D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Maxperson]

These two things have nothing to do with each other.

The “Cunning Expert” character trait in @pemerton ’s game helps define that character’s role and place in the game. You then made some kind of leap describing that as railroading.All I’ve been doing is pointing out how it’s not railroading.

You seem to be under the misapprehension that I am trying to connect the two things. I'm not. Your statement that traditional play isn't railroading because the DM and players are on the same page just stood out to me, so I took the time to point it out.

How that means that trad play is not railroading is beyond me.

I mean, you and Twosix both said that it wasn't. How is your own statement that it isn't railroading because the DM and players are on the same page beyond you?

I don’t think that all trad play is a railroad. I think it’s very GM-focused and GM-led. Nothing that you guys have been saying in this thread has made me feel otherwise.

The only traditional play that is a railroad comes from those DMs that railroad their players, but that has nothing to do with traditional play. Railroading is 100% a DM issue, not a playstyle issue.

I think that trad GMing is more susceptible to railroading. Keeping information from players and attributing it to “your character wouldn’t know that”, hidden rolls, unknown DCs, and so on. None of that means a game will certainly be a railroad… but they all help allow it.

Perhaps it's easier for those very few railroading DMs to do it, but it quickly becomes apparent with those tactics. Players aren't stupid. They will know if something they are trying is easy, moderate, hard, etc. and while the DM has a little bit of leeway, to railroad vs DCs means that players will be missing DCs by enough to figure it out. The same with hidden rolls. Too many hits, misses, successes or failures stretch the odds beyond credulity.

Illusionism is the only method that I can think of where the players might have trouble figuring it out, and even then if often becomes apparent after a while.

It’s a matter of opinion, I’d say. Different people have different ideas about what constitutes a railroad.

But no, I don’t claim all trad play is railroading.

If being on the same page as the DM isn't a railroad, and both you and Twosix have said it isn't, then no traditional play is inherently a railroad.

Sure it may. If I consider a game that doesn’t allow me to have some input on the fiction that happens, if I’m meant to be a tourist witnessing the GM’s world… I’m gonna feel like I’m railroaded. Everything’s predetermined… I mean, that’s a big factor in railroading. Reaching predetermined events.

See, that's why it's a misconception on your part and just a feeling. What you describe there is a False Dichotomy. There are other choices than you the player can author fiction or else you are just a tourist. You aren't just a tourist based on not being able to author fiction. There must be more to it than that. Significantly more. Like actual railroading.

Mostly it happens in instances of play. A GM makes a decision, and I just think about how I wanted something else to happen. In a Star Trek Adventures fame, I said I wanted my character to move into the hallway of a station we’d sneaked into. BeforeI could describe that I was moving stealthily, hugging the wall of the curving corridor, the GM declared that two people rounded the corner and spotted me. It felt forced to me… this was what the GM decided would happen, and so that was that. I didn’t like it. That was the only instance of it in the entire session… everything else he did was cool. But that moment was a bit of railroading.

How do you know it wasn't a timing thing where the DM knew when those two would show up? Perhaps you took time sneaking and the time that took cause your entrance to coincide with the two people rounding the corner.

You were there, so perhaps the DMs face or tone gave away something. I don't know. But those two people just showing up absent anything else wouldn't trigger any alarms for me. Now if it happened to the group I was in repeatedly, then red flags would be hoisted.

 

[Maxperson]

How about the stronghold location described here?

I think this example is interesting. I didn't see it much discussed when it first came up. An important observation is that this rule is not player facing. Question is if this had been a player facing rule; would this be problematic, or would this actually be fine?

The distinction I see is that here there is an explicit GM filter based on a criterion; and a level of creative freedom on the GM side as to where this feature is. But as long as it is reasonable, it appear player can take an undetermined plot of land and make it set to have certain terrain features that must have been around for a long time.

This example do not set of my alarms in terms of world integrity the way the runes example does. I struggle a bit to pinpoint why.

The player isn't authoring anything in that example. Gygax said to allow it unless a bluff like that isn't in the area. He's assuming that the PCs will be scouting the area for locations like that, and that if the area has bluffs, the PCs will find them. The DM, though, has to have already figured out the terrain for that area prior to the PC investigating for him to know if a bluff is there or not.

Now, for me, since I don't have time to figure out terrain to that level of detail, I'd either just allow it or at worst make it a roll to find something like that. Other DMs who prep more might not be that open to the idea.

 

[Maxperson]

But did you as GM “change” the fiction? You said earlier in the thread that it meant the farrier had always been there.

Yes. The farrier was always there. I just forgot to put him into place. The players reminded me when they asked, so I added him in where he wasn't in the fiction that I had already described. We've already said repeatedly that it's different for the DM to do something like that than the players.

The fictional reality was changed from what I had narrated, but not by the players and not by anything "quantum."

