"Railroading" is just a pejorative term for...

[Ariosto]

Sure, I suspect they'll beat the 12 orcs and find the clue. But technically, they could parley, retreat, sneak and avoid, or even be defeated.

Then you might be "doing it wrong" according to the ideology that insists that "an adventure" is a story line that the players must be made to follow.

If the PCs are trying to get to the Lord (presumably involving figuring out the BBEG is the Lord, then going to him), then shuffling some game elements to enable their quest to go forward is acceptable.

Like intentionally moving your king into position to get put in check? That may "be acceptable" in a peculiar circumstance, but it is hardly what we commonly mean by "playing Chess"! Likewise, "Tee Ball" -- not outright rigging of the outcome, but a reduction of the demands on basic skills -- is not normal Baseball. Such modification has its place as a variation. There is no good reason it must suddenly become incumbent on us in playing Dungeons & Dragons.

I should hope a sandbox DM exercises some judgement and does something in or out of the game to correct a player stall, even those his notes don't cover it.

It depends on the DM. From what I have heard, Mr. Gygax would entertain himself at the players' expense if he got bored. Others of us might aver that we find the proceedings tedious -- but not force the players to abandon whatever happens to entertain them.

The whole basic notion that a "player stall" or "waste of time" is when the players do something other than follow a DM's script to the end is the basic problem right there -- if you really want to try an old-fashioned game. Please abandon it utterly before taking one step further.

 

[Nagol]

<snip>

In a "if it ain't written thusly, it ain't so" style, I gather that if the PCs go hat shopping, then they waste 4 hours of game time hat shopping unless a random encounter check turns up something. If they keep digging into a dead end of a corridor, then they keep wasting time. If they pursue the wrong suspect, they do that until they stop, and they never solve the mystery.

Just as Shaman assuming that I literally don't put water in the game because the char sheets doesn't say they can swim is taking a concept to a ridiculous extreme, I should hope a sandbox DM exercises some judgement and does something in or out of the game to correct a player stall, even those his notes don't cover it.

The thing is I find the narrative that forms from the players' choices better than "correcting" the player choices to go after the right suspect!

One of the favourite moments happened when a player blew (a seemingly easy) murder mystery, accused the Crown Prince of the deed, provided testimony against him, had him exiled, and turned into a long-term avowed enemy.

If the players are stuck, OOC I'll discuss the situation generally and encourage them to review what they know. I'll ask if they want time to pass (and with it the opportunity of further events to happen that may provide more light on the situation).

I won't alter the situation to meet the current player expectations nor will I tell the players the "correct" course of action to "get them on track".

 

[pemerton]

With 3E, it seemed to me that the new D&D was rather reminiscent of the perennial Champions -- albeit not as well engineered, in my view. However, the trend in D&D over the past decade has been more and more away from "a game where most of the interesting things happen in play". The sub-game of "builds" and "back story" has come to loom almost as the main event!

With respect to 3E, I agree with you.

With respect to 4e, I don't agree so much. In my experience 4e has features - both in the sorts of characters its build rules produce, and in its action resolution rules - that make play far more central.

 

[Beginning of the End]

In a "if it ain't written thusly, it ain't so" style, I gather that if the PCs go hat shopping, then they waste 4 hours of game time hat shopping unless a random encounter check turns up something. If they keep digging into a dead end of a corridor, then they keep wasting time. If they pursue the wrong suspect, they do that until they stop, and they never solve the mystery.

A couple quick points here:

(1) If the players really want to go hat-shopping for four hours of playing time, I don't see any particular reason to stop them. Presumably they're intelligent enough to only do something if they actually want to be doing it.

Of course, if they make a habit of spending all their time doing stuff that I, as a GM, have no interest in participating in, then it's probably time to have a frank conversation about what sort of game (a) I'm willing to run and (b) they're willing to play and see if we can find some sort of common ground.

But in 20+ years of gaming, I've never had that happen. So worrying about it is a pretty low priority for me.

(2) If the players are spending four hours of playing time hat-shopping and they really don't want to be doing that, then either (a) they think they're "supposed" to be doing that or (b) they're trying to accomplish something but they're going about it in the wrong way (or in a way which is incomprehensible to the GM).

In the case of the former, the easiest solution is to remove the concept of "supposed to" from the equation. If they're not looking for railroad tracks to follow, then they won't waste time trying to figure out what they're "supposed" to be doing.

In the case of the latter, the GM can either (a) resolve his incomprehension by asking "What are you trying to do?"; (b) use pacing to quickly resolve boring activities; or (c) both.

For example, if the PCs are hat-shopping because they want to be seen in public so that the assassins can target them again and the DM doesn't understand why they're hat-shopping, the hat-shopping can drag on and on and on (for everybody involved). But if the GM asks, "What are you trying to do?" and they explain it to him, then the GM can:

- Ask them how long they plan to keep at it.
- Figure out how likely their plan is to succeed (if it is at all).
- Rapidly resolve the situation.

