D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Oofta]

I prefer the term linear myself.

Everyone at the table has to accept that they will follow along the adventure, or it falls apart fast.

In my mind there's a difference between linear and railroad. I just got done playing a video game that was quite linear, about my only choice on anything was whether I shot an enemy or tried to sneak past them (usually, sometimes the only solution was to be a murder hobo). It still had fun with the game. Linear gameplay sometimes just happens because of the situation. In a tunnel that's collapsing? If you want to survive you really only have the options of trying to escape the tunnel. A railroad is if the DM tells you that you are going left even if right should be an option, sometimes by using quantum ogres.

 

[soviet]

And the hyperbole of the day award goes to .... DING DING DING ... AbdulAlhazred!!!!

I think you won this trophy forever with your analogy the other day

 

[Oofta]

You're confounding player agency with character agency here. @pemerton is talking about HIS agency, not Aedhros' agency, which is at best imaginary.

I'm expressing a preference that my character has no more control over the fates than I do as a person.

 

[Faolyn]

That's my point though. When something is linear there is no illusion of choice - there is simply no choice (other than to go down the path or to not play). So linear does not equal railroad (unless the DM hides the fact that the adventure is actually linear - but that's illusionism, which is usually a form of railroading).

I prefer to keep the term to the narrow usage - that of the DM presenting an illusion of choice.

To put it another way. The players are generally aware that they are playing a linear adventure. They have accepted that that's the adventure and move along with it. They KNOW that their options are constrained or non-existent.

The players are generally NOT aware that they are being railroaded and many would react poorly if they found out. Because they THOUGHT they had true options but actually did not.

I've been in a couple of railroad games, and their railroad nature because obvious very quickly because the player would try to do something (even something that was completely RAW and RAI) and was shot down, because the GM didn't want to do it. Those games usually died very quickly because of that.

If the players are aware they're playing a linear adventure and are OK with it, it's still a railroad--they're just OK with it, because it's what they signed up for.

 

[Umbran]

If you think other people are posting that omniscience is required for agency, I don't think you tried very hard to understand people's posts.

Mod Note:
Hey, folks.

This is an example, but not the only one present - when others don't shift to share your personal thoughts, there's a temptation to start getting personal, and nasty.

Resist that temptation, please. If you aren't going to be kind to others, maybe don't engage, hey what? Thanks.

 

[Manbearcat]

Do you always have agency as your describing it in real life? If the answer is no, why is it required for a game? Because if I always have agency in a game I would personally call that "artificial".

You're confounding player agency with character agency here. @pemerton is talking about HIS agency, not Aedhros' agency, which is at best imaginary.

Right.

And here is the thing. There are multiple sorts of agency that a game can give effect to (or not).

If the game is about overcoming rules-constrained opposition within a participant-facing structure (basketball or multiple TTRPGs), then (a) understanding the way the opposition is constrained by the rules and (b) understanding the structure of the play is absolutely imperative. What happens when either the opposition deviates from the rules-constraints or the structure fails? Rightful protests. Why do those rightful protests occur? Its because the integrity of the game is marred by the fouling up of the agency that is supposed to be afforded to both sides. The participants know when the trajectory of play has suddenly been perturbed by a miscall or a dubious action by a participant.

If the game is about having the biggest say (or total say) on what my character's dramatic needs are, what they pursue, and how they pursue it (which gives expression to those dramatic needs), and someone with the power to rug-pull subverts that say (via various means, some subtle and some not-so-subtle, of rug-pullery), what happens? Rightful protests. Why do those rightful protests occur? Its because the integrity of the game is marred by the fouling up of the agency that is supposed to be afforded to the individual (or individuals) to make the nexus of play be the dramatic needs of their character(s). The participants know when the trajectory of play has suddenly been perturbed by one form of dubious rug-pullery or another.

So its not about real life agency (and do we have the means here, which includes time and commitment, to have an intense discussion on Theory of Mind?). We don't need to try to grasp at (and fail to hold) the obscene slipperiness of real life agency in order to have a functional conversation about the nature of agency within a specified agenda of play and a specified ruleset and codified refereeing and participant roles within those games that are both meant to facilitate that agenda (or fails to do so). I mean, @Oofta , with respect, you bringing in your incredibly unique and niche (just like everyone else's) autobiographical sense of real life agency as a litmus test...and how any games that don't hew to those slippery particulars (of which I very much doubt even you can sufficiently articulate those particulars such that we can even engage with them) to conversation here as a central point of contention about games? Its really tantamount to saying "this conversation is over...it cannot be functionally talked about...so stop talking about it." I can see absolutely no way forward to have a conversation on these subjects given those parameters. Its like the event horizon of human communication.

 

[Gradine]

I've been in a couple of railroad games, and their railroad nature because obvious very quickly because the player would try to do something (even something that was completely RAW and RAI) and was shot down, because the GM didn't want to do it. Those games usually died very quickly because of that.

If the players are aware they're playing a linear adventure and are OK with it, it's still a railroad--they're just OK with it, because it's what they signed up for.

This is why I sometimes argue that "railroads" bad rap is a little unearned, or at least is a designation that is overused (a part of why I experience such a visceral reaction to attempts to severely expand the definition of the term that have occurred in this thread). Railroading, as a true pejorative, is when the GM tells a player "you can't do that." But you can easily run more linear adventures without having to do that. Player buy-in and signposting can go a long way. Players can still do whatever they want, but they have a general idea of what their goals are and that the adventure is about advancing those goals.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Obviously there has to be some way to let the players know what their characters know. This is generally done in most RPG play via conversation with whomever has that knowledge, often the GM. The GM is not in-game necessarily providing them with knowledge new in the moment to the character, they are instead informing the player of information that their PC knows. The only other option I can see to convey this information is for the player to functionally invent all the information the character knows themselves, if which case the conversation goes the other way, with the player telling the GM what they know. Since I would prefer in my gaming for the setting to exist as independently as possible (ie, I as a PC do not want to invent the setting myself, which feels lacking in verisimilitude to me), I prefer the first option.

In short, our preferences are simply too divergent to ever reach common ground.

Many times I have heard proponents of traditional play process describe how only the process of a single author inventing and describing the world provides verisimilitude. I would simply argue that @pemerton's PoV illustrates the flip side of that, the highly stilted and unnatural experience of being fed everything your character knows. Imagining it yourself may also be imperfect, but it certainly COULD seem far more natural!

 

[Mort]

If the players are aware they're playing a linear adventure and are OK with it, it's still a railroad--they're just OK with it, because it's what they signed up for.

If the players are aware they are playing a linear adventure - where is the illusion of choice?

Railroading isn't merely the adventure being linear. It's the adventure being linear AND the GM presenting the illusion that it is not (hence presenting the choice of A,B, C or D but B,C, and D are actually still A).

I simply prefer to keep the terms separate so as not to have to do the follow-up "Is it the ok kind of railroading or the not ok kind of railroading?"

 

[Pedantic]

Many times I have heard proponents of traditional play process describe how only the process of a single author inventing and describing the world provides verisimilitude. I would simply argue that @pemerton's PoV illustrates the flip side of that, the highly stilted and unnatural experience of being fed everything your character knows. Imagining it yourself may also be imperfect, but it certainly COULD seem far more natural!

This is just hit points 2.0. The endless battle between "that's not how getting hurt works" and "dealing damage with a sword means getting cut by a sword" cast instead in terms of what provides immersion. Is it about knowing/being connected to the wider world, or harmonizing decision making capability with your character?