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

[EzekielRaiden]

the why is not really the relevant part, the fact that one NPC being ‘immune’ to being persuaded of one thing has no bearing on it being a railroad, yet to you it makes it one

Oh, so now you get to decide what is relevant to me?

And folks wonder why I get so infuriated about double standards in threads like this!

I am not seeing the relevance of this. So it is a railroad if you disagree that something is possible / impossible, but it isn’t if you always agree with the DM on that?

No. It's that if something is so blatantly, transparently ridiculous, something that instantly triggers my "how in the hell does that even happen????" reflex, it's evidence that the GM is engaging in railroading.

And, to be clear here, I am not the one who proposed this standard. AlViking was. The standard of "real-world logic" and the like. This example, given as a defense of this style, openly violates my understanding of "real-world logic"--it creates a character who is so blatantly anti-realistic I cannot accept it.

I'm not the one arguing that the "why" of a thing is protection against railroading. Others here are. Particularly @Bedrockgames, @AlViking, and @robertsconley. Indeed, their arguments are almost exclusively about the "why", because the "how" is left completely unexplained beyond phrases like "what the DM already knows", as has been said repeatedly by others (particularly @pemerton).

I don’t think of something as a railroad just because every once in a while something I would like to do cannot be done. It’s the frequency of this that determines how much of a railroad it is, but it happening every once in a while is meaningless

It's a matter of evidence. Getting a situation that does everything but shout from the rooftops "I am just doing this to deny your ability to take that path" is the problem.

 

[mamba]

But that isn't what people tell us to do--over and over and over and over and over in these threads.

It's never "the players have every right to check the GM".

not sure what exactly you mean, but yes, you have every right to check the GM. You can refuse a GM just like a GM can refuse a player.

I’d say you do not have the right to argue about whatever for 30 minutes during the game session with the GM, but you can ask some questions before joining, after the session, or leave at any point if you do not feel it is working out for you

 

[mamba]

Oh, so now you get to decide what is relevant to me?

it was about what makes it a railroad, not what you like / dislike

No. It's that if something is so blatantly, transparently ridiculous, something that instantly triggers my "how in the hell does that even happen????" reflex, it's evidence that the GM is engaging in railroading.

and that is where we disagree on, one such instance is no evidence of railroading to me, if this happens frequently however

It's a matter of evidence. Getting a situation that does everything but shout from the rooftops "I am just doing this to deny your ability to take that path" is the problem.

that is your interpretation, not evidence

 

[AlViking]

In the last quoted sentence you describe a procedure. (Or at least a fragment of a procedure.)

And you posit it as a desirable thing ("hopefully").

So I don't know why you keep posting as if you are disagreeing with me about the importance of procedures!

You're the one who keeps insisting that the game is better is the GM has rules that restrict what they can do.

I don't know if you're familiar with Gygax's discussion of Successful Adventuring, in his PHB.

To me, it is the gold standard - or close to, at least - for articulating how play should work in a map-and-key-based game. And its starting point is that the players have the capacity to exercise control over how much they know about the situations they are trying to engage in (via their PCs).

Your picture of D&D doesn't cover the field.

Gygax said a lot of things. Some things I agree with, some I don't. Seems like you keep bringing up these decades old opinion pieces as an appeal to authority. It can be interesting to discuss what others think but it has no more weight IMHO than the postings of anyone else. The concept of RP and gaming have shifted over the decades.

OK, then why do you seem to misdescribe them?

When have I described them? I don't really care how other games work when the thread is specifically labeled a D&D General thread unless it's somehow applicable to D&D. Besides anything I say about other games, if I get a term even slightly incorrect, even if I'm describing the general process correctly, gets labeled as not understanding.

Do I currently play other games? No, my current groups don't care for other games and I don't have much of an interest (or time) in them at this moment. I play and read up on other games now and then but I don't have detailed knowledge of every aspect and when I ask about details you just say "I answered it somewhere else in this thread that has thousands of posts". Except you didn't go into a lot of detail. Much like your reference to "Living Novel" was a 1 line description that to me sounds like what most people define as a sandbox.

