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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6821718" data-attributes="member: 42582">Here is some evidence in favour of your conjecture, again arising from an actual play example.First, the example:In my 4e game, around 3rd level, the players suffered a TPK - in the sense that the PCs were in a combat, and all were dropped below zero hp, and one (the paladin of the Raven Queen) was dropped to negative bloodied, which in 4e is outright death. The fight was with a group of undead spirits who had been conjured by a goblin shaman. This event marked the end of the session's play. I then asked the players who wanted to keep playing their PC - all but one, including the player of the paladin, said yes. From my point of view, I therefore had to come up with a scenario in which three PCs who had been defeated in combat could come back into play; in which a dead paladin could come back to life; and in which a new PC could be introduced. In the break between sessions the player who wanted a new PC - he had found his half-elven fey-pact warlock a bit mechanically challenging in play - decided that he was going to bring in a drow chaos sorcerer. The next session began, then, with three PCs regaining consciousness in a barred cave. They can hear voices talking in Goblin. And they can smell the roasting flesh of a half-elf on a spit. Also in the goblin's prison is a strange drow. The player of the paladin I made wait a little while - but in due course, I told him that his character regained consciousness lying on a stone slab, with the goblin shaman speaking some sort of ritual. The precise details of how the next bit got narrated I can't remember (this happened nearly 7 years ago), but the basic story was this: earlier in the campaign the paladin had taken an enemy magic-user prisoner; he had tried to befriend her, but she had remained resentful of her capture, and ended up dying in a fight with undead (also conjured by goblins) when the PCs were 2nd level; the goblin shaman had now, successfully, summoned her dead spirit as a vengeful wraith, using the body of the dead paladin - the object of the dead spirit's anger - as a ritual focus; and the Raven Queen had sent the paladin's spirit back into his body to combat this vengeful spirit. (And on the metagame side, I allocated the notional cost of a Raise Dead ritual to the paladin's share of the treasure parcels.) All these five PCs are still alive and active in the campaign at 30th level, although two have been rebuilt, one ingame (the human wizard with invoker multi-class died and came back to life revealing his true nature as a deva invoker with wizard multi-class) and one out of game (the ranger with cleric multi-class was rebuilt as a hybrid ranger-cleric around 6th level, in a process called Operation Do Something With My Character Other Than Twin Strike)In the past, when I have posted this example online in discussions of how to handle TPKing, I have been told that it was a railroad. I think the intuition is that, because I framed the PCs into a challenging situation (being imprisoned by goblins) that wasn't just a naturalistic extrapolation from prior events, it is a railroad.Similarly, I've heard the start of Out of the Abyss described as a railroad because the PCs begin as prisoners.The thought seems to be that any time the GM opens the narration by putting the PCs in a situation where some actual, high-stakes choice is forced, the GM is railroading. (Hence, presumably, why the stereotyped opening scene of a D&D campaign is a group of drifters in a tavern.)For my part, I can't see the railroading. The players had the chance to control the fiction by making successful checks in the resolution of the combat, and failed (by way of TPK). I asked the players about which PCs they wanted to play. And I opened the next session in a situation in which they were playing those characters they had chosen confronted with a situation that spoke to the "dramatic needs" they had established for those PCs - including bringing back into the game the paladin's earlier "story arc" concerning the magic-user NPC.This relates back to <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=1361" target="_blank">Paul Czege's</a> endorsement of the notion that "There are two points to a scene - Point A, where the PCs start the scene, and Point B, where they end up. Most games let the players control some aspect of Point A, and then railroad the PCs to point B. Good narrativism will reverse that by letting the GM create a compelling Point A, and let the players dictate what Point B is (ie, there is no Point B prior to the scene beginning)."In my example, Point A is the players need to choose how their PCs will escape from the goblins. Subsidiary choices at Point A are how the three PCs who know one another deal with the strange drow, and how the paladin deals with the vengeful wraith spirit of his dead magic-user would-be protege.But there was no pre-determined Point B: no particular path to take, no set of options (like the "three clue rule"). I can't remember all the details anymore, but I think in the end the PCs escaped the lair after fighting some goblins, then launched a frontal assault on the lair, defeated the rest of the goblins, but let some who surrendered leave on the strength of promises to (i) stop their predations, and (ii) not return to the lair. No particular outcome or sequence of events was forced.In the first of the two quoted posts, I think the sentence everything encountered, created, improv'd, etc. lead to the character's goals or dramatic needs is not quite right. It doesn't lead to those goals/needs. It speaks to them or engages them. There is no leading or path - they are already there, implicated in the situation that the GM has established.For me, the preceding paragraph is not just word-play. I am trying to mark out a distinction of practical importance to RPGing (or, at least, to my RPGing). In a lot of "conventional" or "traditional" scenario design, the setting and the backstory set up hurdles that must be overcome, or hoops that must be jumped through, before the players can get to the dramatic meat. For instance, first the PCs have to find the map, and then once they have the map they can rescue the princess. Assuming that saving the princess is the goal or dramatic need of the PCs, in the scenario just outlined there is still a whole chunk of play - finding the map - that doesn't speak to or engage that need, except in terms of a promise of a payoff later. I think that makes for boring, uninspired play.A published adventure that I've used that had exactly this problem is Heathen, an adventure in one of the Dungeon magazines that was free online in the early days of 4e. This adventure has a strong theme and a narratively compelling climax, as the PCs confront a fallen paladin. But it also has a lengthy bit of travel to the location where the climax takes place which is full of mostly uninspired, uninspiring encounters. (Obviously not all travel has to be uninspiring, but in a story like Apocalypse Now the encounters en route themselves speak to the dramatic situation; they are not just filler.) When I ran the adventure I cut out most of that stuff, and adapted what I retained to make it relate to the dramatic situation that was driving the PCs to confront this fallen paladin in the first place.The word railroad has connotations of a journey or a path. It fits with the verb to lead. But if every scene framed, and every complication that is narrated as part of "failing forward", already, in itself, speaks to the PC (and player) goals/needs, then there is no forced journeying or leading. There is forcing of choices - the players, having chosen to play these PCs with these needs, are going to have to engage with that. But in making their choices, including especially their choices abut action declaration, they are the ones who determine the general nature of the (narrative) paths their PCs will travel on. But if they fail their checks, then the GM has licence to turn those paths into unhappy rather than happy ones. (Eg as per the episode of the PC being shoved by her followers into a burning effigy; or as per the episode of the black arrows, rather than the mace, being the item recovered from the ruined tower.)</blockquote>

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