I don’t think it’s objectively bad. There’s a huge portion of the hobby that has embraced this style of play. They play adventure paths. I mean… as far as metaphors go, path is maybe a little softer than railroad… but they both mean the same thing.

This is not correct for a number of reasons.

1) The players and DM are on the same page, which as you point out keeps it from being a railroad.
2) Linear doesn't equate to railroad in any case. All railroad adventures are linear, but not all linear adventures are railroads.
3) Linear doesn't mean that the PCs can't leave the line and go do something else. If the PCs find out about the princess being kidnapped, but have to find a way to take down the forcefield on the castle she is being held at before they can rescue her, that's linear. That doesn't stop the PCs from deciding in the middle that the princess is on her own and going to party at the bard's house.
4) Adventure paths aren't even always linear.

An adventure path can certainly be run as a railroad, but there's nothing inherently a railroad about them.

But subjectively? It depends on what someone wants. I can tolerate a little railroading (like in the Star Trek example I just provided; didn’t like it, but it didn’t make me quit the game) but overall, it’s not what I want to happen in a game, and the more present it is, the more dissatisfied I’ll be with the game.

Sure. There's no doubt that the occasional instance of railroading happens. And we all have different tolerance levels for when that happens. Occasional instances don't a railroad game make, though. I feel the need to repeat again that there's nothing inherent in traditional paly that makes these instances more likely. That's purely a DM issue.

 

[Lanefan]

I don’t think it’s objectively bad. There’s a huge portion of the hobby that has embraced this style of play. They play adventure paths. I mean… as far as metaphors go, path is maybe a little softer than railroad… but they both mean the same thing.

But subjectively? It depends on what someone wants. I can tolerate a little railroading (like in the Star Trek example I just provided; didn’t like it, but it didn’t make me quit the game) but overall, it’s not what I want to happen in a game, and the more present it is, the more dissatisfied I’ll be with the game.

Thing is too, in a long campaign like mine there might be a run of an adventure or two where I end up leading them by the nose, either because that's how the module(s) are designed or because it just seems to make sense to do so; then a run where I don't have to do any nose-pulling whatsoever, then another bit of railroad goes by, and so on.

Different elements wax and wane over the long run. The trick is to make sure none of those elements become too dominant or too constricting.

 

[Lanefan]

The player isn't authoring anything in that example. Gygax said to allow it unless a bluff like that isn't in the area. He's assuming that the PCs will be scouting the area for locations like that, and that if the area has bluffs, the PCs will find them. The DM, though, has to have already figured out the terrain for that area prior to the PC investigating for him to know if a bluff is there or not.

Now, for me, since I don't have time to figure out terrain to that level of detail, I'd either just allow it or at worst make it a roll to find something like that. Other DMs who prep more might not be that open to the idea.

When I (as in, Lanefan the character) built my stronghold I put it in an area of wilderness we'd already adventured in, thus the major terrain features were already set. I-as-player just had to design what he wanted to build and then in-character find a way to get it built that wouldn't take 20 in-game years.

 

[clearstream]

I generally agree, though I would say that magic makes overwhelming the DC without taking 10 much more likely (though climb may be a bad example there, as it's routinely overwhelmed by spider climb).

With an exponent like 10 (and it can be higher) it's all or nothing. Even success on anything but a 1 (which isn't an automatic failure for skills) makes the odds not much better than a coinflip. As you imply, by the time one can cast +10 in bonuses there are better approaches. For instance, the 2nd-level spell bull's strength gives +4, and both spider climb and levitate are castable at that level.

I'd point out a separate feature of the mechanic (not necessarily relevant to sim), in that it's quite knowable to players. Given a sufficiently complete description of a situation, a player can work out the resolution without consulting the GM. More importantly, several different resolutions referencing different mechanics could be launched from a single description, giving players a meaningful choice of actions.

Perhaps, although DM sets the DC. Players could work from there, but that's equally true of 5e. Rather than a bonus, a 5e climber's kit lets characters create anchor points, and they can rope themselves together. 3.5e has the option of using pitons, climbing faster, and removing armor. Both have an array of options around what character abilities, class features and spells could be used. Both have falling as a miss by 5. In both versions a DM would have to rule on access to automatic successes.

That aside, I realised after posting that I have missed a central quality emphasized by multiple posters, which I'll label attribution.

attribution the causes of the result are inferred from the associations and entrainment​

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This is in line with your desire that "it should be clear why and how they didn't [make it to the top of the wall]" @Hussar put this as "has to provide some information that informs how the result was achieved."

Spoiler: Background thinking

One option is to say that the 3.5e climb rules fulfils this in the same way suggested for 5e, which is to observe the order modifiers are applied and infer the cause from which were needed to succeed. Failures by a margin equal to penalties could be attributed to those penalties in the same way, and likewise for anything that modified DC. Narration of success or failure by wider margins wouldn't be strongly entailed by the result.

