D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[hawkeyefan]

I think what he meant is, if you have a bunch of people who want to go on The Quest, but another player who only wants to do their story and doesn't want to have a reason to go on The Quest, it's selfish of that other player to demand that The Quest be dropped in favor of their own story. Or, if everyone is doing their own story and not finding reasons to work together all that much (or at all), then it's selfish to require that they just sit there, potentially for hours, and do nothing while they wait for their turn with the spotlight.

Obviously, a good GM can weave personal stories and Quest stories together, although it might seem a bit artificial at times (the father happens to be on the Isle of Dread).

Sure, and I get that. I think though, that what's being proposed is that (depending on where it comes from) the idea of The Quest is itself a railroad.

But that is not what is commonly accepted as the definition.

I've told you the definition before, and so have others: it's when you have no choices as to what you're going to do, because all of your choices lead back to the GM's decision.

Having the GM make a world is not railroading, unless that GM refuses to let any of your choices change that world in a way they don't want it changed.

I don't think it's about making the world. It's about deciding what the players' characters will be doing in it. What they care about and what their goals are. If all that is determined by (or entirely subject to the approval/inclusion of) the GM, then how is the player to exercise their agency?

People can buy into that kind of game. I do it plenty myself. But isn't it a railroad in that we know ahead of time how it's largely going to go? Are little cosmetic changes that don't affect the overall direction of play really enough to say it's not a railroad?

I'd love to see people actually interrogate that idea and what it means rather than just get outraged at the use of the term railroading. Because there is something worth considering there.

Imagine Battleship without being able to see your opponent's pieces.

Oops... I mean, imagine poker without being able to see your opponent's cards.

Uh... dangit, I'm having a hard time thinking of any game involving cards that doesn't limit player knowledge.

I guess it means that all such games are railroads lacking any player agency? Imagine the reaction of all those professional poker players, and fans, when they find that out.

Games can have hidden or incomplete information. But making a decision with no information isn't really an example of agency, is it? In poker, I have information at my disposal... I have the cards in my hand, I have the ones that are visible on the table (if Hold 'em or similar game), I have odds of cards in a deck of 52, I have the behavior of my opponents... I'm not making decisions without any information.

I'm not saying that players must know everything. I said there must be some amount of information available to them. That any choice needs to acknowledge some amount of difference between the options. A choice between two identical things, as far as the chooser can know, is not a meaningful choice at all.

And no one is making that argument; it's a straw man. You're equating more vs. less to some vs. none. That's what @Maxperson is pointing out.

My point is that @Maxperson 's idea of "none" is virtually non-existent. I don't think it's enough to avoid a railroad that the GM simply allow me to declare actions for my character. The actions I declare need to be able to determine the events of play in a meaningful way.

Look at the OP. Almost everyone would call that a railroad, including the GM of the OP. Clearly there was a plot that was intended to happen. The players still declared actions for their characters, they weren't denied the ability to make those choices. But none of them mattered. They were going where the GM wanted no matter what.

There's no need to resort to Max's needlessly extreme version to railroad players.

 

[Faolyn]

I don't see how this is relevant to the issue of railroading and agency; can you explain? Adding the following for context, to which this is in response:

Because you can't compare a card game with a distinct winner to an RPG where the goal is just to play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It doesn't redefine it, it puts parameters on it for a particular game or a particular type of game.

What your prior espoused agenda preference ("doesn't feel artificial to Oofta") does is that it does one of two things (take your pick), both of which make conversation impossible:

* It tightens the parameters to such an extreme degree that it will be impossible to build an inclusive coalition around sufficient to meaningfully discuss games ("feels artificial to Oofta").

* It broadens parameters to such a degree that it becomes impossible to distinguish and dissect any particular thing because everything is so slippery and so malleable that any attempt to capture a given concept for discussion becomes impossible (conversation becomes an endless haggling over "premise-disagreeing" and "language-policing" and "concept-deconstructing" such that you_never_build_anything).


And here is the other thing. If we pivot to something a little more concrete like "working off of information to make decisions that your character could not have," then we're going to get into a few powderkegs:

1) "Does the imagined space that you're working under/within actually include a User Interface for players that is even remotely real (contra "artificial") or is it basically artificial (eg why do characters feel like space aliens teleported from another dimension into the setting, a setting that they should have sufficient familiarity of people/places/things to mentally model the world and act upon their model such that the actual experience of play meets the very low threshold of "not a space alien"?)? "Artificial" here meaning you (the "not space alien") see places and don't reflexively know them (you have to ask an authority figure if you do), see passersby and don't recognize them nor do they recognize you (you have to ask an authority figure if you do or they do), and you experience and engage with phenomena that you should have built out a robust model for (rather than pawing at it to determine its parameters with the aid of an authority figure telling you how your pawing manifests)."

