D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

Gorgon Zee said:

Coercion though is tricky to define. It's tricky in law and tricky in gaming. If the GM says "if you go that way, I have nothing prepped and we'll have to end now and play next week" -- is that coercive? Sort of feels like it to me, but it's not forcing the action, just making it tricky, so I'd probably say not coercive. But I wouldn't argue if you thought otherwise.

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The most typical way of understanding coercion is in terms of a proposal - by the person doing the coercion - to make the other person's situation worse off, relative to some reasonable baseline, unless the coerced person takes some action that they otherwise wouldn't take.

A GM who says "I've got nothing prepped, so we'll have to stop" is making the players worse off relative to the baseline they get to play what it was that they wanted to play. But I don't think that's a reasonable baseline to adopt for identifying coercion, as the GM is not under any obligation to ensure that that baseline is satisfied. I mean, it would be great if they did - but they're just another ordinary person participating voluntarily in a leisure activity.

(Paid GMing is different. I'd expect the contract to have something to say about this, which would then help establish a reasonable baseline against which coercion can be ascertained.)

pemerton said:

The most typical way of understanding coercion is in terms of a proposal - by the person doing the coercion - to make the other person's situation worse off, relative to some reasonable baseline, unless the coerced person takes some action that they otherwise wouldn't take.

A GM who says "I've got nothing prepped, so we'll have to stop" is making the players worse off relative to the baseline they get to play what it was that they wanted to play. But I don't think that's a reasonable baseline to adopt for identifying coercion, as the GM is not under any obligation to ensure that that baseline is satisfied. I mean, it would be great if they did - but they're just another ordinary person participating voluntarily in a leisure activity.

(Paid GMing is different. I'd expect the contract to have something to say about this, which would then help establish a reasonable baseline against which coercion can be ascertained.)

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If we're talking about D&D 5e, then the DM isn't just an ordinary person participating. They're the final word on how the rules are interpreted and applied.

From the 2014 Player's Handbook, page 6, "The Dungeon Master (DM) is the game’s referee and storyteller … The DM has the final say on how the rules are applied in play."

• The Dungeon Master (DM) is the game’s referee and storyteller … The DM has the final say on how the rules are applied in play.”

pemerton said:

The most typical way of understanding coercion is in terms of a proposal - by the person doing the coercion - to make the other person's situation worse off, relative to some reasonable baseline, unless the coerced person takes some action that they otherwise wouldn't take.

A GM who says "I've got nothing prepped, so we'll have to stop" is making the players worse off relative to the baseline they get to play what it was that they wanted to play. But I don't think that's a reasonable baseline to adopt for identifying coercion, as the GM is not under any obligation to ensure that that baseline is satisfied. I mean, it would be great if they did - but they're just another ordinary person participating voluntarily in a leisure activity.

(Paid GMing is different. I'd expect the contract to have something to say about this, which would then help establish a reasonable baseline against which coercion can be ascertained.)

Click to expand...

If we're talking about D&D 5e, then the DM isn't just an ordinary person participating. They're the final word on how the rules are interpreted and applied.

From the 2014 Player's Handbook, page 6, "The Dungeon Master (DM) is the game’s referee and storyteller … The DM has the final say on how the rules are applied in play."

kermit4karate said:

Fair points. Gotta say...I could never play with or DM for a player who insists on a literal interpretation of the rules. Could not tolerate it, so I guess the feeling would be mutual.

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I think that's a separate issue, but as it is.

Gorgon Zee said:

I think you'll find most people DON'T think of it as a quantitative term. It's intrinsic in the metaphor -- a railroad has a direction that you CANNOT avoid going. There is no qualitative aspect to a real-world railroad: Tracks do not "mostly" go in a direction or "suggest you head to New York". They either go there or they do not.

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"Railroad" is a metaphor. In a game, the tracks never go everywhere, and the tracks can very much mostly go somewhere. Truly facilitating the tracks going everywhere may not be possible.

Every GM has intrinsic biases, stuff they think is cool, areas they have a. vision for, NPCs they would like to meet. Every GM will either consciously or unconsciously make it easier for the players to move in those directions than in others.

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I thought you were disagreeing with me. Those two statements are a big part of the basis of my argument. If you recognize the truth of them, then you are mostly in agreement with me.

Railroading, for most people, is a qualitative statement. It's a statement that the players have lost some aspect of freedom of action. We can argue about whether they have to perceive it, or what sorts of losses count as railroading (and we will, until the end of recorded time ...) but it's not a question of having "less" freedom -- it's about no freedom.

