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

[Raven Crowking]

But, bringing this back around to my point, how is that edition based?

Apart from yourself, I am not aware that anyone suggested that there were no rules in any edition for tactical play. Most (if not all) editions have many of the same tactical elements. Likewise most (if not all) rpgs with robust combat mechanics.

Indeed, it is difficult to avoid this, as tactics are based upon real world considerations. From its wargaming roots, early D&D assumes that a knowledge of real world tactics should benefit players when engaging tactics within the game system.

What mechanical elements does your description engage?

If nothing else, Armour Class, Hit Dice, and Damage.

Among other rules for tactics in 1e: Flanking, Facing (including the facing of monsters, which can effect AC and the attacks one faces....such as the sting or maw of a purple worm!), Limitations on Shield Use, Parrying, Attacks from Higher Ground, and Overbearing. Those ones come directly to mind without having played the game in over 20 years.

I assume that there are many more tactical options that could be pointed out by anyone more conversant with the system.


RC

 

[Nagol]

the problem I see is what is really meant by the players choosing Chicago over New York.

If the PCs don't have a specific reason for choosing Chicago over New York, and the thing in New York is not really tied to new york, then SOME DM's and players have a problem moving the thing to Chicago.

If the PCs are specifically choosing Chicago over New York to avoid the thing, then moving it to Chicago should be considered a bad practice.

For some DMs some content can be considered flexible.

There is some content, that should not be flexible, in that if the players make certain choices, they should successfully avoid encountering that content.

Take the Chicago vs. New York.

If you've got an encounter for a pick-pocket to attempt a grab when the players arrive in the city. It doesn't matter if you move this encounter. The PCs aren't aware of it to avoid it, and it isn't contradictory for it to be possible to happen in either city. The choice of city never really mattered, other than for local color.

If the PCs are going to Chicago, to avoid contact with somebody who is trying to take the McGuffin from them, then moving the bad guy to Chicago is Railroading because you are thwarting player decision. The choice of city was crucial in this situation.

As a DM, if you've got all these locations pre-planned on what's where, or if you've got random tables to determine what's where, and what's going to happen next, then you've no NEED to move stuff around.

If as a DM, you haven't built all these encounters ahead of time, and don't have piles of encounter tables to do all this (like Shaman's NPC encounter table thing), then moving stuff MAY be acceptable practice.

I'm obviously of the latter camp. I don't mind shuffling some stuff around, so I don't have to make a zilliion different things. Perhaps what might help to contemplate this, is that the encounters are locationless. Their location gets set when it is applicable to put it somewhere.

The dark stranger in the inn with the map to adventure is an example. Does it REALLY matter which inn he's at? If the PCs aren't specifically avoiding him, then having him be at the inn the players decide to stay at is an accepted practice by many GMs.

If somebody wants to call in the GM Police on me because I didn't make 3 different dark strangers with 3 different maps (or other hooks) to each be placed individually in the 3 inns the town has, they take their gaming way too seriously.

I consider the real problem being the GM not taking "no thanks" as an answer. When the players decline to follow-up on the map, then don't make the sherrif force the party to follow the map to the same dungeon. Move on.

If something is tied to the terrain of a big city, but not to a particular locale then don't tie it to a particular locale. It won't have to be "moved" if the PCs end up in a different locale where the encounter makes sense. A floating encounter like that similar to a wandering encounter just not randomised (or pehaps it is randomised and the PCs will only find the dark stranger on a 1-3 of a d6 any thime they go to an inn).

 

[Janx]

Because the sort of game I described, and - if we're understanding one another properly - the sort of game you also run, is one in which there is no sandbox in the classic sense (because you'll move the stuff from Chicago to New York, or make it up in response to what's gone before, or whatever) and yet it's not linear, because no one knows where it's going until it happens.

Well I'll hesitate to say I don't know whats going to happen. Partly because I'm fairly clever and humans are predictable. But also because if I re-arrange SOME components, then I certainly know whats going to happen at those points and can further predict what might happen next.

For instance, the party WILL be hit by the pick-pocket when they arrive in the city. it doesn't matter which city. As a GM, it is more valuable to me as a hook that this pick-pocket fail, and thus is detected. Because that will probably initiate player action (they'll grab him on the spot or chase after him, or check video cameras to get a better ID on him). If the pick pocket is fully successful, it could be completely undetected and untraceable, thus not providing any kind of lead to get the players into some action.

Some flexibility in shifting and re-using material means less prep work. At the extreme end of that, of course is a railroad.

 

[Jacob Marley]

But, bringing this back around to my point, how is that edition based?

snip

Good play is always good play.