2) Most of the people I've interacted with on here with respect to the subjects of martial expertise and high-resolution, powerfully predictive mental modeling of related physical collisions/interactions (of which the characters in a D&D game would necessarily be)...are not only not experts...they're not even remotely proficient...many times not even experienced in hand-fighting, or trekking, or track-and-field athletics, or climbing, or weapon-fighting, or what its like to suffer from exposure, etc. Which is totally fine. They sub their genre expectations for these things.

But "feels artificial because it doesn't match my genre expectations which I've subbed for real-life experience and expertise" is a very different beast from "is artificial." And calling that obvious fact out yields offense. Offense that either accidentally or willfully shuts down the drilling down of these issues that is necessary to have a human conversation about them.

So what's the alternative? You've been very clear on what you see as problem methods of communication, but people still feel how they feel, and like what they like. How are you supposed to express those opinions under your paradigm? Or aren't you?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah I don't understand the objection to that either. As you pointed out, there are plenty of fairly standard RPGs that never have GMs roll dice, or whatnot. I think it does serve a significant design role in PbtA, but less so in some other games. It's almost as if anything that isn't D&D is obviously doing it wrong...

There are plenty of games that have GMs roll for stuff but aren't D&D, and you know that.

Why do so many people insist on a binary for so many things?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, and I get that. I think though, that what's being proposed is that (depending on where it comes from) the idea of The Quest is itself a railroad.




I don't think it's about making the world. It's about deciding what the players' characters will be doing in it. What they care about and what their goals are. If all that is determined by (or entirely subject to the approval/inclusion of) the GM, then how is the player to exercise their agency?

People can buy into that kind of game. I do it plenty myself. But isn't it a railroad in that we know ahead of time how it's largely going to go? Are little cosmetic changes that don't affect the overall direction of play really enough to say it's not a railroad?

I'd love to see people actually interrogate that idea and what it means rather than just get outraged at the use of the term railroading. Because there is something worth considering there.

Perhaps if the term is causing that much acrimony, we should find a different term that is more conducive to discourse.

 

[CreamCloud0]

see the main difference between linear games and being railroaded IMO is that linear games state upfront that there is an established path of events and places laid out for you to encounter that you basically agree to follow but it typically grants you as much freedom to find methods and solutions within that path that you can devise yourself.
'you're going to start at Smallhedge village, travel to 'Midchurch town where you'll face the evil preist Blackcloth forcing them to leave town, pass through Blazewell caverns where you'll obtain the holy relic from Cindereye the dragon there and finally end up at Shadowgrip temple where you'll face off against Blackcloth and their cult trying to summon the demon they worship and stop them'
this doesn't tell you how you oust Blackcloth from Midchurch through force or coertion or revealing their plot, it doesn't say if you take the relic from Cindereye through murdering them, negotiation or theft, it doesn't give any specific way that you stop the ritual but all the events still happen in a certain order leading to the next step in the adventure.

this is unlike a railroaded adventure where anything you try will fail unless it is the GM's pre-approved solution or all solutions/choices ultimately result in the same outcome, in a railroaded campaign you couldn't oust Blackcloth through coertion or revealing their plot because the GM decided you had to fight them to make them flee, you can't steal the relic from Cindereye they'll notice you sneaking around even on a nat 20+16 stealth mod+pass without trace, they'll knock you all down to 1HP over and over while having infinite health themselves if you decide to fight them, you'll HAVE to negotiate because 'that's the solution', if you get to Shadowgrip temple and steal the summoning book that'll turn out to of been a decoy and they'll summon the demon and you'll fight, if you get the drop on Blackcloth killing them early they'll of been replaced by a cultist with an identical set of abilities who'll then summon the demon and you'll fight, if you plant bombs to blow up the summoning circle mid-ritual the magic will go haywire and...it'll summon the demon and you'll fight.
And if when you started your adventure from Smallhedge but your group actually decided they wanted to go to Portsedge citadael you would have found it looks surprisingly exactly like Midchurch town with a different name or that every single road or valley pass or forest was suddenly totally impassable i don't know guys looks like you'll have to go to Midchurch there's nowhere else to go.

 

[Enrahim2]

If I may, I’d like to offer some alternative words beyond Is Not/Is Too about what @pemerton ia doing with “railroading”.

Let’s take US constitutional law. (On my shelf, several textbooks shout “Please!”) the US’s founding documents refer at various points to the rights of “all men”. Laws and court rulings made it clear that this meant “all white men of sufficient property”. Gradually, courts and legislatures and executives decided that, no, it really meant more than that, and “all white men” became its practical meaning. In the wake of our Civil War, a bunch people said, no, seriously, it means “all men”. So it did. Half a century later, authorities said, seriously, the intent here is clear, and in practice it came to mean “all adults”. And so on.

