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

[Warpiglet-7]

I remember playing as a teen and telling the DM my dwarf undid enough gear to urinate on the dais of the big bad.

I have just never felt as constrained as some people here.

We just play and see what happens. Granted, after tell the dm our party goes north to pillage to fallen temple we don’t have him plan it out and say “nevermind.”

For me there is a balance. And it’s not a big deal to achieve unless you fight all social contracts and just want to be contrary.

There are bad DMs who overcontrol…I just don’t understand how some people find them over and over.

We switch dm duties and I will tell you we vary across DMs. Sometimes I go along for the ride. Sometimes I ramble over the kingdom.

Good luck to everyone in finding their preferences. Keep looking if you must. There are some swell DMs out there.

 

[AlViking]

Well yeah, ultimately the type of fiction being authored is quite different. I was pushing back on the idea that the process is so different, I don't think it is, just one system confines the process to more perhaps direct fiction, stuff that a character could more directly control, towards Micahs preferred state of characters only being able to do what people in real world could do as such, whereas other system pushes more into the characters being like the main characters in a movie or book, or Ta'veren in nature such that wider things can go their way, and less likely outcomes are more likely to happen (narrativum from discworld?) and so the same sort of processes are able to be applied to a wider set of fiction as such.

Yeah, different strokes for different folks and all that. But it is a very different approach to the way the fiction of the game plays out.

But it's like saying that ice cream and cottage cheese are exactly the same because they're both made with milk. They share some similarities, from a distance they can resemble each other. But take a spoonful and I pretty much guarantee you'll be able to tell the difference.

Say that you like one over the other? No problem. Say they're the same? Nah.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Not really, because a railroad only happens if you try to step off the path and aren't allowed. If you can go and do something different, but choose not to, it's not a railroad.

I suppose that’s what makes it linear? But again, a linear game that a player cooperates with and plays along will essentially have the same experience that the railroad would provide. This is why I don’t see that huge a distinction.

Another reason is that I’ve experienced reasonable requests to “stick to the path” or to “engage with the material” that aren’t GMs being tyrannical, but rather them making a sincere request.

I’ve run some of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths. They require significant investment by a GM. Player, too… but the GM typically spends the money and the time to read the books.

If that’s what the GM has done… they’ve made that investment and then said to their players “hey, I’m gonna run Kingmaker, what do you guys think?” and everyone seems on board… it really shouldn’t be that surprising that he’ll expect folks to stick to the material.

Now, if there’s genuine dissatisfaction, then a conversation is in order. But given the circumstances, I just don’t see it as this clear cut case of being able to leave the path or not.

Again, this is why I don’t really see linear as all that meaningfully different than railroad as far as descriptors go.

Your Star Trek example is probably an example of a railroad (at the least, it certainly sounds like the GM had a scene in mind they wanted to happen), but I have to ask if you said to the GM "no, I want to go in stealthily" and if so, what happened?

Well, I was going to say it, but before I could, another player said his character wanted to join mine, and then the GM said “okay you two go out into the hall and then a pair of people come around the bend and see you”. I said “I wanted to be sneaky about it” and he said “too late, they’ve seen you”.

So yeah… it was just a case of “okay, there’s gonna be a fight”.

If something like this happened in a game of mine, I’d try to be as certain of everyone’s actions before I introduced NPCs and had to consider things like surprise or noticing the other side or what have you. And if I did jump the gun and then someone said “oh I wanted to be sneaky about it” then I’d go to the mechanics to see how that played out, and would adjust accordingly.

 

[AlViking]

Which was also the case with the runes.



Again, I'm not talking about someone who controls every decision. I don't care about the caricature GM who's railroading everything every moment of play.

I'm more concerned with instances of railroading during play. I'm more concerned with play that revolves around passively following the plot.

Games that are mostly fine, but could be improved if the GM just stuck to processes more or who was honest about what play would involve and so on. Otherwise perfectly competent and capable GMs.

If a GM is suggesting a campaign for the group that's linear, they should let the players know and get buy-in.

Meh, they're close enough for me and the distinctions matter so little to me, that I consider them the same. If it helps, you can treat my use of either as interchangeable with the other.

They are not interchangeable. That's the point. Calling someone's game a railroad is knowingly using a word widely accepted as a pejorative when there is a perfectly valid term. If I know two words for any group and I know one has negative connotations and the other is preferred? I'll use the preferred on every time even if I don't understand why it matters. Saying "Get over it, I don't mean it as a bad thing" will never fly in my book.

Why use railroad if you know the connotation unless you're just trying to be an a-hole?

So you didn't answer. What are some examples of each? What DM decisions introducing a new element of play are changing game reality and which ones aren't? How do you make the distinction?

There are a lot of things, details I have to improvise as a GM. I likely didn't write down the color of the guards uniform so I'll make something up and write it down if it comes up later. A player asks if there's a blacksmith in a town they're passing through I'll add one if its a decent sized town, roll for it if its uncertain. If the group decides to go into the seediest bar they can find and start a fight I'm going to come up with how to handle it. I add fluff and detail, I try to avoid major changes.

