D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Bedrockgames]

But "just staying true to the character" can accurately describe either thing. That was @pemerton's point. This isn't a defense. It doesn't in any way forestall or interfere with railroading if you can just as easily be railroading as not railroading.

No one is saying it does. But it also doesn’t lead to railroading. Railroading leads to railroading. If the GM is just interested in characterization of the NPC, and isn’t doing it to railroad. It isn’t a problem. And in my experience this is the point. Also even if the GM used characterization to block a single potential path or choice that isn’t itself railroading. Putting some constraints in the setting isn’t a railroad. Putting a mountain on the map, isn’t thwarting player agency for example

But you brought this up as a method that is supposed to not railroad. If it doesn't actually conflict with railroading in the slightest, where is the thing that gets in the way of that?

Could you require me with the section you are referring to. I want to make sure I am defending my point from its original context as I have lost track of where this came up

But I will say, this doesn’t railroad. Having an NPC with a trait, that isn’t a railroad

But

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If a GM always predetermines a result it's a railroad. But as the DMG states you can't hit the moon with an arrow so sometimes there is no chance of success. It does not mean that the GM making judgement calls on what is possible makes it a railroad.

I didn't say it makes it a railroad.

I said that this technique is unrelated to whether it is a railroad or not.

This technique was given as a way to avoid railroads. But it does nothing of the sort. So, what does?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Okay, cool. So your system has rules for various things. Awesome.

I want you to imagine that system, completely stripped of rules for travel, reputation, and armies. Would you find that it suits your needs, and just requires "structured frameworks" and "referee coaching" to take care of those things instead? Or would you find that it is inadequate, and begin looking for rules for those things?

Yes. I could easily run that system. I have even thought of doing this for a faster version of play because the game is crunchy and so much of the crunch revolves around Kung fu techniques. And I have stripped it down considerably for a horror ruleset.

If you stripped out as much of the other mechanical elements as possible, I could still run it as a sandbox using rulings. It would be like running D&D relying heavily on attribute rolls for those aspects of play. It does depend on how it is done of course, and at the moment I am pretty content with the way it runs. I have basically done 3 versions of the system. One that was rules light, one more light-medium, and one medium-heavy. Each one is not strictly designed for sandbox play though (but sandbox is meant to be feasible in all of them)

Again, I think you are coming at this from a very different place than I am. And that is fine. but try to understand I am not looking for the experience of play you seem to be looking for

 

[AlViking]

I didn't say it makes it a railroad.

I said that this technique is unrelated to whether it is a railroad or not.

This technique was given as a way to avoid railroads. But it does nothing of the sort. So, what does?

It's a technique that theoretically avoids some railroading techniques but only one. I'm not concerned about stopping any theoretical railroad because I've always been able to avoid it by avoiding DMs that run games I don't want to play in. In any game, any system, there are going to be some people I do not want to sit down at the table with for a leisure time activity whether that person is GM or fellow player. Rules of the game will never change that.

 

[Hussar]

Discussions of railroading always seem to get lost in the weeds.

Before we can make any reasonable discussion of railroading, we have to have a working definition that we can all live with. Otherwise, there's no point. To me, railroading is a degenerate form of play where the DM (I'm going to stick with DM here because I know that there are player side ways to force actions, but, generally speaking, we're talking about DMs here) uses the authority of being a DM to enforce specific outcomes when alternative outcomes are plausible.

Linear does not mean railroad. Again, going back to the typical 5 room dungeon where you have an entrance, then four sequential rooms - ie. a natural cave - is 100% linear. Every single group playing that scenario will encounter those encounters in that order (barring some outliers of course). That's not a railroad though. Those encounters being encountered sequentially are perfectly plausible because no alternative outcome can happen. You can't "skip" forward in the sequence without having some sort of means that allows you to do so.

If you are traveling from New York to Boston, there are realistically, only a couple of plausible routes. None of those routes should take you through Houston. Again, travel scenarios are, by their nature, typically linear but, not railroads - even the ones that are on literal trains.

Trying to define railroads in such a way that encompasses perfectly legitimate linear adventure design is not helpful.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not a quote from you, but an example of this principle not contradicted, written by someone else:

Fairness and consistency with this approach come from staying true to the setting’s established facts and how the characters fit into it.

The system is an aide that provides procedures for resolving uncertainty, but the world logic, geography, cultures, factions, and character capabilities define what actions are possible and how outcomes make sense.

It's not arbitrary; it's grounded in the details of the setting.