If that is unsatisfactory then I would say that there is no attribution in the 3.5e climb results beyond "you fell": it's up to someone at the table to narrate the result in whatever way they picture. One concern I have is that while I accept the inference of causes in principle, I've never seen anyone doing that in play. It doesn't seem very plausible to me that players will parse each of ten rolls against each combination of modifiers in turn to see which success or failure could be attributed to. I would also rule out such parsing on the grounds that the cognitive efforts and procedural stalling involved will get in their way of any simulative-experiences attached to concomittance.

Alternatively, "you fell" is enough, or possibly it doesn't matter that different players picture succeeding or failing in different ways so long as there is at least some degree of correspondence between what they do picture, and between that and the text. To put that clearly, suppose player A pictures falling because of a slipped handhold, while B pictures falling because of a slipped foothold, that degree of difference is tolerated so long as both are thinking of a rock wall, a climbers kit, strength and athleticism... the set of associations, in essence.

Otherwise attribution would seem satisfied only by mechanics that encode or index ludonarrative snippets, like the RM combat tables.

 

[Enrahim]

The player isn't authoring anything in that example. Gygax said to allow it unless a bluff like that isn't in the area. He's assuming that the PCs will be scouting the area for locations like that, and that if the area has bluffs, the PCs will find them. The DM, though, has to have already figured out the terrain for that area prior to the PC investigating for him to know if a bluff is there or not.

Now, for me, since I don't have time to figure out terrain to that level of detail, I'd either just allow it or at worst make it a roll to find something like that. Other DMs who prep more might not be that open to the idea.

There seem to me to be a subtle, but essential difference between "Unless this is totally foreign to the area," and "unless a bluff like that isn't in the area".

 

[clearstream]

Given the above were accepted, it's possible to arrange the four constructs in a specific way to describe process-simulation.

association parts of the written mechanic are associated with things that are accepted as diegetic​

entrainment processing the written mechanic follows patterns that map to the behaviours of those things​

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facilitate​

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attribution the causes of the result are inferred from the associations and entrainment​

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which collectively encourage​

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concomittance my experience of processing a written mechanic as player and as character overlaps​

In process-simulation, the simulative-experiences of immersion and noetic satisfaction in subjects are achieved through concommitance; while the simulative experiences of exploration and investigation are achieved through the depth of association and entrainment, the growing consciousness of attribution, and the insights found through concomittance.

If right, this would make it explicable why process-simulation has a long and respectable standing in simulationism. I assume that texts and play not ultimately productive of simulative-experiences cannot amount to simulationism, and the emphasis on detailed written mechanics can lead to texts like Redbook C&S that only falteringly achieve it. Given I have the accompanying belief that texts and play productive of simulative-experiences can amount to simulationism, process-simulation should be seen as one of many modes of play that are to be properly grouped under that broader label.

Two significant background notions are

a lusory-duality is accepted in concomittance: player as themselves, player as the character they pretend to be​

that game mechanics have qualities players experience as themselves and not as their characters is implied all through: thus game mechanics as such must be non-diegetic​

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These notions together broaden the ways that simulationism can be achieved. It is this broadening, largely achieved by leveraging innovations from the avante-garde, that I most equate with neo-sim. (@Enrahim and @Pedantic for possible interest.)

 

[Aldarc]

Characters don't think. Players think about what their characters would think.

IMHO, this is a basic process of roleplaying games.

The bolded parts are to me counterintuitive definitions of what it means to be an actor, in this sense.

On a basic level, I don't think that it's required. I can read and act the part of Romeo in a high school classroom enactment of Shakespeare without identifying with him or caring about what Romeo would think or feel. That we may idealize doing so as an "actor" doesn't somehow necessitate it as an "actor" either. IMHO, that is what this definition is acknowledging.

 

[clearstream]

Yes, but when you and other folks have been asked not to describe other play styles without using words like quantum and “altering reality” and the like, it doesn’t happen. Some folks have even said they see no need to do so.

To me the "quantum" label doesn't fit the runes case, or at least is being used with a different meaning than the "quantum ogre".

I understood a quantum ogre to be an ogre who's existence is settled yet position is not settled: it's always in front of the characters wherever they turn. The analogy is with QFT and the observation that sub-atomic particles can be found at some probability at any point in our universe: existence is settled, position is not settled.

The runes case is not like that. The existence of the runes is settled, their position is settled (as a scene distinction) but their significance is not settled. It would be more akin to observing the presence of a sub-atomic particle but not its identity.

To put it plainly, a quantum ogre is inevitable, whilst the putatively "quantum" significance of the runes is evitable.

For that reason, I would not apply the "quantum" label to the runes case. It changes the meaning of that label, and would result in it applying to all manner of events in play. Every case where something is finally settled in play. Alternatively, one's notion of play does not permit anything to be settled in play... which I find rather untenable.