Finding that a piece of law has implications its creators didn’t think of is part of the rich cycle of life. Rights and responsibilities can change in practice even when the language doesn’t.

And that’s what Pemerton is doing. He’s arguing that by the criteria a lot of us accept, some things we don’t think of as railroading actually are, because how they work in practice and what they implies about the participant’s situations with regard to play and each other.

At first glance, this seem like a valid defence. However there is one important distinction that I think make it fall appart. The usefulness of "all men" was in determining who had a certain set of rights. Changing the contents of all men did not change this usefullness. It is per today including all humans, but exclude things like animals and AI. The contents has changed, but the purpose hasn't.

However with railroading the term has gotten popularity due to its importance in describing one direction in an axis of playstyles ranging from sandbox where players are fully free to explore toward increased degrees of GM "guidance". As there is indeed a range of preferences along this axis, and the extreme of GM taking full control of the show has also been identified as a unwanted situation appearing in the wild, the term "railroading" has been highly usefull for articulating preferences and advice related to this axis.

However if expanding "railroading" to include classic sandboxes would destroy its usefullness in the above kind of discussion. It clearly cannot be used to communicate a property distinct from sandbox, if sandbox itself is included. If railroad was indeed in culture changed to include sandboxes as @pemerton uses it, the community would have to find another term to describe what is now described by "railroading", and the usefullness of such a term seem evident given how much it is currently in use in the sense not including sandboxing.

Pemerton's project cannot as far as I can see reasonably be construed to be simply shifting the contents of railroading, the way many indeed are doing (causing a lot of interesting debate). Rather it seem like an attempt of describing the extremety of a different axis. On this axis both classic railroad and classic sandbox is at the "railroad" extremety, and as such this axis appear to be orthogonal to the classic railroad, classic sandbox axis. This is why I think it make much more sense to try to find a new word for the extremities of this new axis (like sightseeing vs colaborative storytelling). If indeed this axis turn out to be interesting to talk about, the same way it has proven interesting to talk about the sandbox railroad axis, this new word should catch on.

 

[Manbearcat]

So what's the alternative? You've been very clear on what you see as problem methods of communication, but people still feel how they feel, and like what they like. How are you supposed to express those opinions under your paradigm? Or aren't you?

Be slow to offend or resist taking offense at all costs. If you find that you're taking offense routinely and/or conversation is consistently orbiting around your offense, then something is going on and we need to figure it out (preferably not in the middle of threads...but in DMs).

Post play excerpts for discussion of the ideas and concepts you're referring to.

Speak specifically, concretely, and discuss games at the level of "what is this particular game trying to do" and "how does it go about that" and "does it do the things."

If you must speak autobiographically and about "my feelings/preferences," try as hard as you can to drill down intensively and communicate how those feelings/preferences intersect with the concrete aspects of games. Be open to the prospect that your feelings/preferences, while legitimate as feelings/preferences, are up for scrutiny around things like application generally, applicability specifically (in this game or that game), or scalability.

---

I'll take those as good starting points to actually "build" interesting conversations and a vital repository of shared knowledge if not consensus (which is never going to be reached...and good for it).

 

[Faolyn]

I don't think it's about making the world. It's about deciding what the players' characters will be doing in it. What they care about and what their goals are. If all that is determined by (or entirely subject to the approval/inclusion of) the GM, then how is the player to exercise their agency?

By talking to the/getting a new GM? And I'm not being flippant. If you have a GM who doesn't care about your backstory or who actively ignores it, and you do care about it and want to deal with it in-game, then it's something to be addressed.

I say "a good chance," because, of course, there's always the players who insist their characters led armies into triumphant war and are actually polymorphed dragons at 1st level, or other obnoxious things.

People can buy into that kind of game. I do it plenty myself. But isn't it a railroad in that we know ahead of time how it's largely going to go? Are little cosmetic changes that don't affect the overall direction of play really enough to say it's not a railroad?

Well yes, that's what I was saying.

 

[Pedantic]

Because you can't compare a card game with a distinct winner to an RPG where the goal is just to play.

I don't think that's quite the right diagnosis. There are, for example, completely cooperative board games, like say Spirit Island, where there is only collective victory or loss. The differentiating factor here isn't "competition," it's bounded time. Card games and board games are entered into with a known, fixed victory condition* and a known, fixed endpoint after which victory will be evaluated and the game will end. I'm fond of saying the primary differentiating factor between a TTRPG and a board/card game is the player's ability to choose their own arbitrary victory conditions, and for the game to continue after victory is evaluated.

That's a bit self-serving, in that I don't actually think that's universally accepted to be what's actually important about RPGs, but I personally think it's where most of their interesting design potential springs from.

*Or a means to determine the same.