Confession: I like Plot

[Majoru Oakheart]

If you're playing a linear, scripted adventure and try to get out, and the DM bludgeons you back in line, that's railroading. Until you try to get out, you can't tell if you'll be railroaded or not.

And the key here is that if it's done correctly, you might not even KNOW he's bludgeoning you back into line. There might be perfectly reasonable reasons you can't take the action you want to.

In my mind it is the difference between "The mayor says that he fears for the lives of the people who were kidnapped and he fears that if you don't leave now to save them, they will all be dead shortly. One of them is the only person alive who knows the secret location of the artifact that you need to destroy the BBEG" and "A wall of solid darkness forms around the town out of nowhere that blocks off all routes except the one to the cave where the creatures took the people they kidnapped."

The first seems like a reasonable thing to happen and gives us urgency to save the people. The second makes me question why the DM is so bad at DMing.

But I do think that a lot of it comes down to the players tolerance to "railroading". I've seen some players who are VERY independent and hyper-vigilant for "railroading". Even if the former situation listed above, they'd be the player saying "What? The one person who knows the location of the artifact we are looking for just HAPPENS to be one of the people kidnapped? And if we don't move quickly, they'll all die? You just don't want us going the next town over to visit our rich uncle like we wanted to, right? Well, screw that...I refuse to put up with your railroading."

That's when you start coming into conflict with your players in a linear-plot game. We don't have that problem because we don't have any players who insist on doing their own thing regardless of what is happening in the game. I've run into a couple of them, however. They almost always ruin the game for everyone and it ends with plot derailed so badly that it can't continue. But they are happy because they didn't want to play in a "railroad" game anyways.

 

[Ariosto]

While a linear, scripted game is a precondition for railroading, it is not sufficient nor even perfectly necessary. Railroading is specifically a degenerate form of gaming in which meaningful choices are negated to produce the GM's preferred outcome. If you think railroad means "linear, scripted game" then you are attempting to replace the established terminology.

No, I am observing that

a "linear, scripted" game

simply is

one "in which meaningful choices are negated to produce the GM's preferred outcome".

If you have some other meaning in mind for "linear, scripted", then you could indeed mean by it something other than railroading. I am curious as to what that might be.

That's quite another matter than real disagreement over the objective referent of "railroading". It's more like preferring Didelphis ursina.

 

[Hussar]

It's not exactly plot I like, it's goals I like.

Goals give shape to the campaign and - perhaps more importantly - meaning, which I crave more than just having encounter be "kill the monsters and take their stuff".

How structured the path is to that goal depends greatly on the players and DM; some players prefer the more linear progression of encounters, others will create their own path.

Cheers!

That might be a better word than plot. I'm not sure if the distinction between goal and plot is all that necessary, but, it does avoid the negative associations with railroading.

Stepping away from classic fantasy for a second, look at murder mystery. In a murder mystery (or any mystery) you need some level of plot. Someone has to die. Someone had to do it.

In a murder mystery, it's up to the players to find out who, and quite possibly how and why as well. But, the plot of the scenario - Who killed Professor Plum - is pretty much fixed. How they discover the answers is up to the players.

So, is a murder mystery scenario a railroad or not? After all, the players have no real choice - other than to simply refuse to get involved in the first place I suppose, but, assuming for a moment that the players want to get involved, is it a railroad to have this degree of plot in the game?

 

[MerricB]

That might be a better word than plot. I'm not sure if the distinction between goal and plot is all that necessary, but, it does avoid the negative associations with railroading.

Stepping away from classic fantasy for a second, look at murder mystery. In a murder mystery (or any mystery) you need some level of plot. Someone has to die. Someone had to do it.

In a murder mystery, it's up to the players to find out who, and quite possibly how and why as well. But, the plot of the scenario - Who killed Professor Plum - is pretty much fixed. How they discover the answers is up to the players.

So, is a murder mystery scenario a railroad or not? After all, the players have no real choice - other than to simply refuse to get involved in the first place I suppose, but, assuming for a moment that the players want to get involved, is it a railroad to have this degree of plot in the game?