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Even some of the most railroad-y scenarios ever published, like DL1 or the 2e AD&D novel tie-ins or that CoC adventure where the Great Race of Yith forces you to time travel to the end of the universe don't offer no freedom. You still can do things and creative things within the framework of the story, it's just the major plot points will be hit and there isn't really anything you can do about it beyond perhaps commit suicide or otherwise quit the game. So "no freedom" is for the most part a straw man, and in fact if you look at the history of "railroad" debates on ENWorld over the last 23 years you'll find that the vast majority of participants who used the word were fully willing to use it for any perceived loss freedom and agency. The list of things that people will consider makes a game a railroad includes having a prepared adventure. There have been people here willing to say that if it isn't "No Myth" then it is a Railroad.

So your hyperbole about how it's not a railroad until you have "no freedom" is just not useful for accurate.

And I think the thing is that if we can argue about what sorts of losses of freedom count as railroading, then you can't claim that it is actually a qualitative statement even if most people perceive it that way. What is actually going on is people mistake their subjective preferences for an objective standard, which is a very human thiing to do. Railroading turns out to be a quantitative thing where people try to label everything beyond their preferred quantity or tolerable quantity "a railroad" or "railroading".

And I think that's the logical implication of even your own statements and attempt to refute me.

kermit4karate said:

If we're talking about D&D 5e, then the DM isn't just an ordinary person participating. They're the final word on how the rules are interpreted and applied.

From the 2014 Player's Handbook, page 6, "The Dungeon Master (DM) is the game’s referee and storyteller … The DM has the final say on how the rules are applied in play."

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I'm not sure how this relates to the issue of coercion.

Gorgon Zee said:

No, but it typically has the potential to be.

If I have a simple adventure that requires the players to choose to bargain with A, fight B and marry C, then that is a railroad as I am requiring the players to do certain things -- they have lost freedom to act and must follow my plot.

If they do actually do these things of their own accord, it is still a railroad -- they have still lost their freedom of action; they simply are unaware of it.

A trickier situation is if the GM entices them to stay on the rails -- say the GM offers a player a Fate points to start a fight with B. It makes reasonable sense so the player takes it and they go on. They haven't been coerced, but it's still a railroad and if they had refused the Fate point, the GM would be forced to coerce the action to keep the railroad going.

Coercion though is tricky to define. It's tricky in law and tricky in gaming. If the GM says "if you go that way, I have nothing prepped and we'll have to end now and play next week" -- is that coercive? Sort of feels like it to me, but it's not forcing the action, just making it tricky, so I'd probably say not coercive. But I wouldn't argue if you thought otherwise.

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If you have still lost your freedom, even if you don't realize it, is that not itself still a form of coercion? It's just coercion you don't know is happening.

EzekielRaiden said:

If you have still lost your freedom, even if you don't realize it, is that not itself still a form of coercion? It's just coercion you don't know is happening.

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Not all manipulation is coercion. In the absence of a threat, I don't see how there can be coercion.

And if you don't realise there's a threat, then you won't change your behaviour and hence won't be coerced. (This happened to me once in a rather charged interaction with police that I had in a community legal education forum - the community lawyer who was with me recognised that one of the police officers was trying to intimidate me, but I ploughed blithely on. I wasn't coerced!)

Celebrim said:

"Railroad" is a metaphor. In a game, the tracks never go everywhere, and the tracks can very much mostly go somewhere. Truly facilitating the tracks going everywhere may not be possible.



I thought you were disagreeing with me. Those two statements are a big part of the basis of my argument. If you recognize the truth of them, then you are mostly in agreement with me.



Even some of the most railroad-y scenarios ever published, like DL1 or the 2e AD&D novel tie-ins or that CoC adventure where the Great Race of Yith forces you to time travel to the end of the universe don't offer no freedom. You still can do things and creative things within the framework of the story, it's just the major plot points will be hit and there isn't really anything you can do about it beyond perhaps commit suicide or otherwise quit the game. So "no freedom" is for the most part a straw man, and in fact if you look at the history of "railroad" debates on ENWorld over the last 23 years you'll find that the vast majority of participants who used the word were fully willing to use it for any perceived loss freedom and agency. The list of things that people will consider makes a game a railroad includes having a prepared adventure. There have been people here willing to say that if it isn't "No Myth" then it is a Railroad.

So your hyperbole about how it's not a railroad until you have "no freedom" is just not useful for accurate.

And I think the thing is that if we can argue about what sorts of losses of freedom count as railroading, then you can't claim that it is actually a qualitative statement even if most people perceive it that way. What is actually going on is people mistake their subjective preferences for an objective standard, which is a very human thiing to do. Railroading turns out to be a quantitative thing where people try to label everything beyond their preferred quantity or tolerable quantity "a railroad" or "railroading".

And I think that's the logical implication of even your own statements and attempt to refute me.

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What is the unit of measurement for quantity of railroading? For freedom possessed or denied?

Because I was given to understand that unless you have a measurable unit, it isn't quantitative. Is that not the case?

EzekielRaiden said:

What is the unit of measurement for quantity of railroading? For freedom possessed or denied?

Because I was given to understand that unless you have a measurable unit, it isn't quantitative. Is that not the case?

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The Ikiwisi*.


*I know it when I see it