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

Thomas Shey said:

The fact you don't see the difference between mechanics that encourage and those that force isn't making your argument look less extreme.

If you fail to resist an intimidation check against your character mechanically, and that means you'll take a penalty to hit, unless the penalty is so extreme its making it impossible to hit in practive, that doesn't "force" you to do anyting; it does however "encourage" you to find a different set of actions. If you can't see that distinction, I'm not sure how any further conversation here can proceed forward.

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I see it, and that sort of approach is certainly way better than one where the mechanics dictate actions. I'm still not a fan though. Also, how do you apply it to things like persuasion or deception? Like I can see attack penalties for fear, but a lot of situations are not so straightforward.

Bill Zebub said:

The reference to avatar play suggests you don't think it's possible for somebody to roleplay without the mechanics telling them what to do. I would argue that other players might have their suspicions, but only the player knows if they engaging in avatar play or not. I find it insulting not because there is anything wrong with avatar play, but rather the implication that some of us are not capable of anything else, or at least that when we don't want mechanics dictating our actions it is so that we can engage exclusively in avatar play.

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But if your desire is to not have the mechanics drive the resolution of a character's interior state, because you feel the player should have total agency over the character's mental state and decision-making, that IS avatar play.

What's the other use case, besides the player being in control or the mechanics being in control?

TwoSix said:

But if your desire is to not have the mechanics drive the resolution of a character's interior state, because you feel the player should have total agency over the character's mental state and decision-making, that IS avatar play.

What's the other use case, besides the player being in control or the mechanics being in control?

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What is the definition of avatar play? Because to me it implies basically playing yourself, which of course need not to be happening even if the player is in control. In fact, my opposition to the mechanics dictating PC reactions comes from these mechanics potentially conflicting my internal mental model of the character, who is not me. To me it seems that people who want such mechanics do not have such internal model that is separate from themselves, thus they need these mechanics to force reactions that would differ from those of their own.

Crimson Longinus said:

I see it, and that sort of approach is certainly way better than one where the mechanics dictate actions. I'm still not a fan though. Also, how do you apply it to things like persuasion or deception? Like I can see attack penalties for fear, but a lot of situations are not so straightforward.

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There's still going to be things you may do when the roll made them seem convincing in a way that would make you second-guess yourself. That leaves the potential for penalties (perhaps against resisting successive rolls in some case or in attempting to convince others to go along with what you're doing). Or, depending on the system, there may be other elements that can be impacted instead. I think both @AnotherGuy and @soviet have mentioned possible approaches there earlier in the thread.

Crimson Longinus said:

What is the definition of avatar play? Because to me it implies basically playing yourself, which of course need not to be happening even if the player is in control. In fact, my opposition to the mechanics dictating PC reactions comes from these mechanics potentially conflicting my internal mental model of the character, who is not me. To me it seems that people who want such mechanics do not have such internal model that is separate from themselves, thus they need these mechanics to force reactions that would differ from those of their own.

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Its more the case that I don't expect everyone's internal models to be consistently so strong that they'll override gamist self-interest on a consistent basis. And the fact that I think some people have a sense of them being more immune to outside influence that is always the case. And of course I want social and mental skills to not always be just about the player (and I'm including that role called "GM" here); I consider that a virtue.

Maxperson said:

That doesn't change anything. So 12000 of them get advantage, 6000 get disadvantage, 8000 get a DC of 15, etc. It's still not dependent on any specific thing. The only thing that ultimately decides how my PC thinks or feels is d20+cha bonus+proficiency/expertise. There might be some specific beats general thing added to the mix, but those are not common.

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You’re mixing things up again. No one uses skills for NPCs to influence PCs as you’re stating. I don’t believe anyone has advocated for that in this thread. I believe there was some “well why not” types of posts, but I don’t think anyone has said that this is how D&D plays or should play,

If instead, we’re talking about how PCs can affect NPCs with skill rolls, then I believe the GM actually can and should factor those additional elements into the DC and whether or not to apply advantage or disadvantage. These are the tools provided to the GM for handling these kinds of encounters. So your assessment that the only thing that matters is the roll plus the ability and modifiers is incorrect.