RC said pretty much what I was thinking. I do not wish to derail this thread any further on the issue of tactics, but suffice it to say, I think we have differing opinions on what constitutes tactics.

Apart from yourself, I am not aware that anyone suggested that there were no rules in any edition for tactical play. Most (if not all) editions have many of the same tactical elements. Likewise most (if not all) rpgs with robust combat mechanics.

Indeed, it is difficult to avoid this, as tactics are based upon real world considerations. From its wargaming roots, early D&D assumes that a knowledge of real world tactics should benefit players when engaging tactics within the game system.



If nothing else, Armour Class, Hit Dice, and Damage.

Among other rules for tactics in 1e: Flanking, Facing (including the facing of monsters, which can effect AC and the attacks one faces....such as the sting or maw of a purple worm!), Limitations on Shield Use, Parrying, Attacks from Higher Ground, and Overbearing. Those ones come directly to mind without having played the game in over 20 years.

I assume that there are many more tactical options that could be pointed out by anyone more conversant with the system.

RC

 

[awesomeocalypse]

No sandbox has ever given me what I'm looking for first and foremost in an RPG, and that is the sense that I am not simply a person inhabiting another world, but rather that I am the main character (or one of them, at least) of a story. More than anything, I want to feel like the world revoles around me.


I don't want to be vanquishing a villain, I want to be vanquishing the villain. I don't want to be a hero, I want to be the hero. I don't want to pick up a magic sword, I want the magic sword. In the same way that Dumbledore is less a person with independant agendas than he is a plot device to help Harry in his heroes journey, in the same way that everything the rest of the Fellowship does is secondary to and less important than what Frodo does, I want every single monster, NPC and setting element to orbit, in some sense, around the star that is me. I am Harry, Luke, Buffy and Frodo all in one. The other PCs can share that status, but that's it...if I get the sense that any of the NPCs in the world are somehow more important than I, that there are quests more important than my quest, that there is someone out there whose agenda matters more than my agenda...I get antsy.

So no, I don't like sandboxes. I don't want a million different plot threads that I could choose to pursue or not based on whather it interests me. i want *one* plot thread, that is so overwhelmingly important, and so intrinsically tied to me and my character, that the idea of doing anything else would be as laughable as Frodo deciding he'd rather go sing with Tom Bombadil than destroy the ring.

This might sound like unabashed, absolute D&D narcissism.

It is.

I don't play rpgs because I want to compromise on what sort of gratification I get. More than any other medium, rpgs can be tailored *exactly* to what the participants desire. So why would I want anything else? Being the man around whom everything revolves *rules*.

So long as I have a bunch of fellow PCs who feel the same way, and a DM who relishes the chance to carefully craft a plot around a few specific PCs, then why would I want anything else?

edit: I noticed earlier in the thread some people were saying that, when faced with a railroad, their first instinct is to do everything they can to derail it. Not to be disruptive for the hell of it (though that can easily be the result), but because they feel on some level like its one of the only ways they can take action with meaningful consequence.

I am more or less exactly the opposite. Give me a tightly plotted story, where the principal appeal is seeing the plot unfold and finding out what happens next, and I'm happy as hell to stay on the plot and roleplay my character within the bounds of the story.

But put me in a game where the appeal is simply being able to do whatever I want to do, and I tend to start treating it the way I do a GTA sandbox--take actions just for the hell of it, don't sweat the consequences, and more or less act like a mixture of a Nietzschian superman and a kleptomaniac psychopath with a death wish.

This isn't to be disruptive for the hell of it, its simply the result of a massive shift in perspective.

If I am the chosen one, main character of this hugely important story, than that innkeeper I just met might be a stepping stone to the completion of that story. Certainly, even if he isn't hugely important, it probably makes sense in terms of completing the story to treat him with decency unless given a reason to otherwise.

But if there's no story, then who cares? Why *not* just rob that innkeeper or light him on fire? Sure, I might just get jailed or be killed by the guards, but the fight could be fun. And if I die, no biggie, I'll just roll up another dude who is just as capable of doing whatever the hell he wants as my current character is. I mean, its not like any of these characters are special or matter in any way. They're just random dudes in an imaginary world, and there are a theoretically infinite number of them.

The removal of a central plot puts me into pure GTA mode--none of it matters in any larger sense, the characters are disposable, and the central draw is mainly just acting in ways I never could in real life, messing crap up and enjoying the chaos that ensues.

A story keeps me from doing that by making the character I'm playing at that moment hugely important, and in a way that encourages him to engage with the world in a way that advances the story.

