The point of my post was not to put forward a theory of terrible GMing.
I took it for granted that anyone reading the post would be able to recognise terrible, time-wasting, railroading GMing. My point was that - taking the previous sentence as an obvious premise - that the GM had failed to make something true in the shared fiction (as
@clearstream has most recently reiterated not very far upthread). And hence that it is not true that the GM has absolute or unlimited power over the content of the shared fiction.
As this was the problem: many of us do not see a "terrible, time-wasting, railroading GM" that you do. From everything I've read, I can see how you don't agree with what the DM did, and that might make them a terrible GM
to you, but that far from makes them appear as a terrible DM to "anyone reading the post".
To be clear, I am not saying you are wrong to feel as you did given the situation--just that the assumption your feeling universally applies to other here was the problem.
And I disagree that the DM has absolute or umlimited power over the content of his game. He runs NPCs, including captured kobolds, he defines the narrative, even the results of how PC actions play out.
If you cannot accept the DM narrative, your choice of course, but that doesn't stop the DM from having the power to define the narrative as they see fit to the game.
What has baffled me is that, when the only person who participated in a particular episode of play posts it as an example of terrible railroading so as to make a point that takes that as a given, so many people need to defend the terrible GMing! As if it some threat to their own sense of the quality of the games they run, that someone they've never met is comfortable describing another person they've never met as having done a terrible job as GM.
Again, because we don't see the DM did anything terrible. Our "defense" is that you also aren't in that DM's head during the game. You don't
know why the DM did what they did or had the narrative take that direction. You can make assumptions all you want, but that is all they are.
Also, other people read these threads. As I have had pointed out to myself, sometimes people post so
others reading can see all possible angles, not just the original post's.
No. I described a situation where, in a scenario involving bog-standard AD&D Kobolds, whom everyone at the table knew to be bog-standard AD&D Kobolds, we - the players - came up with a plan to capture and interrogate one. With the GM knowing that was our plan. And then, we we succeeded in the actions that - by the rules of AD&D - are required to carry out such a plan (namely, capturing the Kobold and then questioning it a language - Kobold - that both it and the questioner speak) the GM simply changed the fiction, departing from the AD&D framework to render the Kobold incapable of answering questions. And for the obvious reason that our actions were departing from the GM's intended railroad, whatever that was.
You still don't see that your (the players) visions of these kobolds does not jive with the DMs? Maybe you lacked the shared vision the DM was trying to impart? That doesn't mean the DM has to agree with your, either.
Most DMs IME did not (and do not) play kobolds as being particularly bright. At the
high-end of the spectrum, they were average at best. The DM controls the narrative involving the NPC captive kobold, and were well within their right to have the kobold be an idiot (or whatever).
I don't know what other actions your group took at that point before deciding to leave the game. I can imagine all sorts of scenarios where things might have played out in the direction they were going to everyone's satisfaction.
Unfortunately, since you did withdraw from the game, you'll never know. You appear happy with that decision, so that's fine then, but as I said we'll never know.
You and others, who were not there, can make up whatever imaginary stuff you like - the GM was using house-ruled Kobolds, the GM had determined all the Kobolds ahead of time and we just happened to have the misfortune to capture the cognitively impaired one, the GM had one of a million other confected justifications. But unlike you and those other posters, I was actually there. As were the other players. We knew what was going on. The GM was making up stuff to railroad the game. But the attempt failed, because the game collapsed.
DM doesn't even need "house-ruled kobolds", the normal range of kobold intelligence in AD&D suffices.
(Bolded)
So instead of all powerful, you were all knowing??? You don't really
know what the DM intended, and it sounds like you never gave them the chance to show you. The game collapsed because you chose to walk away from it, because you couldn't accept the DM's narrative, not because there was anything
wrong IME with that narrative.
FWIW, how would you have reacted if the DM had the kobold answer your questions, but the information was either a) wrong or b) had changed by the time you acted on it? Intel is great, but it is by no means absolute or reliable. Had you acted on the intel, but things go badly, would you blame the DM again, saying they are bad for tricking you or something, say they are railroading??? Seriously, I would like to know.
Which is - as was my original point in posting the example - sufficient to show that the GM did not have the power to make the shared fiction be whatever he wanted it to be.
You keep using the term "shared fiction" as where I simply call it the "narrative". Players don't write the story in D&D as much as the DM does. Players control their characters and the DM controls everything else. They listen to the narrative told to them by the DM, react to it with choices for their characters, and the DM narrates the outcome of those choices. That is the basic cycle of play right from the PHB.
There is a reason the DM is also called the "story-teller", after all.