"Who killed Professor Plum?" is not a plot. The plot is the sequence of events that leads up to the goal - which is the players finding out "Who killed Professor Plum".

A one sentence description of the plot would be "The heroes investigate who killed Professor Plum" - that describes what is being done without describing how it is done. In general, you should be able to write that description for any D&D adventure, even if it is "The heroes delve into Undermountain to find treasure."

Railroading comes when you start breaking that down into a more detailed plot description. Describing DL1, Dragons of Despair, you get:

1) The PCs meet up after several years
2) The PCs wander around the wilderness, discovering clues to an impending evil
3) The PCs travel to Xak Tsaroth, where they're given a quest to recover the Disks of Mishakel
4) The PCs delve into the ruins of Xak Tsaroth
5) The PCs fight the black dragon Onyx to recover the disks.
6) The PCs escape

There you have a plot. Parts 2 and 4 are actually quite loose - in part 2, it's especially easy to visit a *lot* of places without quite knowing what you're doing. The goal of the adventure doesn't become clear until part 3; the goal being "recover the disks and bring clerics back into the world."

Cheers!

 

[CharlesRyan]

As soon as one introduces such a thing as "THE plot", in the sense of the structure of a novel or play, then there is such a thing as the "wrong" things happening.

This, I think, is the fundamental basis of the plot = railroad fallacy.

If the GM is attempting to write a novel with the players as stand-ins for his own characters, then yes, "wrong" things are inevitable and railroading will be his recourse. Of course, this is a bad GM, and if he's not screwing up the game in this manner, he'd probably screw it up or make it unfun for the players some other way.

A GM with an iota of skill, however, doesn't think "unexpected" = "wrong." When something unexpected happens, he assesses the impact it has on his plot outline and alters that outline accordingly. He keeps his plans flexible, and accepts (welcomes, really) surprises and plot twists that keep things as interesting for him as they are for the players.

Surprises rarely invalidate a plot entirely. If a certain hobbit and company had pushed through the mountain passes and skipped Moria entirely, the GM would have spent some time back at the drawing board--but the story would have continued, and would still have progressed along its plot.

Any bad GM can decide that something that happens within the game is "wrong." Even in a plot-free environment, a bad GM can be unhappy with the death of a favourite NPC, an unexpected choice by the players, or a clever circumvention of his kewl trap, trick, or encounter. "Wrong" has nothing more to do with plot than with any other aspect of GMing.

But IMO the best DMs are the ones who have a plot in mind but are willing to throw it out the window at a moment's notice.

Almost, but not quite. The best GMs are willing to throw out what happens next at a moment's notice. They're willing to run in new directions; in fact, they love that they don't really know exactly how things are going to unfold.

But they keep their plot outlines in mind, and they think about how the new circumstances affect things. They react; they collaborate with the plot twists that gameplay has presented them. The players just thwarted a bad guy in an unexpected way. Great. Now how are the bad guys going to pursue their goals? The players went left instead of right. Great. Toss out next session's notes and come up with a way to build the desired plot hooks into a completely different adventure.

To a good GM, the unexpected isn't just acceptable, it's part of what makes GMing fun and interesting. A plot isn't a straightjacket--it's a guideline that a flexible GM uses to deliver drama and a context for the action. No railroading required.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think the ultimate issue when discussing "sandbox" vs "plot-heavy" is that some people always want to take it to the extremes and "prove" that this is the wrong way of playing.

The trick is that most people using a particular play style are not going the "extreme" route. They take something far closer to the middle.

A "pure" plot based game might be one where the players have no real choices or all choices lead to the same result. A "pure" sandbox might feel random and aimless.

But nobody does that. A regular "plot" game is one with major NPCs and aspects that will play a role in the game. It might remove some choices, but it doesn't remove all of them. The choices removed are those that typically lie out there - leaving the region of play, fully ignoring the obvious threat looming on the horizon and so on.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Mustrum,

What you are describing, IMHO, is necessary to give context to choices. If all choices are unrestricted (either in terms of what can be selected, or in terms of the consequences of their selection), I would argue, then they are meaningless. Likewise, "choices" where there is really only one option are equally meaningless.