Do I understand there are other approaches than what D&D takes? Of course, there are several. Despite your implications I'm not an idiot.

Are the players informed, in advance, about this "logical conclusion given setting assumptions"? Or are they expected to work it out for themselves?

If the GM's head, and notes, are full of this sort of thing, and the players aren't told about it, and so their action declarations keep bumping into them, where is the player freedom and control that is at the core of sandbox play?

When it comes to major decisions such as which general direction the campaign will be headed, yes they have at least an idea of what that entails. For every single decision? Of course not. I wouldn't want to play that style of game. Some information may be general knowledge, something they could learn with effort, something they have no way of knowing. Just like real life. That doesn't make it any less of a sandbox.

But this idea that every single step and decision must be an informed decision seems like yet another "gotcha", another roadblock you keep adding to say that I don't run a sandbox campaign and can't because I don't use your preferred ruleset. It's tiresome.

 

[AnotherGuy]

But that isn't what people tell us to do--over and over and over and over and over in these threads.

It's never "the players have every right to check the GM".

It's "Wow, you just really can't trust your GM, can you? That must really suck for you".

Personally, I think every player has the right to check and confirm things with the GM - whether it be with the numbers or something may be off in the shared fiction. It is a game, we are of course fallible and can forget something (or even inject personal bias), and I always believe in open dialogue.

If you do not have that kind of respect then ofc you are going to incur distrust.

 

[Bedrockgames]

No. It's that if something is so blatantly, transparently ridiculous, something that instantly triggers my "how in the hell does that even happen????" reflex, it's evidence that the GM is engaging in railroading.

And, to be clear here, I am not the one who proposed this standard. AlViking was. The standard of "real-world logic" and the like. This example, given as a defense of this style, openly violates my understanding of "real-world logic"--it creates a character who is so blatantly anti-realistic I cannot accept it.

I'm not the one arguing that the "why" of a thing is protection against railroading. Others here are. Particularly @Bedrockgames, @AlViking, and @robertsconley. Indeed, their arguments are almost exclusively about the "why", because the "how" is left completely unexplained beyond phrases like "what the DM already knows", as has been said repeatedly by others (particularly @pemerton).

I don't think it is rocket science. It is what the GM thinks is realistic or what the GM thinks this NPC would do. For some people that is going to present an issue, which is fine, I would say don't play this way if it does. But I don't consider it a problem. As long as the GMs choices seem to make sense, it is okay that different GMs will have different decisions. If I am playing in Rob's campaign and he is prioritizing realism, I come in with the understanding that the world reflect's Rob's sensibilities in that respect.

I've been in games for example where I knew more about something than a GM. I had one GM who was treating a religion that was clearly Roman inspired, more like a modern church service when we went to their temple. That certainly isn't how I would have done it, but I understood we were in that GMs world operating under that GMs sensibilities based on their own experience. Part of it for me is being able to put my own ego aside and accept that a given GM might see things differently than me. As long as they are making an honest effort, I don't have an issue (and I feel you can generally sense that if they are)

 

[FrozenNorth]

were the companions of the ring railroaded when they failed on the mountain pass and had to go through Moria? When would you consider this an acceptable (non-railroad) outcome? If it weren’t gelatinous cubes but a cave-in?

It was a movie, not an RPG, so the answer to the question depends on the assumptions you make on the scene.
Could the party have pushed forward at higher risk but decided that cutting through the mine was safer?
Could Gandalf who was also a powerful wizard and had the benefit of being present at the scene counteract Saruman’s spell?
Could the party simply have waited out the spell on the basis that casting powerful weather control spells drains mana or spell slots or whatever?

 

[AlViking]

I have, repeatedly, said precisely why that example trips it. It isn't because this person has things they cannot be persuaded to do. It is because the reason--the thing "the DM already knows"--is so utterly ludicrous, I flatly do not believe ANYONE would have that religious belief. Condemning your entire family to eternal punishment because of consuming any amount of alcohol, no matter what? As noted, not even the most virulently anti-theist people I've ever heard of (like Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins) would ascribe such a patently ridiculous belief to a religious person; it reads like either an extremely poor-taste parody of actual religious belief, or a double-subversion making fun of people who make fun of religious beliefs.

