Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[pemerton]

Certainly, as a DM, improvisation is always part of the game. But by having a thorough understanding of the NPCs and their goals, the events that are occurring in the region, the lay of the land, and things like that. Even the typical behavior of monsters, etc., means that I can also focus on the creation of the story during the game, reacting to the characters and their actions.

Outside of the game session I don't have any problem with as much input from the players as they want to give. But within the game we expect to be within the scene, and within the moment, with them as their characters and nothing else.

I've highlighted two bits of this quote.

The first seems to go right to the core of the thread. It posits the GM as creating the story.

The second seems to go to the discussion with [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] about immersion, and my post not far upthread. Because human beings are related to people around them, and embedded in the world around them, sometimes "being the character" also requires establishing elements of the shared fiction.

 

[darkbard]

You can use passive scores

Y'know, I feel like a much more pervasive use of passive scores, Perception and Insight, of course, but also Arcana, Dungeoneering, Nature, and Religion for monster ID, than what I currently do is probably the way to go. Make this part of scene framing by the DM but, of course, influenced by player decisions regarding their PC build.

Although in another thread (discussing whether or not to include a surprise round that excludes PCs with lowish passive Perception scores), the consensus from the player agency advocates (and I agree with the logic!) is that denying PCs an active roll partakes of DM Force and thus denies player agency.

For knowledge checks, OTOH, <snip> let the player who successfully ID's the heretofore unknown monster and it's weakness name it and decide what the weakness is...

In a game like 4E, this isn't really a viable option, of course.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not a coincidence that so much fantasy RPGing involves Conan-esque characters who are strangers in the lands they travel through. (And see [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s responses upthread to the idea of a PC becoming a magistrate - that this is incompatible with the wandering that is the norm of a PC's life.)

You're misunderstanding my position a bit. I wasn't saying that all adventurers wander and so being a magistrate doesn't work. I'm saying that adventuring groups tend to wander and in such a group being a magistrate wouldn't work. In a city centric campaign, a magistrate would work out rather well. The entire party is staying within the city, so a separate game wouldn't be called for.

 

[Maxperson]

A classificatory scheme is of no use if everything we want to classify ends up under the one label.

Compared to a rocket, Usain Bolt and I are both slow. All that tells me is that using rockets as my standard for fast is not very good in a conversation about sprinting speed.

Likewise, if you measure for "GM driven" is "the players sit at the table while the GM reads them a story", you've chosen a bad measure for talking about RPGing - because what you're labelling as "GM driven" isn't RPGing at all!

Okay, but a game in which both the DM and players contribute to the game in roughly equal manners isn't DM driven. I would suggest that perhaps your term is off, not my measure.

Two things:

(1) I prefer a game in which the players do the bulk of the set up. That is what I mean by "player driven", and it clearly differs from what you have described - which is what I call "GM driven".

I understand that, but again, the measure you've come up with doesn't seem appropriate. What you call DM driven is a game in which the players and DM contribute in roughly equal measures. That's not DM driven by any measure I can come up with. I think a different and more accurate term needs to be put in place.

(2) Why don't you find out which hole of the golf course the players want to shoot for before setting things up? That would seem more efficient.

I do. At session 0 the players and I all toss out ideas for campaign and the players decide which ones all of them like. I have veto power over ideas that the players toss out that I actively dislike or just don't have time to run due to how much time it would take to prep things. I usually veto 0-2 of the 10-15 ideas the group settles on. Then they pare down the ideas until they have only one and I go prep things in that direction. However, more than once something has happened during the game that the players loved and made hard left towards a different hole. When they do that I go with it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Y'know, I feel like a much more pervasive use of passive scores, Perception and Insight, of course, but also Arcana, Dungeoneering, Nature, and Religion for monster ID, than what I currently do is probably the way to go.

Although in another thread, the consensus from the player agency advocates is that denying PCs an active roll partakes of DM Force and thus denies player agency.

Passive checks are fine, I think as long as there's a check, the DM making it doesn't erase agency (and if we want the engagement of players-always-roll we've already given up on the imersions issue anyway), but passive vs a DC, yeah pointless.

In a game like 4E, this isn't really a viable option, of course.

Don't see why not, you have a lot of latitude with monsters, no reason you can't delegate some.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Here's a bit more about this.