This use of pacing means that the table rarely/never gets bogged down in the boring stuff, because you can rapidly skip it.

I had a good example of this at the game table last night: At one point we spent 20 minutes of playing time with the PCs carefully probing a door that they thought might be trapped. (Why? Because they were enjoying themselves.) At another point we spent literally 30 seconds speeding through two days of rest. (Why? Because nothing interesting happened.)

When in doubt, ask them what they're trying to do and then resolve it in the most enjoyable way possible for the players involved (including yourself). "Most enjoyable" might be two hours of intense roleplaying; or it might be 15 seconds of saying "you poke around the bars at the waterfront, but nobody's heard anything about Fitzpatrick". (And both of those are potential resolutions for the same action.)

Hmm.. I don't think that's a JITP issue. I can write an adventure on paper that way.

Reread my post. That's not what I said. (In fact, I explicitly said exactly the opposite.)

Though not necessarily a railroad by my definition of FORCING them to go to location 4, or to go to ThereVille. They are welcome to use divinitation, information gathering, teleport spells to find alternatives. In addition, there may be a number of possible choices to get from each location to the next (or clue to clue).

Here you seem to be saying "there is no railroading if any choice or variation possible". This is not useful, IMO.

While there is value in understanding that there are degrees of railroading -- with the lightest degree being scenario selection ("you're going to the Caves of Chaos tonight") and the strictest being the GM essentially taking control of the PCs and playing them for the characters -- restricting "railroading" to only apply to the most extreme cases is to attempt to redefine the term in a way which is neither (a) useful, nor (b) reflective of actual usage.

The PCs are going to look for clues to who the BBEG is
The PCs are going to then find the BBEG
the PCs are going to confront the BBEG

Pretty linear. Assuming the players goal is "confront BBEGs" that's pretty much how it will play out, until the party fails, aborts, or succeeds.

And here you're making the definition of "linear" so loose that you could accurately describe the West Marches sandbox as linear:

The PCs are going to explore.
The PCs are going to find something interesting.
The PCs are going to explore it until they go back to town or die.

Also not useful, IMO.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think game mechanics can help with the search thing - for exampe, even in 4e there seems to be an implicit assumption that multiple Perception checks can be rolled to search a given space, whereas I would prefer a "let it ride" approach where a single check is made and that is taken to subsume the whole of the PC's effort to find something in the space concerned. In this way the action resolution mechanics would better conduce to the desired pacing of the game.

It is interesting that you bring up Let it Ride, because I was very much thinking about "intent" in my DMing, even before I ran Burning Wheel and got some terminology for what I was doing. That is, in the search example, I was asking my players to commit to an intent, then adjudicating the results. Once they said the search was important and were willing to spend a lot of time on it, I was comfortable saying, "Ok, you spend 4 hours and find nothing. Keep going?" And they'd decide to stop, or they'd say to set up camp and keep searching or keep searching until they run out of food or whatever. Or if they were really frustrated, I might just tell them, "Dead end." And we'd figure out how to get back to the fun.

Of course, sometimes there is something there. And I don't play silly games with them of putting something there with no hint at all. So if they are searching, there is a reason known to their characters. Might be a good reason, a bad reason, or a bad assumption on their parts, but it isn't random.

Absent the BW model, most of adjudication was a combination of using the skill system, character actions, knowledge of the environment, and whatever ad hoc decisions are needed. I just decide what they need before they roll, to keep myself honest.

 

[Janx]

The thing is I find the narrative that forms from the players' choices better than "correcting" the player choices to go after the right suspect!

Also a valid thing to do. If I was GMing it, I'd probably end up to that outcome if the PC is actively moving things that way.

If he's wallowing because he doesn't know, and not moving at all, I'll bring in a game element (an NPC or a found clue, or news) that might trigger some action.

Murder mysteries are "special" cases to me, in that they often are hard to GM such that the players fully understand the clues and have a valid chance to solve them. The result is, a majority of murder mysteries would be unsolved if the GM didn't apply some lubricant to make the players as effective as their fictional counterparts.

Right or wrong, it's just an observation that I and others have had in threads about running murder mystery adventures. A majority of players don't get the clues in front of them, and it seems to be a format issue, rather than specifically the players fault.

A non-murder mystery just tends to be "there's a problem and if you dig around, do some recon, you'll know where the bad guy is and his defenses" and from there, the players decide on their approach.

I prefer to use course correction techniques when the players are stuck, and game time is getting wasted. If the players are taking action (even if its the wrong action), I'll roll with it, because they are giving me something to work with.

In the case of the Prince being mistakenly accused, even that's tricky. Once the PC starts locking in on the wrong suspect, it still stands to reason that new evidence (perhaps volunteered by an NPC as an alibi) would come to light, giving the PC a chance to reconsider.