 

[pemerton]

one thing I found about NDT was that it quickly turned into a mini-sandbox once the players/PCs decided not to bother with anything like clues or investigation; they just wandered around the neighbourhood thrashing everything they met - including those who were in theory supposed to be allies! I ended up having to do some varying-degrees-of-subtle railroading to not only get them back on track but get them on track in the first place.

I stipulated at the start of the campaign that every PC must have a backstory reason to be ready to fight goblins. As a result we got a youthful dwarf who (to his shame) had never seen a goblin, and was off to prove himself; a middle-aged pastry chef and wizard whose town had been destroyed by goblins; and an elf and half-elf whose village had been raided by goblins. A couple of sessions in we also got a paladin (of the Raven Queen, but still seeing himself as bound by duty to look after ordinary people). This made the early parts of the module easy to motivate -fight goblins, rescue prisoners etc.

I'm not using the Hutakaans (sp?) but instead minotaurs as the ancient empire, because this ties better into 4e mythology (including Thunderspire Labyrinth). I've also built into the history the idea that the dwarves were once under the tutelage of the minotaurs, which has helped engage the player of the dwarf as he learns more about the real history of his people.

I've also linked the slaver group to a devilish cult (from the 4e Dungeon adventure Heathen) and have also linked in Vecna and Torog via the magic-user who is the main enemy. This mythological stuff helps with engaging several of the PCs (eg the wizard/chef started out as an initiate of the Raven Queen (cleric multi-class) but has since retrained as an Inovker linked to Erathis, Ioun and Vecna also). And I've also got a Rod of Seven Parts plot in there, which ties in some of the abyss/chaos elements of minotaurs and Thunderspire Labyrinth, Erathis (because the Rod is a weapon of law) and 4e history (because, as they are discovering, the history of Nerath seems to have been linked to some parts of the Rod).

It's a long time since I've run a module without doing this sort of work to link it into the camaign.

How easy/hard are you finding the monster conversion? I've converted the other way (run a 4e module in 1e) and found 95% of it trivially easy...which usually means it's going to be hard going the other way.

The goblins converted pretty easily - in that I looked at the number of goblins, the shape of the map/terrain, and put in an equivalent number of 4e goblins (including minions) with the right sorts of roles to make a good encounter.

With some of the later encounters, like the tombs and the ruins, I've played a bit more fast-and-loose, putting in monsters that capture the general feel/theme (eg corruption corpses rather than the wyrds that the module uses), or adding in a few more monsters to make a better encounter (eg in the gelatinous cube encounter in the ruins, I also added in a spider pit inspired by a thread on ENworld about using spiders and webs in three dimensions).

Again, this fits with the general way I use a module - to get some basic ideas, some maps, a bit of background and feel. Once I've got that, I'm pretty happy to fold, spindle, mutilate and incorporate - both in prep and as I go along - in order to get something that plays well at the table.

 

[Hussar]

RC said pretty much what I was thinking. I do not wish to derail this thread any further on the issue of tactics, but suffice it to say, I think we have differing opinions on what constitutes tactics.

Sorry about this. One last gasp of the derailment and I'll shut up completely.

I did think of a very good example where 1e mechanics (and 2e for that matter) influence tactical considerations. The morale rules. ((Yeah, it hit me cos of that thread in the 4e forums))

IIRC, you can trigger an individual morale check if you hit something for more than half its hp's and again at 1/4. Group morale checks get triggered after the group takes so many casualties. And, yes, that's a gross simplification - there's a lot more to it than that.

But, that has a pretty big affect on tactical choices. Earlier on, someone mentioned focus fire being a very good tactic. That's certainly true in 3e and 4e where damage has no real effect on combat effectiveness until the target is dead. ((Or dying I suppose)) With morale rules in place, spreading out the damage can be equally effective.

There was an earlier example of three kobolds and a giant lizard. In 3e, ganking the lizard first is pretty much the best option since the kobolds are nowhere near the same threat (assuming that there aren't NPC levels thrown into the mix - just stock kobolds). But, in 1e, if you smoke the three kobolds, that causes the lizard to make a morale check and possibly flee the encounter, without actually doing any damage to it.

You can actually win encounters in 1e and 2e without killing anything.

That's an example of what I mean by mechanics having an effect on tactics. Which is why I generally don't agree with RC's examples which have nothing to do with system. They're examples of good tactics, sure, but, completely divorced from system, they're actually pretty irrelavent to my point which was that 1e mechanics don't actually have much effect on tactics.

A point which I've now just proven myself wrong about.