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

[Thomas Shey]

I don't know the specifics in his example, but any player in a group can be disruptive.

Yes, but his phrasing assumes, right on the face of it, that this is. It speaks volumes.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The social pressure you mention often reflects expectations around leadership and good sportsmanship,

Far more often by all standards I can say, it reflects expectations about authority and challenging same.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That's one way to play. But that sounds like removing a lot of player agency to me.

It depends on the game and what the goal of play’s meant to be about. It also may depend on when and how whatever idea the GM has comes up. I don’t think the GM having an idea that they want to see in play is the same as railroading. I mean, it could lead to that, sure, but it doesn’t have to.

I started a sandbox campaign with the PCs being given a mission. It was something immediate that they had to deal with, and it made them engage with a few elements of the setting. Once it was completed, then they could do whatever they wanted… but having that first situation gave them a good deal of context for engaging with the setting.

It all depends on the context.

 

[pemerton]

To get to the encounter, they would have had to leave the relative safety of the path and go into the woods. They chose not to.

I honestly don't understand what the problem is. Do you think that I should have forced my players to engage in something they didn't want to do? Is that what you believe non-BW GMs do?


Ah, here's the problem. You think I care about what Gygax had to say!

The sentence, "Thus, the party has only one place to go" is by definition railroading, so I wouldn't do it. If I wanted to PCs to be traveling to this particular location, I would do one of the following:

(a) start off with a plot hook that makes them want to or need to be there.

(b) start off with multiple plot hooks, tailored to each character's interests and backstory.

(c) get the players to tell me a reason why they would want to be going to the location.

(d) start the players off at that location, and then have a plot hook occur.

(e) some combination of the above.

Having them go on a trek and go on into an abandoned place just because there's no other place for them to go? Nah. Gygax may have co-created D&D, but many of his ideas belong to the 70s and 80s.

I did (e) for my Level Up game. The starting location was The Cloisters, an indoor shopping area built into a decrepit temple in the slums. I told the players that's where the game was starting. I worked with them each to find out why they would be there. Two of the characters were bandits who had recently escaped from prison and were lying low. One character was a noble, looking for his missing sister, who had information that suggested that there was someone with information here. One character was a smuggler who frequently had dealings with the sellers there. One character was a gambler and crook with a heart of gold who likewise had dealings there.

Then I had house guards come in[1], demand the surrender of the NPC several of them had a connection to, and start making threatening gestures at the shoppers, who were, for the most part, harmless commoners (D). Since the players wanted this game to be about class warfare and social unrest, I knew that this would get the attention of everyone but the bandits, and that the bandits wanted to be where the guards weren't.

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[1] guards who are in the employ of one of the noble houses and only answer to the nobility, but are only supposed to engage in activities directly connected to their house. So this was weird and made the noble want to investigate.


Ah, and here's the other problem. You seem to think that the encounter I mentioned was the hook to get the PCs into the game. No. As I said, it was something that they could have dealt with while on the road from Point A to Point B.


I don't force my players to engage in encounters they don't want, so they can trust that I'm not going be a jerk to them in other ways.

A few years ago, I turned up to my friends' place for a RPG catch-up.

Nothing in particular had been planned: so I pulled out White Plume Mountain, everyone rolled up some AD&D PCs, and we played a session of classic dungeon-crawling.

There is no railroading in what I've just described - there is just everyone sitting down to play White Plume Mountain.

Nor is there railroading in what Gygax describes (nor in Moldvay's version of those instruction). There is just everyone sitting down to play classic D&D.

More generally - everyone agreeing to do a thing is not, in itself, railroading. It's just agreeing to do a thing.

Like your example of starting play in The Cloisters. That's not railroading, any more than what Gygax describes is railroading.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yes, but his phrasing assumes, right on the face of it, that this is. It speaks volumes.

Perhaps. But I do have to say, on both sides of the table I have learned things go much more smoothly if you have people there who aren’t always turning things into issues. Yes bad GM’s exist, but bad players are also a thing. And bad players can ruin a game for everyone as much as a bad GM

 

[nevin]

Huh - an instance that I would consider railroading where you do not. We are living in strange times.

To me, just plopping them down at the dungeon entrance, while perhaps convenient, denies them the agency to do a whole bunch of other things (not least of which is introduce themselves to each other in character, hardly a conversation they'll want to have in potentially dangerous territory!) including scouting the surrounding terrain, gathering info about the place, and so forth.

ok you are confusing a RailRoad (the module the players agreed to play), With a DM forcing the players to play a certain way or to only go to certain encounters etc. It may seem small but you are confusing the Noun Railroad with the verb of the DM who might be RAILROADING. One can be on a railroad by choice no one forcing you to go. RAILROADING as generally discussed on these forums is the DM forcing things upon you with no other alternative.

 

[nevin]

Perhaps. But I do have to say, on both sides of the table I have learned things go much more smoothly if you have people there who aren’t always turning things into issues. Yes bad GM’s exist, but bad players are also a thing. And bad players can ruin a game for everyone as much as a bad GM

Complainers on both sides tend to assume it's an otherside problem instead of a human problem.

 

[AlViking]

Find out if there's a genuine problem, and don't put speed as such a priority it justifies blowing off anyone who has a problem.

That's quite the non-answer. I've told people in the past that they are being disruptive and how, what I thought they needed to change to continue playing. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.

But I'm not their counselor, I'm not a social worker, I'm just running a game. So how do you deal with a lone wolf who is intent on not being a member of a team in a group game? If the rest of the group wants to do X and one player wants to do Y and the options are completely incompatible how do you deal with it at the table during the game?

Sometimes the only answer is to wish them luck finding a game that works for them.

 

[nevin]

That's quite the non-answer. I've told people in the past that they are being disruptive and how, what I thought they needed to change to continue playing. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.

But I'm not their counselor, I'm not a social worker, I'm just running a game. So how do you deal with a lone wolf who is intent on not being a member of a team in a group game? If the rest of the group wants to do X and one player wants to do Y and the options are completely incompatible how do you deal with it at the table during the game?

Sometimes the only answer is to wish them luck finding a game that works for them.

At the table during the game I deal with it by applying consequences. I generally find that fixes a lot of players that i've had other's say can't be fixed. There are some who refuse to get along with group and sometimes the best thing is they find another game. But I've also found some of those players straighten up after a rough game or two so I'm usually willing to give them some time to settle in. Groups don't mesh and merge in one game.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Complainers on both sides tend to assume it's an otherside problem instead of a human problem.

The older so get, the more I think it is a complainer problem. I haven’t had issues in years since I learned to avoid people who spend an inordinate amount of table time complaining. Doesn’t mean there aren’t occasional disagreements or disputes. But if does Jean peopke act like adults and move on