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

[nevin]

I don’t see that at all. The whole point of a railroad is you are promising the players total freedom. Now you can also have linear adventure if you want in a railroad. And you can have sandboxes with roads. But the ideal is full freedom to explore and smash the scenery. There may be some boundary of course. But that is usually very expansive (the boundaries in my setting go all the way out to heavenly and infernal realms)

but most sandboxes are little places that match your description connected by railroads. That's gotten even worse with the advent of MMO"s. I see more and more games designed that way by young people that grew up playing MMO's and can't fathom it being wide open. But again if the players are enjoying it that's not really a problem, it's more of a design choice.

I'm not arguing what a sandbox should be I"m arguing what most "Sandboxes" I've been show over the last 15 years or so really are.

 

[Campbell]

My personal concern is that if a GM is hoping for a particular course of action that they would be manipulating or nudging players in that direction. It's a sign of their head not really being in the right place for sandbox play and it would really be a bad sign for more Narrativist play.

 

[Bedrockgames]

My personal concern is that if a GM is hoping for a particular course of action that they would be manipulating or nudging players in that direction. It's a sign of their head not really being in the right place for sandbox play and it would really be a bad sign for more Narrativist play.

I agree the GM should avoid hoping for a particular course of action in a sandbox. It may emerge, but arriving for impartiality means you catch such things and hold them in check. I think the sandbox GM must remind themselves: the players are at the helm, let them decide and let’s all be surprised by where this goes. You have to actively be open minded to every possibility to respect a sandbox’s promise and full potential

 

[nevin]

I agree the GM should avoid hoping for a particular course of action in a sandbox. It may emerge, but arriving for impartiality means you catch such things and hold them in check. I think the sandbox GM must remind themselves: the players are at the helm, let them decide and let’s all be surprised by where this goes. You have to actively be open minded to every possibility to respect a sandbox’s promise and full potential

as long as we aren't calling story reactions to what the players do DM railroading. I suspect a few of the strong reaction here are some DM's may have been accused of railroading when they simply laid out a story that had natural consequences (both good and bad) for players actions.

 

[Bedrockgames]

as long as we aren't calling story reactions to what the players do DM railroading. I suspect a few of the strong reaction here are some DM's may have been accused of railroading when they simply laid out a story that had natural consequences (both good and bad) for players actions.

I would personally avoid the term story here just as a matter of preference but the Gm going in a direction because the players chose to go there, isn’t railroading IMO. A lot of posts in this thread have a highly expansive definition of railroad I do not subscribe to

 

[Campbell]

Sandbox isn’t about game design. It is about adventure structure. You can make or have a system intended to be more sandbox friendly but it ultimately comes from play style and adventure/campaign structure

These things are part of game design though because they are dependent on what the GM role entails. When you say things like this you are centering conventional game designs and the conventional arrangement of player and GM roles (as a given). You are just assuming the GM is a world builder and a referee (and breaking down style from there).

You are also assuming the adventure/campaign structure is not a vector of game design. When it obviously is for things like the Brindlewood Games, Apocalypse World, Marvel Heroic, etc. It's also a feature of some OSR games like Nightmares Underneath and Electric Bastionland.

What does and does not fall under the purview of system is going to vary from game to game. You might have preferences over what you think designers should or should not design, but the presence of games that do include it as part of their embedded design makes it part of system, at least for those games.

 

[Bedrockgames]

These things are part of game design though because they are dependent on what the GM role entails. When you say things like this you are centering conventional game designs and the conventional arrangement of player and GM roles (as a given). You are just assuming the GM is a world builder and a referee (and breaking down style from there).

You are also assuming the adventure/campaign structure is not a vector of game design. When it obviously is for things like the Brindlewood Games, Apocalypse World, Marvel Heroic, etc. It's also a feature of some OSR games like Nightmares Underneath and Electric Bastionland.

What does and does not fall under the purview of system is going to vary from game to game. You might have preferences over what you think designers should or should not design, but the presence of games that do include it as part of their embedded design makes it part of system, at least for those games.

I think my point stands. You CAN design a system around sandbox play. But the point is you can take take pretty much any game, and run it as a sandbox. And yes I am centering traditional Gm authority as an assumption because it is the norm at most tables.