So long as the game has plenty of meaningful choices, it is a great pasttime!


RC

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Mustrum,

What you are describing, IMHO, is necessary to give context to choices. If all choices are unrestricted (either in terms of what can be selected, or in terms of the consequences of their selection), I would argue, then they are meaningless. Likewise, "choices" where there is really only one option are equally meaningless.

So long as the game has plenty of meaningful choices, it is a great pasttime!


RC

Yes, it is always about making meaningful choices. But that doesn't have to mean that the goal is what matters for that purpose.

Batmans goal is to stop the Joker and get him into prison (or Arkham Asylum).
The interesting question is how he can achieve that. It is a meaningful choice whether he decides to torture an innocent person or rather risks the Joker to kill a few more people. It is also a meaningful choice whether he rather chooses to kill a few of Jokers mooks to get faster to him, or he takes the risks and waits a little longer.

These choices tell us something about Batman. They have a meaning, because they have a meaning in the game world.

 

[Hussar]

Dammit Charles Ryan, stop saying smart stuff, I can't posrep you any more.

Merric B - I still think you're nit picking to some degree. But, fair enough, it's not a major deal. "Discover who killed Professor Plum" is a plot in my mind. Or at least the beginnings of one. However, that plot requires a fair bit of lead in - the players have to be in the right place, they have to have some link to Professor Plum (even if it's only anecdotally after the fact), they have to have some reason for investigating this death.

My point was, it can really depend on what you want to achieve in the game. Is catching the murderer the main focus or is it the process of investigation? That's going to lead to a very different method, whichever you choose. If catching the murderer is the focus, then you must provide enough opportunities to gain the information the PC's need in order to catch the murderer. If you don't, the PC's just flail around aimlessly. This is probably a more traditional murder mystery style scenario. The meat of the scenario is catching the murderer - probably involving chases, fights, and whatnot.

However, if the process is the focus - how do people feel about the murder, what effects does this crime have on the PC's, how do the PC's approach the investigation - then the actual catching the murderer isn't the big deal. In this approach, the scenario is more a CSI style game - what tools do the players use to find the criminal? Actually catching the criminal is a five minute blip at the end of the show.

Deciding which version you want to pursue has to be done when creating the scenario, so, plot does come into play here. The decision by the DM on where to focus the action is going to drastically affect the scenario. It's also going to affect which mechanics are going to come into play and how a particular system handles those situations. Using D&D as an example (which is not the best fit, I know), the former type of scenario is going to run a lot more smoothly than the latter. The skill mechanics in D20 just don't do ongoing processes all that well. ((Although, perhaps the extended skill challenges of 4e, I'm not familiar enough with the mechanics to judge. 3e would not be my first choice certainly.))

 

[KidSnide]

A GM with an iota of skill, however, doesn't think "unexpected" = "wrong." When something unexpected happens, he assesses the impact it has on his plot outline and alters that outline accordingly. He keeps his plans flexible, and accepts (welcomes, really) surprises and plot twists that keep things as interesting for him as they are for the players.

...

The best GMs are willing to throw out what happens next at a moment's notice. They're willing to run in new directions; in fact, they love that they don't really know exactly how things are going to unfold.

QFT.

I like plot too, as a player and as a GM. When I sit down at the game table, I want the GM to make it clear what the game is about and give the PCs the direction to play the game in front of them. Similarly, as a GM, I expect the PCs to be reasonably coorperative about playing the game that's prepared.

But that said, there is nothing wrong if the PCs circumvent obstacles through clever ideas or decide that they want to spend time on some sideline that seems more fun than the primary goal. A good GM is flexible. If an inter-PC conflict becomes important, the rest of the plot needs to hold off while the PCs resolve their dispute. If the PCs "miss" a part of the plot that is important to the game's larger story/goal/theme, a good GM can either find a different way to get the PCs there or decide it wasn't as important as he or she thought before.

-KS