So again… you are either expressing a concern about something that doesn’t happen (NPCs influencing PCs with social skills) or criticizing GMing that doesn’t consider factors beyond the dice roll and modifier OR alternatively, the overall limited design of 5e and how it handles social interactions.

Crimson Longinus said:

If the players are to have agency, they need to be able to make decisions that matter with their own brains. You cannot eliminate that and have a game. We are not here just watch how rules simulate characters we have no control over. If I want to do that, I can watch a move or read a book.

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But part of what makes that agency meaningful is that it is constrained in some way, or has the risk of being lost or restrained. For example, character death is the ultimate removal of agency for the player (with that character, at least). But that risk is often cited as necessary for meaningful play.

I don’t think it needs to be character death specifically, but there needs to be some kind of stakes… some kind of loss state.

Crimson Longinus said:

That's the logical end point of this. If the player cannot be trusted to play their character "correctly" and there must be mechanics that force their hand, then why would this logically not apply to everything?

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But it’s not about the player not being trusted to play the character “correctly”. It’s about there being risks in play related to who the character is.

Again, this isn’t a concept that we should examine by imagining how it would fit into an existing system that doesn’t already include it. Instead, we should look at games where this is already present. When we do that, I think you’ll see that like @Maxperson ’s concern… it simply doesn’t apply.

I’m not aware of any game or table that includes any kind of social consequence for PCs that slides down a slippery slope inti every thing they do being determined by a roll.

TwoSix said:

But if your desire is to not have the mechanics drive the resolution of a character's interior state, because you feel the player should have total agency over the character's mental state and decision-making, that IS avatar play.

What's the other use case, besides the player being in control or the mechanics being in control?

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Then maybe I am misunderstanding avatar play. I thought it was akin to wearing a costume of your character, but it's you inside.

Thomas Shey said:

There's still going to be things you may do when the roll made them seem convincing in a way that would make you second-guess yourself. That leaves the potential for penalties (perhaps against resisting successive rolls in some case or in attempting to convince others to go along with what you're doing). Or, depending on the system, there may be other elements that can be impacted instead. I think both @AnotherGuy and @soviet have mentioned possible approaches there earlier in the thread.

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I liked @soviet's approach as it left the mind of the PC to the player and the consequences were about how the rest of the world perceive the situation. I have zero issues with that and I've done similar. But the point you are saying that the NPC was so convincing that the PC is now second guessing themself, then you are telling the player what their character thinks and I am way less cool with that.

The thing is, in RPGs the player's say what their chracters want to do, then the mechnics and the GM determine how well that succeeds. But when the mechnis or the GM start to tell the players what their chracter wants, then you short circuit this whole process.

Crimson Longinus said:

What is the definition of avatar play? Because to me it implies basically playing yourself, which of course need not to be happening even if the player is in control. In fact, my opposition to the mechanics dictating PC reactions comes from these mechanics potentially conflicting my internal mental model of the character, who is not me. To me it seems that people who want such mechanics do not have such internal model that is separate from themselves, thus they need these mechanics to force reactions that would differ from those of their own.

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My definition would be this. If the final resolution of a character's mental state and decision-making is always made by the player, referencing their own internal heuristic of what the character is "like", then I would call that "avatar" play.

Developing an internal hueristic for how a character would act, and then making declarations in play to support that model, is fairly trivial for most experienced roleplayers, so I assume everyone here can and does do that. I want the mechanics to play a role because I don't want to shape the character, I want to play a character who is shaped.

I'm sure there are a few players who can't actually play a character, and only play in pawn stance with characters who only do game-relevant actions and narration, but I consider those degenerate use cases not really worth discussing. (Outside of dungeon-solving OSR-style play, in some of its forms.)

TwoSix said:

I'm sure there are a few players who can't actually play a character, and only play in pawn stance with characters who only do game-relevant actions and narration, but I consider those degenerate use cases not really worth discussing. (Outside of dungeon-solving OSR-style play, in some of its forms.)

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That's pretty harsh. They may not be interested in anything else. And that's ok, too.