Consider the example I was using upthread: the PC enters an inn ut of the rain, and the player casually narrates "I hang my wet cloak on a hook at the door". That is the player authoring new fictional content (ie the existence of hooks at the door of the inn). Does the player have to get the GM's permission first? Does the player have to ask "Are there any hooks at the door? If so, I hang my wet cloak on one."?

If the answer to those questions is "yes", then to me that is immersion-breaking: because instead of my PC being at home in the gameworld (being able to see things, make reasonable judgements eg about the standard layout and facilities of inns, etc), the PC is like an alien in a foreign land who needs the GM to affirme, to the player, verything that the PC sees and can do.

It's a bit extreme, I think, but I get your point. If the PCs frequent a certain inn, then I know I personally wouldn't mind a player establishing a minor detail like where the coats get hung. Or even something a bit more substantial.

But what if the player says "I hand my drenched coat to...my long lost brother who is standing beside the door!?!?!" Cue the dramatic music.

Again I think it comes down to GM judgment. If your GM is reasonable, then they'll likely let you establish coathooks in the local inn. They may kind of expect to be asked "I hang my drenching cloak beside the door...oh, is that what they do here, or some other way of hanging coats?" and the GM would likely just agree and ask you to continue.

I don't think that a bit of confirmation on the DM's part is all that disorienting to the player that it would carry over to their role playing.

The same thing is true with NPCs: if the player is always dependent on the GM to explain who NPCs are, what their connection is to the PC, etc, then it is as if this character has no friends, no family, no one who is not a stranger to him/her.

I think most games likely allow at least a little input into NPCs by players...supporting cast and family and the like are something I always try to use in my games. Typically, I let the players decide the basics, and then I may take it from there.

I feel like this is something that the GM has to mitigate to some extent. The example I gave above of the long lost brother showing up out of the blue...that was mostly a joke, but if the players are free to introduce such concepts in play, then what's to stop them?

I suppose the argument could be made that since nothing is predetermined by the GM, then no plans are being spoiled...the story that emerges is simply what happens.

My argument against that would be that story takes craft. A revenge story isn't made better or more pure if the protagonist sets out on what he expects to be a long, arduous journey....only to find his nemesis before he takes five steps.

I'm exaggerating for effect, but aren't these concerns to have? Or at least, aren't they as valid as being concerned with the impact that having to ask the GM for basic world details will have?

It's not a coincidence that so much fantasy RPGing involves Conan-esque characters who are strangers in the lands they travel through. (And see [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s responses upthread to the idea of a PC becoming a magistrate - that this is incompatible with the wandering that is the norm of a PC's life.) REH chose to make Conan a stranger - the only Cimmerian who ever figures in the stories - as a deliberate narrative and thematic device. The hobbits in LotR, for different reasons, are likewise framed as strangers into the situations they encounter. But this is not a necessity of fantasy RPGing. Or fantasy fiction. Ged, in the Earthsea stories, is not a stranger to his world. He knows his way through it. Han Solo is not a stranger to the world of Star Wars. Etc.

In my experience, if a player is going to play a character who is part of the world rather than alienated from it, then it's not viable for every bit of the fiction to be mediated through the GM, as if the PC was learning about the world for the first time.

If I took this approach, I would feel like I was GMing blind. I wouldn't know what the player was hoping his/her PC would achieve. I wouldn't know what was at stake. I wouldln't know how to apply pressure.

I feel like all of that could be addressed by having a discussion with the players ahead of the game, or in between sessions. I feel like having the game world feel more lived in, more dynamic would be more supported by planning ahead a bit rather than allowing everything to be established on the fly. I mean, I am forced to improv all the time by my players...but I find the improv fun and more constructive because of the amount of "prep" I've done with the world building. The planning is what allows me to more easily improv when needed.

So when one player explains to me that he has a brother and they were in a mercenary company together, but that his brother left the company for some mysterious reason, and he's been searching for him ever since....that's great. I love that the player came up with that. But doesn't the GM kind of have to decide how the brother comes into it? You've given an example of the "GM reading a story to the players" as a criticism of heavy handed GMing....but isn't that better than the players reading a story to themselves?

I am sure many games have a very similar style to the Conanesque vibe you described. But I know that's not remotely true of my game, and based on the discussion, I don't expect it's true of most of the other folks posting here.