And another:

It's only an invisible railroad if the GM has already determined direction before the declaration of actions by the players. When I'm DMing and running an NPC I base reactions on what I know about the NPC while taking into account what the characters have done and said. There have been many cases when direction of the session or even entire campaign changed based on choices of the characters.

And here, from you:

How is this functionally equivalent to a railroad. He isn't setting down what actins the NPC should take in advance. He is basing his decision in that moment, in reaction to the players, based on what he knows about the NPC. That isn't a railroad. He is describing an organic process, where the players actions matter a great deal and he hasn't planned out stuff in advance. He is responding to the players, not railroading them

All of these hinge on the same thing: "What the DM already knows". How does the DM already know that? This has been, repeatedly, used as a "this isn't and can't be railroading"--but HOW "what the DM already knows" is left almost totally unstated. Like I've gone back through and seen multiple posts which reference this, even reference that the "how" matters...and then never actually say a word about the "how".

You may not have been the one to explicitly use the word "it's not a railroad", but the arguments are all there and they're all fundamentally the same. This is being given as a defense against railroading, but it does nothing of the kind. It simply shifts the place where railroading may occur away from "DM response to player input" to "how the DM decides what she already knows".

 

[AlViking]

Discussions of railroading always seem to get lost in the weeds.

Before we can make any reasonable discussion of railroading, we have to have a working definition that we can all live with. Otherwise, there's no point. To me, railroading is a degenerate form of play where the DM (I'm going to stick with DM here because I know that there are player side ways to force actions, but, generally speaking, we're talking about DMs here) uses the authority of being a DM to enforce specific outcomes when alternative outcomes are plausible.

Linear does not mean railroad. Again, going back to the typical 5 room dungeon where you have an entrance, then four sequential rooms - ie. a natural cave - is 100% linear. Every single group playing that scenario will encounter those encounters in that order (barring some outliers of course). That's not a railroad though. Those encounters being encountered sequentially are perfectly plausible because no alternative outcome can happen. You can't "skip" forward in the sequence without having some sort of means that allows you to do so.

If you are traveling from New York to Boston, there are realistically, only a couple of plausible routes. None of those routes should take you through Houston. Again, travel scenarios are, by their nature, typically linear but, not railroads - even the ones that are on literal trains.

Trying to define railroads in such a way that encompasses perfectly legitimate linear adventure design is not helpful.

Several airlines don't seem to agree with the bolded statement.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Not a quote from you, but an example of this principle not contradicted, written by someone else:

And another:

And here, from you:

All of these hinge on the same thing: "What the DM already knows". How does the DM already know that? This has been, repeatedly, used as a "this isn't and can't be railroading"--but HOW "what the DM already knows" is left almost totally unstated. Like I've gone back through and seen multiple posts which reference this, even reference that the "how" matters...and then never actually say a word about the "how".

You may not have been the one to explicitly use the word "it's not a railroad", but the arguments are all there and they're all fundamentally the same. This is being given as a defense against railroading, but it does nothing of the kind. It simply shifts the place where railroading may occur away from "DM response to player input" to "how the DM decides what she already knows".

I can only defend my own words. but I am saying this is not equal to a railroad. I agree if railroading is happening, railroading is happening. but the GM adapting to the direction the players want to go isn't railroading. If he is genuinely trying to have something new arise there, and isn't imposing some adventure upon them they were trying to avoid, I am struggling to see how that is a railroad. Go back to what I was talking about in that post for the full context of what I was saying.

I think what someone like Rob is saying is overall if the GM is using what makes sense, using prior established facts, and being fair, railroading is unliking. But what stops railroading from happening in sandboxes is GMs are running them because they don't want to railroad. That is one of the main points of play: you are offering this open experience to players because you don't want to railroad. You could have a terrible GM who intentionally or unintentionally railroads. And you could take an expansive definition of railroad to make a bad argument that is happening whenever the GM has authority over 'the fiction". But the very premise of a sandbox is that you aren't supposed to railroad. So don't railroad. It doesn't really take more than that

 

[mamba]

If two people can understand the exact same thing to be weird to the point of almost inapplicable and common to the point of universal, surely you can both see how just "guidelines" and "coaching" and "structured frameworks" might not be enough to achieve a particular end.

if on the other hand the rules say you can get anyone to do anything if you are just persuasive enough, that might prevent railroading, but it also can lead to some pretty nonsensical situations.

 

[The Firebird]

if on the other hand the rules say you can get anyone to do anything if you are just persuasive enough, that might prevent railroading, but it also can lead to some pretty nonsensical situations.

I rolled a 20. The king must give me his kingdom!