 

[zakael19]

I think my point stands. You CAN design a system around sandbox play. But the point is you can take take pretty much any game, and run it as a sandbox. And yes I am centering traditional Gm authority as an assumption because it is the norm at most tables.

Railroading is also the norm at most tables ;P.

That's linear, not a railroad. Linear is different. A railroad forces the players down a path no matter what they want to do. There's no turning back or leaving, like I can do in an adventure path.

For example, say we are on an adventure path and the party is at location A. Location B is a hermit we have to speak with. If we go north, we meet the hermit. If we go west, we meet the hermit. If we go south, we meet the hermit. We have no say, because the DM is forcing us down the path he wants, not the one we want.

In a normal adventure path, if the hermit is north and I go west, I don't meet the hermit. If I keep going west, I may leave the adventure path entirely. Now, typically we choose not to do that because the DM has invested in the adventure path and we are all friends, but it is an option for us if we choose it.

Railroads give no such option.

Yeah. It boils down to...

1. Railroad - Players have no choices. They are going where the DM wants them to go. It might be overt, or it might be illusionism, but their agency is gone.

2. Linear - The adventure path goes A > B > C > D, etc. and the players have the choice to go forward, backwards, or get off the line completely. Generally they choose not to, because of the social contract you mentioned, but sometimes roleplay leads there.

3. Sandbox - There is no path. The players choose the direction and goals for themselves individually and as a group.

If you buy a ticket to ride, get on the train, but the DM calls it a linear adventure and lets you get off at stations along the way to sightsee, does that make it not a railroad?

Again: railroad (descriptive), railroaded (pejorative).

When I sat down to run Curse of Strahd or Curse of the Netherdeep, or my strung-together set of smaller adventures within a larger plot, I'm comfortable saying it was a railroad. We'd all bought into the AP as the purpose of play, I manipulated around the edges to add stuff which appealed to each character/player, and then they followed the plot hooks deployed with relatively minimal agency apart from picking "who controls Vallaki" or "which faction do we back in the City" or "do we roll enough persuade checks to uncover the plot elements that let us get the Good Ending."

 

[Bedrockgames]

Railroading is also the norm at most tables ;P.

No I don’t agree. But I also think people are using wonky definitions of railroad

 

[hawkeyefan]

Definition of railroading: “anything I don’t like or don’t understand”.

Interesting hearing that from someone who seems to have experience with only one kind of game.

The even more obvious answer is that the DM is hoping the party does something because he knows it will be a ton of fun for everyone, but is being impartial and letting them do their own thing.

You would have him railroad instead of be impartial. Why?

Because it may not be railroading them to so so? As has since been elaborated upon in subsequent posts.

No.

No. We don't want to railroad.

I don’t think you’re considering all factors or possibilities here.

Sandbox isn’t about game design. It is about adventure structure. You can make or have a system intended to be more sandbox friendly but it ultimately comes from play style and adventure/campaign structure

I don’t see how or why you would separate sandbox design and game design. This was largely what I was pointing at earlier in the thread about the GM having to keep in mind not only the setting/fiction but also the game.

That's linear, not a railroad. Linear is different. A railroad forces the players down a path no matter what they want to do. There's no turning back or leaving, like I can do in an adventure path.

For example, say we are on an adventure path and the party is at location A. Location B is a hermit we have to speak with. If we go north, we meet the hermit. If we go west, we meet the hermit. If we go south, we meet the hermit. We have no say, because the DM is forcing us down the path he wants, not the one we want.

In a normal adventure path, if the hermit is north and I go west, I don't meet the hermit. If I keep going west, I may leave the adventure path entirely. Now, typically we choose not to do that because the DM has invested in the adventure path and we are all friends, but it is an option for us if we choose it.

Railroads give no such option.

Yeah. It boils down to...

1. Railroad - Players have no choices. They are going where the DM wants them to go. It might be overt, or it might be illusionism, but their agency is gone.

2. Linear - The adventure path goes A > B > C > D, etc. and the players have the choice to go forward, backwards, or get off the line completely. Generally they choose not to, because of the social contract you mentioned, but sometimes roleplay leads there.

3. Sandbox - There is no path. The players choose the direction and goals for themselves individually and as a group.

I think any such summary which does not consider the goals of play has failed.