What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

TwoSix said:

The problem I have with this is that it puts a game like Pendragon, widely regarded as Greg Stafford's magnus opus, in the category of "eroding what RPGs are about" because of the system's need for Virtue/Vice checks.

I, personally, feel there's just as much creative artistry to be found in deciding how to portray a mechanical resolution, and create a narrative that captures that resolution in a way that's true to my character and the surrounding fiction, as there is in making the decision as to what to portray.

Not every game experience is enhanced by a dogged pursuit of maximal player agency over their character.

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I find that this need for control over the PC correlates to the player’s ability (or lack thereof) to influence the game in ways “beyond the character”. Less of one often means more of the other.

Crimson Longinus said:

I agree with you this far.



But with this I cannot disagree more. I want my characters to put in situations which test their convictions, which force them to make hard decisions. But I want actually to be able to make that decision, or it seems utterly pointless to me.

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Sure… and a GM can do that. Like your example of loyalty to a lord versus faith to a beloved. That’s something where there is no easy choice for the character, but also no easy choice for the player.

In many cases where there may not be an easy choice for the character, there very clearly is one for the player. So what makes this choice difficult from a player standpoint? Why trust the player to make an “authentic” decision. And I use quotes because what does authentic even mean in this kind of situation?

I’m not advocating for something like using persuasion checks to make PCs behave the way an NPC may want. I don’t think that’s the way most people play D&D, nor am I aware of many games that function that way. Usually, these kinds of mechanics are implemented in a way that is up to the player… they relate to something the player chooses for focus in play. The player essentially says “I want to see this be challenged”.

And in that case, leaving it up to something other than personal choice is a benefit. Of I’m free to just choose how my character reacts to everything that happens to them, then there is no risk. Even if a player chooses the more complicated option for their character, this is not something that involves risk.

Risk requires a lack of control. So if you ever want to address something like “is Sir Felgar as brave as he comes across”, there must be some chance for the answer to be no without the player choosing that.

Other Worlds is a game with player-created freeform traits, such as 'Natural Leader' or 'Expert Swordsman'.

There isn't a combat system, a social system, an exploration system, etc. There is a universal conflict resolution system where players use the traits that they believe fit the situation. The GM imposes bonuses/penalties depending on how appropriate they think those abilities are to the situation, including ruling it's an automatic success or failure.

Characters also have flaws like 'Naturally Incurious' or 'Tormented by Shadows'. The GM decides when these give the PC a penalty to a situation. Sometimes flaws might act as positive abilities, or vice versa. When you lose a conflict, you can get a new flaw, or the other side can get a temporary new ability.

What I outlined is not a rule per se but it's a summary of detailed guidance in the book on how to apply this universal mechanic to all sorts of situations including stealth, combat, knowledge checks, etc.

hawkeyefan said:

In many cases where there may not be an easy choice for the character, there very clearly is one for the player. So what makes this choice difficult from a player standpoint? Why trust the player to make an “authentic” decision. And I use quotes because what does authentic even mean in this kind of situation?

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To a point earlier in the thread, I think this is a critical flaw of leaving the dice to adjudicate reactions to challenging situations. Just about anything can be rationalized as "authentic". Essentially all reactions to anything can be explained, so an authenticity test becomes powerless over player actions.

hawkeyefan said:

Risk requires a lack of control. So if you ever want to address something like “is Sir Felgar as brave as he comes across”, there must be some chance for the answer to be no without the player choosing that.

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And on this, I think the Bill Zebub side of the argument is, very explicitly, "Sir Felgar['s player] choosing to ignore the signs that this foe is an intimidating threat [without the dice intervening] and accept that he has incomplete control over the lethality of the situation, and living (or fleeing) with the consequences is a good test of his bravery."

Bill Zebub said:

Maybe it's a key that you'll need/want in the future?

The point is only that players know, "I shouldn't just ignore that signal."

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Why would they think it's particularly important? Why would it be particularly important? You let them know they noticed something shiny.

soviet said:

Other Worlds is a game with player-created freeform traits, such as 'Natural Leader' or 'Expert Swordsman'.

There isn't a combat system, a social system, an exploration system, etc. There is a universal conflict resolution system where players use the traits that they believe fit the situation. The GM imposes bonuses/penalties depending on how appropriate they think those abilities are to the situation, including ruling it's an automatic success or failure.