If a character is lost in a dungeon they aren't going to suddenly stumble across a map. If a combat is going badly for the group (or the enemy) reinforcements aren't going to appear just in the nick of time unless it was already planned and likely something the characters are aware is likely.

But most of these are examples I've given before. I prefer establishing the NPCs, organizations, groups, monsters. I know, in general, what all of them want with as much detail as I think I'll need.

Of course there will always be random stuff like making up an NPC on the fly but it if I understand the populace I'll have a starting point.

In this example, yes. But that does not mean it is always so.

I find that what many trad GMs describe when they describe their play... the content of what their play includes... sounds very much like a path. References to things like "BBEG" and "hooks" and so on. These are elements of a story, and one that's been largely sketched, if not detailed exactly.

I find that the need for prep largely reinforces this. To maintain a brisk pace of play, the GM of a trad game needs to have material ready to go. To have material ready to go, he has to have done it before play. For that material to be relevant and useful, it has to come up in play.

I mean... this is pretty much self-evident.

Can things be done to mitigate this

What's self evident to me is that you want a different style of game than I do.

 

[AlViking]

The point, that seems to be continually ignored, is that the player is repeatedly presented as having this enormous degree of freedom, but when we actually take the mask off, it's revealed that this freedom is almost totally illusory.

The customer can have it in any color they want, as long as it's black.

The player is free to choose anything...only so long as the things they want are on the pre-approved GM list.

Character freedom varies significantly from one campaign to the next. I'm playing a game set in FR using Candlekeep Mysteries. I can play any species in the book but it's all fairly linear games. Meanwhile in my games I provide a sandbox that's pretty wide open but I limit allowed species.

Is changing the rubber prosthetics the character uses to distinguish their species more important? Sandbox?

As far as pre-approval, that has as much to do with what the other players at the table want as anything in my experience. Meanwhile you can't play an alien with super powers in a D&D game, we always accept limitations.

 

[bloodtide]

Well, if the GM alters reality, I may be annoyed by that. The setting and world should be reasonably consistent.

I think your thinking too narrow here. I'd guess when you hear 'alter reality' your talking about: The DM pre makes a tower guard and says they are 1st level and swears under oath that this is true to the players. Then when the players attack the tower, the DM changes the guard into a 20th level dragon guard.

In the more general sense, anything and everything the DM does Alters Reality as nothing in the game world is "set" that the DM can't alter.

This is why I think it makes sense to make a distinction between altering something.... taking A and making it B.... and establishing something... taking a blank spot and saying this is A.

Treating these things as the same will only cause confusion.

I agree here....but there is the BIG point here of "what the players THINK does not matter EVER!" The DM can tell the players 'Bob is human' 100 times.....but Bob can can STILL be a werewolf. The players just don't know everything about everything all the time.

If a GM overrides or ignores my input as a player, then that's railroading to me.

Well, that is not Railroading. Again, you get back to "if I don't like it, it's Railroading". To say "the DM ignored my input and that makes the whole game a Railroad" does not really make sense.

How is expressly blocking a players declared, and presumably 100% legal, action, just because the DM doesn't like it, not railroading?

This is too broad and silly. The player says "my character goes to open the door"....and the DM says "the door is locked". So that is blocking the player, right? So it is a Railroad by the wide open definition.

 

[Mort]

This is too broad and silly. The player says "my character goes to open the door"....and the DM says "the door is locked". So that is blocking the player, right? So it is a Railroad by the wide open definition.

Not even remotely the same! The DM here is merely describing that the door is locked and if the character wishes to open it, there are conditions which must be overcome.

The example we were discussing was:

Player: Relg picks his nose.

DM: Nope, sorry not happening here. Relg just stands there with his hands at his sides.

There was nothing stopping Relg from picking his nose, the DM just didn't let it happen and overrode the player's stated action.

 

[bloodtide]

If a GM is suggesting a campaign for the group that's linear, they should let the players know and get buy-in.

I'd add the Cold Feet Problem: So many players will only play a set campaign for a short time before complaining or quitting. It is very annoying to all DMs.

And the worst part is it is nearly always 100% the players fault. They only put in the mare minimum effort.....sit there bored and do nothing....then say the campaign sucks.

Why use railroad if you know the connotation unless you're just trying to be an a-hole?

Humm?

But most of these are examples I've given before. I prefer establishing the NPCs, organizations, groups, monsters. I know, in general, what all of them want with as much detail as I think I'll need.

Of course there will always be random stuff like making up an NPC on the fly but it if I understand the populace I'll have a starting point.

I make up a lot in advance, but also on the spot.

There was nothing stopping Relg from picking his nose, the DM just didn't let it happen and overrode the player's stated action.

Well, I'd sure block this in my game. The player would get one warning "say something like that again and your out of the game". But that is just my game, I don't want to waste my time with people acting like three year olds.