I would argue that NOT giving the PCs more information as they pursue a wrong course is sloppy GMing as well. Surely somebody else will step forward or find a bit of evidence that is counter to the PCs erroneous charge. If the PCs disregard it, that's their choice.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

With 3E, it seemed to me that the new D&D was rather reminiscent of the perennial Champions -- albeit not as well engineered, in my view. However, the trend in D&D over the past decade has been more and more away from "a game where most of the interesting things happen in play". The sub-game of "builds" and "back story" has come to loom almost as the main event!

I see that as more of a circle than a straight line. You go far enough "around" to builds and back story, and you end up back in play. Two very different examples:

1. Given a moderately simple system of character constructions, the players will get involved in it, perhaps to the detriment of in-game play. Make it more complex, though, and they'll just want results from the system and will focus again on play. Part of this is attitude of the players. I have one player who hasn't made her own character in years. She always tells me generally what she wants and then lets me make it for her. But she loves complex systems that give her stuff to do in play.

2. When the back story gets interesting enough, we just go back and play that. Again, it is kind of an attitude thing. If you value interesting things happening in play ... you value interesting things happening in play and will thus make that happen with whatever system or background story you are working with.

As for the attitude changing in published materials, I think it preceded 3E. The first time I noticed it was in Dungeon magazine, the last couple of years of the 2E run. There were several "adventures" where all the really interesting things happened to an NPC before an adventure started. In several cases, there wasn't even a good way for the players to ever learn about any of it. Of course, there is a fine line between giving the DM enough information to sink his teeth into the material, versus resolving the actions before the players get to interact with the situation.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Murder mysteries are "special" cases to me, in that they often are hard to GM such that the players fully understand the clues and have a valid chance to solve them. The result is, a majority of murder mysteries would be unsolved if the GM didn't apply some lubricant to make the players as effective as their fictional counterparts.

Right or wrong, it's just an observation that I and others have had in threads about running murder mystery adventures. A majority of players don't get the clues in front of them, and it seems to be a format issue, rather than specifically the players fault.

A non-murder mystery just tends to be "there's a problem and if you dig around, do some recon, you'll know where the bad guy is and his defenses" and from there, the players decide on their approach.

Considering how many poor murder mysteries exist in written form, where the author has control of everything, this is not surprising.

My way of dealing with this is to provide about 3 times as many clues as would be used in a written mystery, many of them redundant. Then I make some of them more difficult/dangerous to uncover. And the players know I do this. They never find all of the clues. They find enough clues. Sometimes, they find 10% of the clues, solve it instantly, and my jaw drops. Sometimes I think pod people have replaced the usual players with aliens that have never encountered a mystery. But eventually, they get there. It is just a question of what it costs them and what happens to the world in the meantime.

I have let a "mystery" simmer over many sessions, and six months of real time. The looks on their faces when they solve it are priceless. It's this weird combination of extreme satisfaction at finally figuring it out, wonder at the answer, and a rather disgusted, "I can't believe you let us dangle that long while still making us care." I just try to do my best Chesire cat impression. Sometimes, they take it out on a nearby NPC.

 

[pemerton]

If the players are spending four hours of playing time hat-shopping and they really don't want to be doing that, then either (a) they think they're "supposed" to be doing that or (b) they're trying to accomplish something but they're going about it in the wrong way (or in a way which is incomprehensible to the GM).

I think (a) can be a problem in some systems, for example Rolemaster. Because the action resolution mechanics in RM have a "total" character - they purport to be a total expression of the underlying causal reality of the gameworld - than resolving encounters/action other than by playing it out via the action resolution mechanics can feel like cheating, both for players and for GM. This can lead to a very extreme version of "continuous play" as opposed to "scene framing".

Of course the pressure and desire not to cheat exist only in the minds of the participants. Nevertheless it is, in my experience, a real phenomenon.

 

[Ariosto]

Murder mysteries are "special" cases to me, in that they often are hard to GM such that the players fully understand the clues and have a valid chance to solve them.

That is merely an example of the general case of deciding beforehand on a limited scenario.

If I show up for a D&D event at DunDraCon, then I usually -- or always in the case of a tournament elimination round -- will expect a limited scenario due to circumstances.

If I go to a Call of Cthulhu game, I will expect something a bit looser but still strung on a line, because Shadows of Yog-Sothoth has exerted such a profound influence practically from the start. It is likewise with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which was conceived with the "high concept" of "CoC in D&D Drag" -- and delivered quite ably with The Enemy Within.

Paranoia is all about treating players as hapless pawns, except when it's all about them treating each other as the mutant traitors they are.

Vampire tried to elevate "illusionism" literally to an art form. That being about 20 years old, perhaps it now qualifies for the Retro Pretentious category in the only threefold model that makes sense to me.

Different games have different rules.