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

[pemerton]

I'm feeling I'm much more interested in trying to get you to give a definition of railroading than you are. So unless you are interested I'll end this bit of the conversation.

I've given one: the GM exercising control over the shared fiction. In post 3709, which was a reply to you, I said:

The essence of a railroad, in my view, is GM control over the fiction. Total GM control means a total railroad. Because control admits of degrees, so you can see me talk about railroading in degrees also ("railroad-y"). In a mainstream sort of RPG - which BW is, with its asymmetric roles of player and GM - there are two main ways of changing the fiction: the GM introduces new fiction by telling the players some new thing that their PCs notice or experience or encounter; or, a player has their PC do something (ie declares an action for their PC) and then that action generates consequences. So understanding whether or not RPG play is a railroad requires understanding how scenes are framed and how consequences are established. And the latter is all about the details of action resolution systems.

I don't know what you find unclear in this account of what I mean by "railroad".

 

[pemerton]

It's not a characterization that I find useful to my games.

OK.

 

[pemerton]

For example, if the DM had all this prepared, I would argue the sandbox game is not railroading as you consider dungeon crawling not railroading--because the PCs can have predictable effects on the world, and they can learn how to do so.

The same point holds, though: potential conflict isn't conflict. It doesn't move from colour to conflict until the conflict actually occurs, in play.

As to the predictable effects on the world - here we have a difference of opinion about (what seems to me to be) an empirical question.

 

[Hussar]

@pemerton - while I appreciate the actual play writeup, perhaps it's not quite what I was pointing at. After all, that's several steps into actual play, rather than setting up. What steps would you do to prepare a sandbox in, say, Torchbearer? After all, the characters don't really matter here. That all comes afterwards.

Could you write a step by step list of what you would do before play started in order to get a sandbox off the ground?

 

[pemerton]

What steps would you do to prepare a sandbox in, say, Torchbearer? After all, the characters don't really matter here. That all comes afterwards.

Could you write a step by step list of what you would do before play started in order to get a sandbox off the ground?

Put my copy of WoG into my backpack. Review the scenario/dungeon I'm going to start with, and put that in my backpack. Then turn up to the session.

I mean, that's what I actually did.

Then the players built their PCs, which includes choosing starting settlements from the settlement type list. And as I posted, we located those settlements on the map. And the dungeon - in that case, the Tower of Stars. Then started playing.

 

[Hussar]

/edit

Removed for not adding anything to the discussion. Sorry.

 

[Hussar]

Put my copy of WoG into my backpack. Review the scenario/dungeon I'm going to start with, and put that in my backpack. Then turn up to the session.

I mean, that's what I actually did.

Then the players built their PCs, which includes choosing starting settlements from the settlement type list. And as I posted, we located those settlements on the map. And the dungeon - in that case, the Tower of Stars. Then started playing.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is not particularly helpful.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Irrelevant.

I have exactly one friend within physical travel distance of me--and even that is at least a half-hour drive.

Of the internet friends I have, more than half aren't interested in RPGs. Of those who are, I've already had the few interested in Dungeon World in my game. I know exactly two people who are GMs themselves, and they GM only the systems they really like and no other system.

Given how hypersensitive people have been in this thread to anything that can be even vaguely read as insulting to classic gaming, I should think a direct insult to the character of anyone who doesn't have a local group of friends who all like the same system they do would raise more eyebrows.

I doubt any insult to your character was intended, but fair enough. I certainly understand not having folks around who want to play the games you like (although your situation as described has always seemed particularly unfortunate).

 

[mamba]

I just saw this. What you describe might or might not be impartial and/or a railroad. If the player describes what his PC is doing in such a way that it should automatically succeed, then the isn't being biased about saying yes.

I understand the ‘attempt to overcome’ as a die roll should have been used to determine this, but the DM just let it succeed because it was in the DM’s interest that it does, because it succeeding keeps the players on the rails.

If there was no challenge then it succeeding is not railroading, agreed, but then it again fails the premise of being a railroad

 

[Micah Sweet]

This doesn't seem right to me: RPGing happens in time, by people talking to one another. So it's a feature of the medium, not a regrettable limitation, that what is said is finite and focused.

So here's a point that, in my experience, comes up repeatedly in discussions about the nature and purpose of prep.

Some posters - @Micah Sweet, perhaps you - treat the GM writing something up makes it, per se, a component of the fiction. Whereas to me, while writing something up is a fiction, it's not part of the shared fiction until it's shared. Its function, prior to being shared, is to serve as a type of constraint on, and prompt for, what the GM says.

You are correct, I do think that. To me that is what notes and worldbuilding are for: that way you have a setting that exists prior to play and Independently of the PCs (which is what I want). Your feelings otherwise are of course perfectly valid, but are just another example of the personal preference that characterizes nearly everything being said in this thread (and most of the site IMO).