 

[Hussar]

While I don't think it's rare... I mean, Paizo has built their entire business around it... there are plenty of times where it may make sense. You mention one... playing along so that a new GM can learn the ropes. Another could be to help new players learn the ropes. I've GMed for my kids a bit, and they benefit from some structure, so it makes sense to keep things on rails to some extent.

I also have friends who want the equivalent of a video game. They don't want to be thinking and making major decisions about where things go and all that. They want to decide if they should use Second Wind now or save it for later, and so on.

This is why I try not to cast railroading in a purely negative light. Some people enjoy it, for whatever reason.

I get that. I have players like this as well. I actually put it to the players fairly recently, asking how much freedom they wanted. Did they want me to sort of hold up signs saying, "Adventure thisaways" or did they want to hunt on their own? And their response was mostly they wanted me to have a fairly obvious path for them to follow.

For example, I'm running Out of the Abyss. The party has arrived in the duegar city of Gracklestagh. I was perfectly fine if they wanted to stay in the city and try to carve out something of a niche for themselves there. And, I kinda hinted that this was an option. The players weren't particularly interested though. They want to follow the main thrust of the campaign - escaping the Underdark. Which is perfectly fine with me, either way.

So, perhaps "trail of breadcrumbs" rather than railroad might be a more apt description. Within the context of each area, they have a great deal of freedom. But, overall? Yeah, it's a fairly linear campaign with the party traveling from area A to B to C to ... Z where they escape the Underdark and then the second half of the campaign begins.

---- Edit to add ---

As a DM, where I can get frustrated is with players who line up like baby birds, beaks open waiting for me to wheel up the plot wagon and shovel in the plot so they can gobble it down. Drives me bonkers. And it's not rare. My last group, or rather, the one I walked away from a few years back - had three players out of 4 that just refused to be any kind of proactive. They effectively wanted me to open up the Monster Manual at the Letter A, and say, "Aarocockra, fight". It was such an incredibly frustrating experience for me. I'm dropping hooks, trying to bring in lore about the setting, constantly dangling ideas and getting absolutely nothing back. I actually went out and created THREE treasure maps for them (it was a piratey, naval campaign using Ghosts of Saltmarsh as a base) and they took the maps, looked at them, shrugged and never mentioned them again.

I can see why some DM's start getting really railroady. If you've had groups like this. Where the players just expect the DM to constantly drive the campaign while you passively consume whatever it is the DM is providing, the DM's get trained to lockstep the action of the game. After all, in a group like that, if you don't force the action, then you wind up sitting around staring at each other for four hours and no one wants that.

It's a bit of a circle I think. Players get trained by DM's who are very controlling of the game. Or, conversely, DM's get trained by players who will contribute nothing to game. Players who can be replaced by dice bots and no one will notice. And around and around it goes. Then these players and DM's run into games where they're expected to be the driving force in the game or are supposed to allow the players the freedom to be the driving force, and everything turns into a train wreck - to mangle the metaphor.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If a GM is suggesting a campaign for the group that's linear, they should let the players know and get buy-in.

Yes, absolutely.

They are not interchangeable. That's the point. Calling someone's game a railroad is knowingly using a word widely accepted as a pejorative when there is a perfectly valid term. If I know two words for any group and I know one has negative connotations and the other is preferred? I'll use the preferred on every time even if I don't understand why it matters. Saying "Get over it, I don't mean it as a bad thing" will never fly in my book.

They are interchangeable to me. I am not describing anyone's games other than ones I've been in. If I'm playing an adventure path, it's not meaningfully different experience to me than a railroad. It's gonna be A followed by B which leads to C and then on to D and so on.

Now, I'm not using railroad as a pejorative because as has been pointed out several times now, it's not always one. There may be reasons to play that way. Some folks actually like it.

Why use railroad if you know the connotation unless you're just trying to be an a-hole?

Maybe it's the people who describe a way of playing that others partake in and enjoy as objectively bad that are being the a-holes?

There are a lot of things, details I have to improvise as a GM. I likely didn't write down the color of the guards uniform so I'll make something up and write it down if it comes up later. A player asks if there's a blacksmith in a town they're passing through I'll add one if its a decent sized town, roll for it if its uncertain. If the group decides to go into the seediest bar they can find and start a fight I'm going to come up with how to handle it. I add fluff and detail, I try to avoid major changes.

If a character is lost in a dungeon they aren't going to suddenly stumble across a map. If a combat is going badly for the group (or the enemy) reinforcements aren't going to appear just in the nick of time unless it was already planned and likely something the characters are aware is likely.

But most of these are examples I've given before. I prefer establishing the NPCs, organizations, groups, monsters. I know, in general, what all of them want with as much detail as I think I'll need.

Of course there will always be random stuff like making up an NPC on the fly but it if I understand the populace I'll have a starting point.

And are these examples of you "altering reality" or are you just doing what you need to do, and establishing elements as they are needed or become relevant in some way?

What's self evident to me is that you want a different style of game than I do.

Yeah, obviously. And I'd like if D&D were a little more suited to my liking. That's why I don't tend to like the conservative mindset to keep everything as it is. The game can be improved.