Y'know, I feel like a much more pervasive use of passive scores, Perception and Insight, of course, but also Arcana, Dungeoneering, Nature, and Religion for monster ID, than what I currently do is probably the way to go. Make this part of scene framing by the DM but, of course, influenced by player decisions regarding their PC build.

Although in another thread (discussing whether or not to include a surprise round that excludes PCs with lowish passive Perception scores), the consensus from the player agency advocates (and I agree with the logic!) is that denying PCs an active roll partakes of DM Force and thus denies player agency.

How about using the passive approach and then deciding tiers of success? Like, for a lore check of some kind, DC 10 reveals X, DC 15 reveals X and Y, and DC 20 reveals X,Y, and Z. Depending on the system, you may need to tweak it a bit or use slightly different numbers. But instead of forcing a roll where a proficient character could fail and then a non-proficient character could succeed, you instead just let the player know what their PC knows based on 10 plus their skill rank. It makes learned characters seem learned and dumb characters seem...not so learned.

I find this works for knowledge checks and the like. It may require a bit of work beforehand, but I think it can still be abdicated on the fly.

 

[Shasarak]

Lan-"my job as a player is to either react to what the game-world does or to go and do something within it, not to co-build it as we go along"-efan

What about NPCs? Do you create your characters family or do you leave all of that up to the DM? What about friends, do you expect the DM to make up childhood friends that may be in the world too?

If I say that my PC is going to visit my old friend Doug who is the Blacksmiths apprentice is that co-creating or does the DM need to give me a list of names at the start of the game?

 

[Lanefan]

Consider the example I was using upthread: the PC enters an inn ut of the rain, and the player casually narrates "I hang my wet cloak on a hook at the door". That is the player authoring new fictional content (ie the existence of hooks at the door of the inn). Does the player have to get the GM's permission first? Does the player have to ask "Are there any hooks at the door? If so, I hang my wet cloak on one."?

If the answer to those questions is "yes", then to me that is immersion-breaking: because instead of my PC being at home in the gameworld (being able to see things, make reasonable judgements eg about the standard layout and facilities of inns, etc), the PC is like an alien in a foreign land who needs the GM to affirme, to the player, verything that the PC sees and can do.

Unless this is an inn they've been to before, the scenario would play out exactly the same as in the real world if I were to walk into a pub and go to hang my coat on a hook...I'd first have to check and see if there's any hooks present. In game terms, what the PC sees has to be narrated by the DM (who is, remember, responsible for world content), and so of course I have to ask the DM if there's any hooks there.

The same thing is true with NPCs: if the player is always dependent on the GM to explain who NPCs are, what their connection is to the PC, etc, then it is as if this character has no friends, no family, no one who is not a stranger to him/her.

Characters can have family, friends, etc., as part of their background but these don't usually come up in play that often.

In my experience, if a player is going to play a character who is part of the world rather than alienated from it, then it's not viable for every bit of the fiction to be mediated through the GM, as if the PC was learning about the world for the first time.

Which, in my case, is why I posted some general information about the game world when my campaign started. In fact, I probably put way more up there than the average character would know. As for individual stuff, to go back to the anxious-guy-in-bar example if this is someone previously known to one or more PCs that would come up right away in the narrative.

If I took this approach, I would feel like I was GMing blind. I wouldn't know what the player was hoping his/her PC would achieve. I wouldn't know what was at stake. I wouldln't know how to apply pressure.

The pressure comes from the giant who's trying to stove your head in; from the mentor who paid for this trip who is expecting a mission report within 2 days when you're still 4 days from town; from the unrelenting storm you've been lost in for days; from the party Thief who just won't pull her weight but expects her full share of everything; from being down to your last day worth of rations...need I go on?

If someone has a specific personal goal in mind for their character I can only assume that at some point or other I'll (as DM) hear about it. If I don't, it can't have been that important.

Why don't you find out which hole of the golf course the players want to shoot for before setting things up? That would seem more efficient.

If they're standing on the 2nd tee (which was mentioned) my baseline assumption is they're aiming for the 2nd hole; most likely this means they've just played the 1st and from here will go on to the 3rd.

That said, this isn't exactly the best analogy as if the players decided to play the 8th hole right after the 2nd both the club stewards and the other golfers (not to mention the rules of golf) would probably have some things to say.