Characters also have flaws like 'Naturally Incurious' or 'Tormented by Shadows'. The GM decides when these give the PC a penalty to a situation. Sometimes flaws might act as positive abilities, or vice versa. When you lose a conflict, you can get a new flaw, or the other side can get a temporary new ability.

What I outlined is not a rule per se but it's a summary of detailed guidance in the book on how to apply this universal mechanic to all sorts of situations including stealth, combat, knowledge checks, etc.

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Fair enough. It gives me the idea to make a rule though. I don't care for Aspects personally, so I think I'd just focus on the idea of mechanical consequences for ignoring the social situation at hand, as determined through roleplay and die rolls as appropriate.

Crimson Longinus said:

These were my first experiences of this sort of thing and I intensely disliked it even back then.

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In the defense of VtM. As a player, you are not always in control, part of the game is constant fight with the Beast within. And that Beast reacts to being manipulated or intimidated. That's why rolls like Self Control and Courage exist. If you lost contested roll vs intimidation, but as a player you try to act tough and ignore, ST can ( and usually will) call for Courage check. If you fail that, Beast takes control and you as a player loose control over character for a scene. Same with Self Control, loose check, enter Frenzy, loose control of the character. Willpower is metacurency. Both PC and NPC have it, both can use. Be it to force other one to do something or to resist doing something. But, since willpower isn't regained automatically, one uses it carefully.

I get that some people don't like dice deciding reactions of their characters when it comes to social skills. But some people like it. It gives players option to being surprised by the action of their characters. It makes it look like character made decision, not player. It shifts from "how would i feel" to "ok, he is frightened/persuaded, what would he do next". It creates layer of separation between player and character.

CreamCloud0 said:

your character who despises orcs probably wouldn't of even gotten this far into this situation in the first place so maybe that's a bit of a strawman creating a character specifically to oppose the hypothetical circumstance so you can turn around and say 'but my character morals! how dare they be overwritten like this'.

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It's no Strawman, because that sort of character is the entire point of this debate. I know my character better than you, the dice, or the system ever can, so I'm the one who can decide when I 100% would or would not do something. That orc hating character being in that situation is the whole point.

bsss said:

To a point earlier in the thread, I think this is a critical flaw of leaving the dice to adjudicate reactions to challenging situations. Just about anything can be rationalized as "authentic". Essentially all reactions to anything can be explained, so an authenticity test becomes powerless over player actions.

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Yeah, that was largely why I asked “what does authentic even mean?” Like, earlier in the thread we had people saying that a GM may say that a player isn’t playing their character “correctly”. But I don’t really even know what that means other than “differently than I expected”.

bsss said:

And on this, I think the Bill Zebub side of the argument is, very explicitly, "Sir Felgar['s player] choosing to ignore the signs that this foe is an intimidating threat [without the dice intervening] and accept that he has incomplete control over the lethality of the situation, and living (or fleeing) with the consequences is a good test of his bravery."

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Maybe. i don’t want to speak for anyone else.

The reason I like to involve dice in some character-defining elements of play is because I think that the risk involved is meaningful. And I also like to be surprised. I like to watch my character develop much as a person would… and that doesn’t involve total control.

CreamCloud0 said:

you can't tell me someone who 'would just as soon stick a knife in the orc's head as talk to it' would let themselves get to the point of being face to face already in group negotiations before they raise an objection to the scenario? if their character really had such an issue it should've come up long before we were able to get to this point, either that or they don't actually object to orcs as much as they claim they do and the player just doesn't want to go down that narrative path.

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I object. Countless are the times where my character feels very strongly about something, but others in the group or even the entire rest of the group feels a different way. I can easily envision a character like that being in a situation where another party member has begun talking to the orc.

TwoSix said:

If I already know what my character would do in a situation before it comes up, than why did the GM run the scene?

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Because there are other players? Because the DM doesn't know. I know what my character would do. That doesn't mean that the DM knows how strongly my character feels, nor does how my character feels have any direct bearing on how other party members feel about the situation.

TwoSix said:

To me, there's few things less interesting than a game where I'm simply demonstrating who my character is, rather than testing my character to see who they become. And me, as a player, making that decision does not feel like an actual test with actual stakes.

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I also enjoy testing my characters, but that doesn't mean that there aren't aspects of the character that aren't going to be swayed in X circumstance.