Hence why I specifically said that that example wasn't doing that poster any favors. I genuinely cannot believe that a serious, reasonable person could hold that belief. And it is that specific thing, the utter, ridiculous unbelievability of the DM's claim that that's why this NPC cannot be convinced, which tells me "oh, so it's a railroad. Gotcha."

Because I literally cannot tell the difference between black-box DMing where that belief is (somehow, by some incredibly twisted logic and bizarre circumstance etc. etc.) actually appropriate and justified, and one where the DM invented it on the spot to shut down reasonable pathways she simply doesn't approve of.

In a world where people can sign literal contracts with a devil, why is it impossible? It probably wasn't a great example but I was responding in the spirit of the hyperbole in the examples that were given. There are people who would, and do, risk death for themselves and their loved ones by standing by their convictions. It happens every day, you just have to turn on the news.

I really don't understand why you think every and all GMs are ultimately motivated by being power hungry dictators. I build my campaign world the best I can, as logical as I can, think about repercussions of a world with magic and other factors. If that kind of decision making doesn't work for you, that's fine. There are other games out there. But this constant insistence that it's fundamentally terrible design that leads to abuse is what I object to. Most GMs just want to play a game with friends and it has nothing to do with lording their power over helpless subjects.

I mean, they are vague platitudes. I'm sorry. That's what they are. They don't actually mean anything. They're vague handwaving. There is no other way to describe it. They don't describe anything, they merely point to it, like drawing an arrow on a map, as though that gives anyone any idea what the place actually looks like.

Seems like your assertions about a system where the GM making the final call being tempted to run railroads is based on vague platitudes as well.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well I disagree, and think this isn't an accurate description of how I have conversed. You don't have to feel different of course. I do feel like I am describing actual procedures and approaches. I also use broad language. But I don't feel that I am using vague platitudes and I don't think characterizing my language in that way is helping the conversation. Like I said, it just seems insulting to me.

Okay but a "procedure" is...a description of specific actions. Not a generalized broad-swathe paintbrush. An "approach" is certainly less specific, but when we're literally talking about specific techniques, saying things like "I use real-world logic", what does that even mean? I know what actual logic is--I've actually studied it academically, and did quite well, I am proud to say--but this "real-world logic" is neither a process nor an approach. It is a loose hand-wave. Same for things like just dropping the word "coaching" or the like without saying anything about it. That's not an approach except in the most totally abstracted (and thus useless) sense.

If I may use an analogy: It is like saying, "Ethics means choosing to do what's good and not choosing to do what is harmful." Sounds great, except that the sentence is completely vacuous. The whole point of ethics, as a discipline within philosophy, is to figure out what "do what's good" IS! And both "good" and "harmful" are completely undefined as this sentence goes. A saintly good person and a twisted psychopath could both say those exact words, and fully mean them!

 

[AlViking]

You misunderstand me. There is nothing “wrong” with the way @Lanefan runs his game. But it is absolutely a choice.

If you as a GM choose to not share some crucial bit of information with the players, then you’ve chosen to do so. Own the choice. Don’t blame it on realism.

It’s just as realistic for any number of other things to happen. The GM is choosing to do what they do.

If I have knowledge the players do not it comes down to a few of things.

• Is it possible for the characters know this? Some things are just unknowable, either lost to time or a secret so closely guarded that it cannot be discovered.
• If it is possible for the characters to know something, is it potentially general knowledge? This is where appropriate checks come in because it's uncertain whether or not someone would know something. There's also a mix, the player may recognize a symbol for a specific deity but the fact that the symbol has been slightly altered may be rare knowledge.
• If it's not general knowledge could the information be uncovered and have the characters had opportunities to uncover the information? Did they successfully pursue those opportunities to uncover more information?

But is the GM deciding how the NPC reacting? Of course. That's how D&D and similar games work, the GM is making decisions all the time even if that isn't true of other systems. It's not inherently better or worse, it's just my preference for games I play.