Lan-"the pressure, in short, usually comes from sheer survival"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

What about NPCs? Do you create your characters family or do you leave all of that up to the DM?

We've got tables for that.

Seriously.

If a player wants to figure out a PCs' family and background (which not all do; some just can't be bothered) we'll sit down and roll some dice to see what they've got:
- parents - alive? dead? profession(s)? adventurers?
- siblings - ditto for each
- children - for long-lived races such as Elves this one can go on for a while!
- hometown
- how much prior travelling has the PC done?
- significant events in character's past, if any
- significant people the character has met, if any

What about friends, do you expect the DM to make up childhood friends that may be in the world too?

This comes up extremely rarely, to the point where both player and DM just wing it at the time; unless the "friend" is intended to be someone significant. "Hey, I grew up here <pre-determined by background as above>. If Brienne's still got that farm just out of town she'll put us up for the night I'm sure!" - this is always cool even if it comes out of nowhere. "Hey, this guy I grew up with - he was the Duke's son. Bet he's Duke by now! He'll get us out of this jam!" out of the blue is not cool.

If I say that my PC is going to visit my old friend Doug who is the Blacksmiths apprentice is that co-creating or does the DM need to give me a list of names at the start of the game?

This would be cool. (I'd then very quickly determine for myself what if anything makes Doug tick and whether there's anything you might not know about him in-character - highly likely he's just simply a blacksmith's apprentice but maybe he's got married and had a kid since you last saw him, or maybe he's all along been a secret member of some cult or other, or maybe he lost that job and has since gone into baking...)

Simple answer: if what the players dream up stands to give the PC or the party any undue advantage or influence (e.g. the Duke example above) I'm quite likely going to veto it. Ditto for undue disadvantage; sometimes my players would be quite happy to invent trouble for other PCs: "Hey, I wonder if any of those 'wanted dead or alive: Jocasta Nightshade' posters are still up?". But something like Doug the apprentice blacksmith? No problem!

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

I think a major flaw in your analysis is a failure to meaningfully consider the social environment present in adventure path play. I also think you are applying some binary logic here when it comes to railroading that fails to get to the very real nature of what happens between players at the table. This is also why I am overly fond of the way [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is framing things even though I mostly agree with the point I believe he is trying to make.

I think you dropped a "not" - I'm guessing that you're not overly fond of the way I'm framing things!

If adventure path play is to be functional and coherent there needs to be a shared interest by all players to engage the adventure and try to figure out what they should be doing.

<snip>

While abandoning the adventure path or engaging the fiction in unforeseen ways is always a possibility it is not likely because if our shared interest is in engaging the adventure on its own terms then there is an extremely high social cost for pursuing those courses of actions.

I agree with this, but I would reframe it slightly, probably bending it in the direction you're not as fond of!

What I wanted to post, after reading [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] talking about "allow[ing] the PCs to engage the path or leave the path entirely if they wish", is what does allow mean here?

If the GM has prepped the adventure path - or, to use Maxperson's analogy, if the GM has set up a shot for the 2nd hole - then what happens if the players want to play a different scenario (or, to use the analogy, want to play on a different course)? Are they really free to do that? As in, can the game really be run if they choose that?

What are the expectations around GM prep? What are the players' expectations? If the players expect a "living, breathing" world - a GM-authored backdrop that they explore and learn about through playing the game; and if the players expect a "plot" or a mystery that their PCs will hook onto and try and (re)solve; then how is the GM expected to provide this spontaneously? It seems like it will be a crap game.

Or, conversely, if it turns out that this spontaneous game is a good one, then what was going on with all that effort on prep and pre-authorship? What was it for?

This is actually how I discovered, c 1986/7, how I liked to run a game. I had assumed that running a serious game was all about prep, because I'd read various things (mostly White Dwarf and Dragon articles) that told me so. But then I ended up running some session which were much more spontaneous, where the players had PCs with fairly clear hooks and motivations built into them (OA PCs on one occasion; two demihuman multi-class thieves on the other occasion) - and those turned out to be much better games!

That's not to say that I don't do any prep anymore. I run systems - 4e, BW, even to some extent Cortex/MHRP - that benefit from prepping NPCs/creatures, and in 4e also from drawing maps of locations. But these provide material that I use as part of framing, or narration of consequences. Until they actually come out in play they're potential story elements, not established parts of the shared fiction.