Confession: I like Plot

[The Shaman]

I do like the concept of Princess Pinkflower being kidnapped by the Baron de Bauchery. You can't get more suggestive than that. :win:

See, and I was afraid it might be too subtle . . .

 

[Ariosto]

There's a reason that video games use such a structure. Bottlenecks are useful.

Yes, indeed!

 

[Raven Crowking]

Hobo, RC: So, if you're defining it for us then a "railroad" is all in the eye of the beholder, eh? It has absolutely no referent to a scenario in itself.

I'm not sure where you got that from.

"A railroad is a very specific type of degenerate game condition in which the players attempt to make choices that they should reasonably expect to be able to make that the GM thwarts."

Within that definition, DragonLance is a railroad if played as intended. The players have reasonable expectations that the GM thwarts; the parameters of the framework are hidden from players in such a way as to attempt to make them believe that they have choices which, if the GM follows the scenario, they do not.

Within the explicit framework (1e D&D) most players are going to expect to be able to make a lot of choices that will simply be vetoed in actual play. This differs from the G1-3 series played as a tournament, say, where the movement from scenario G1 to G2 to G3 is a specific part of the explicit framework.

One could also say:

"A railroad scenario is a scenario in which it can be reasonably expected that players will attempt to make choices that they should reasonably expect to be able to make, which the GM is expected to thwart."

I would call that a valid definition, and would further note that a writer could create a railroad scenario that a good GM could run so as to not be a railroad, although this would require modification to the scenario, or willingness to modify the scenario as necessary, either aforehand or on the fly, to accomodate reasonable player expectations.



RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

if players think they're being railroaded, then they are, whether it's a reasonable belief or not.

I once had an EN World poll on this subject, and was shocked that not only did the majority believe this, but they did so by a healthy margin. Thus, I accept that this is a definition as used by the community, but I reject it as a useful definition.



RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm not sure where you got that from.

Reading Hobo's later response, I do see where you got that from. However, what I am advocating is more in line with what I wrote two posts ago than with what Hobo wrote a few posts up.

The illusion of choice, if not discovered, is still an illusion. It's unlikely to cause the same problems as the discovery that lack of choice is not an illusion, though. If you see what I mean.


RC

 

[Snoweel]

That means I'm allowed to move the Orc that was in Room 1, to the next corridor, because the party skipped room 1, and I think they could use a combat encounter to get them to stop dithering.

I'm allowed to change the time table of events to have an NPC who has an important clue so that he runs into them sooner.

So true.

If the DM has to retcon the hows or the whys of an essential story element in reaction to the PCs' actions it is not a railroad. The DM's first responsibility is to make the game fun. Quite often this means he has to facilitate cool things happening.

Forcing the PCs to make certain 'decisions' in order to achieve this is railroading; having certain events take place regardless of PC actions is the DM's prerogative. Although if it's clumsily enough done that the PCs notice then it would seem like railroading. And I guess that's just as bad.

But this has all been said a thousand times in this thread and others. People are just arguing semantics now, and misrepresenting others in order to invent their favourite strawmen:

What I see is that giving the players no meaningful choices does in fact fit the bill for a railroad in terms of "how it's usually used when discussing roleplaying games".

What's wrong with you people?

How does what you've just written have anything to do with what anybody else has said in this discussion?

You have this absolute statement that you keep defaulting to ad nauseum like some yappy little dog, yet nobody in this thread has once attempted to dispute it.

Yet you keep trotting it out like it trumps everybody else's argument. Yay Ariosto, you win!!!! Happy now?

If you're not going to engage with the discussion why are you even here? "Giving the players no meaningful choices is railroading!!!!"

Congratulations. You've just stated the obvious. Do you feel like joining in as the rest of us attempt to define 'meaningful'? Or are you happy to keep constructing strawman arguments to attribute to the various posters who disagree with you?

 

[Snoweel]

Reading Hobo's later response, I do see where you got that from. However, what I am advocating is more in line with what I wrote two posts ago than with what Hobo wrote a few posts up.

The illusion of choice, if not discovered, is still an illusion. It's unlikely to cause the same problems as the discovery that lack of choice is not an illusion, though. If you see what I mean.

Except we're discussing a game, played by people. Therefore the most important endstate should be the participants' enjoyment of the game, which we can take as read, given the constant stream of qualifiers attached to nearly every post around here - "not that I'm telling anyone else how to play their game blah blah blah".

So the perceptions of the players (who are not privy to all the behind-the-scenes action of the campaign) are more important than the perceptions of the DM (unless he is the kind of DM who can't sleep at night unless he feels he is 'playing fair' to both the PCs and his precious setting - and I'm looking at you sandbox DMs).

So if the players never realise that they were going to encounter Exists-to-Provide-Necessary-Exposition-NPC whether they went north or south then where's the harm? And if there is no harm done then why use a derogatory term like 'railroad'?

And if you want to start discussing the merits of illusion, sooner or later somebody might ruin everything by pointing out that this is a game of make-believe we're arguing about.

 

[Ariosto]

Snoweel, I think that Hobo can speak for himself as to what he means -- and I can read for myself what he in fact wrote. I also am quite capable of speaking for myself as to what I have, as a matter of record, consistently stated here.

In post after post, I have examined cases of games with plots and what I have learned from them about how to run such a game well.

I have noted the reasons why I think that Call of Cthulhu pretty much requires a plot, and how the superhero genre in general differs from sword-and-sorcery. I have observed that the Pendragon campaign is an excellent model of A --> B large-scale structure, with nonetheless myriad possible "stories" along the way forming strikingly different narratives from one playing to another. I have raised the point that if arrival at B is not in doubt, then the interesting questions are likely to be of the "What does it cost?" variety, and mentioned the precedent in historical war-gaming. I have advised that in my experience I get the most mileage from relationships among characters, and reflected that this may call for more pre-game biography if the game itself is to provide less "breathing room" for such development.

 

[Ariosto]

And if there is no harm done then why use a derogatory term like 'railroad'?

Your first premise is in error. The term is derogatory insofar as people do consider the phenomenon to do harm to the game. There is no inherent value judgment in the word itself!

 

[Snoweel]

Your first premise is in error. The term is derogatory insofar as people do consider the phenomenon to do harm to the game. There is no inherent value judgment in the word itself!

And I suppose next you'll be telling us 'gay' still just means 'happy'?