railroading doesn't come into it, any more than I can "railroad" you when playing hangman.

I don't recall Gygax talking about it in his rulebooks.

I've never read the 2nd ed AD&D or 5e DMGs so don't know what they say. My recollection of the bits of the 3E DMG about how to GM a game are pretty faint. I don't think it's advice had much impact on me.

Accepting your exceptions (4e and AD&D OA), do you think those games are using the term the way you are using it, where it's a railroad if the GM authors the fiction? If so, what's going on? Are all these designers being hypocrites about their game, which is a railroad even as they warn against them? Or is it possible that their definition of the term differs from yours?

I think that they are writing for an audience who don't have the same sensibility as I do, and hence take a different view as to what counts as excessive or unreasonable control of the fiction by the GM.

But given that nearly every WotC adventure I've read is a railroad, and likewise nearly every adventure published in the 2nd ed AD&D era, I don't really accept the proposition that the authors of D&D are against railroading!

 

[TwoSix]

By the definition of agency, you are incorrect. Do you have control of your PC's actions? Yes. Does the choice have meaning? Yes. It means something that right door has ogres and left door is the way out, even if you don't know the meaning in advance. Meaning exists even if you are ignorant of it at the time of choice. That's agency.

Actually, by the definition of agency, you are incorrect.

Isn't this fun?

They you guys need to stop using the kind agency you like to mean "all agency" and those you don't like as "no agency."

I don't have to stop doing anything. That's me exhibiting agency.