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

[Maxperson]

1. We weren't talking about you we were talking about DM's who might not have the skills or time to improvise.
2. There is something wrong with a group of players that doesn't understand the DM's time constraints and causes game stops like that. If it's Ocassional then fine stuff happens but if the DM isn't up to wide open full throttle and they keep going there the players need to leave and find another game, or the DM needs to leave and find other players.

Occasional is all it will be unless the players are deliberately messing with the DM, which is as rare as a DM who is adversarial.

You were arguing as if everything said was about you instead of the topic. If it was taken that way. My apologies

Most of what we are discussing has at least some level of subjectivity, so I often post from my perspective, but I never engage in One True Wayism. What people do and like at their own table is their business, not mine.

Apology accepted.

4. I do understand what you've been saying I've been arguing that those games are a tiny amount or at least new DM's struggling to deal with a table full of players and no skills to do it. Remember sometimes we are talking about 12 to 18 year olds who have literally no experience managing anything. And that most in my experience that play on Railroads do it willingly. There is a lot of comfort to putting up the rails for some players.

I still contend that those are linear adventures and not railroads, but I don't think it's worth the effort for us to argue that any longer since the distance between our opinions is very narrow.

In my opinion this like most gaming threads is a Tempest in a Teapot. an argument about something that is a far smaller issue than the participants believe.

And this I can completely agree with.

 

[AlViking]

I do think some in these forums forget that the Sandbox may not be a railroad but it is very much the railroad station. It feels like absolute freedom but it's more like a gorrilla cage. Go too far and you'll hit the glass walls.

Depends on how far you go. In my main campaign sandbox you'll never get on a Spelljammer ship because they don't exist. There is still a box around the sand. There are still times when things get a bit linear though, as much as I try to keep plenty of options open during a session, if the group has been hired to kill the monster in the basement, they're still going to be going into the basement to kill the monster if they want to fulfill their contract.

I do think though that some people get a bit carried away with taking the concept to the extreme, most sandbox games still have a lot of signposts pointing to certain directions because GMs have to know what to prepare and there are only so many options based on a variety of factors.

 

[Maxperson]

Railroading is also the norm at most tables ;P.

Not in my experience. Railroading is pretty rare.

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?

If you have the option to just leave the adventure completely? Yes it does make it not a railroad. I don't require my players to engage in specific adventures, even if they start them.

 

[AlViking]

...
That's a great ideal, but it doesn't tend to require too many experiences with malign examples of GM authority and its overreach before it seems like a luxury.

I've played with dozens, likely hundreds of DMs over the decades if I include cons and game days. I can't think of a single example of "malign" GM authority and overreach. A few here and there ran games I didn't care for. But even if a GM was so bad that I couldn't stand to continue to play with them I would just excuse myself and walk away, even if it was in the middle of a session.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

Because it isn't essential. You can design games towards sandbox. But sandbox is an adventure structure. You can run sandbox all kinds of different systems that aren't intended specifically for it.

 

[Maxperson]

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

Railroading has a definition in RPGs. Just because it doesn't bother them, doesn't make it not a railroad.

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.

Because game design, setting design, and playstyle are all different things. If I design a setting(setting design) and then engage the sandbox playstyle(playstyle), there has been no game design. The game has already been designed and built. I'm just creating the setting and running my playstyle.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I do think some in these forums forget that the Sandbox may not be a railroad but it is very much the railroad station. It feels like absolute freedom but it's more like a gorrilla cage. Go too far and you'll hit the glass walls.

I think this is an interesting thought.

I think that what many are citing as sandbox play, while not a railroad in the typical sense because it allows for some amount of freedom for what to engage with, is similar to a railroad in that both types of play are vehicles for the GM’s prep.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think this is an interesting thought.

I think that what many are citing as sandbox play, while not a railroad in the typical sense because it allows for some amount of freedom for what to engage with, is similar to a railroad in that both types of play are vehicles for the GM’s prep.

Again this brings us to the kitty box criticism, which I think requires pretty expansive views of things like railroad and it is basically just a trick to make one of the most open approaches to play seem like a very narrow and closed approach. Sandbox isn't the best. It isn't something I would want to do every single time. But it is built on the idea of giving players freedom. In recent years I have seen lots of products adopt sandbox-isms, and while they might not go 100% all the way with it, I would still not describe them as railroads. They are clearly giving the players all kinds of choices. Again I think at the end of the day you are just making an argument to steer people towards your preferred play style by capturing the language (and that is what is so frustrating about these conversations)

 

[AlViking]

Railroading is also the norm at most tables ;P.


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."

Do the actions at one "stop" have potential impact on the rails available or what could happen at the next destination? For that matter is there a predetermined outcome for every stop? Because having that predetermined stop and never taking into account ripple effects is what makes a sandbox into a branching linear game IMHO.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Because it isn't essential. You can design games towards sandbox. But sandbox is an adventure structure. You can run sandbox all kinds of different systems that aren't intended specifically for it.

But whatever system you choose, when you’re running a sandbox, you still should consider the game.

Railroading has a definition in RPGs. Just because it doesn't bother them, doesn't make it not a railroad.

I don’t know who you mean by “them”.

I also don’t think there’s universal consensus on exactly what constitutes a railroad, as the many threads on the topic make clear.

Your ideas on the matter seem incomplete to me.

Because game design, setting design, and playstyle are all different things. If I design a setting(setting design) and then engage the sandbox playstyle(playstyle), there has been no game design. The game has already been designed and built. I'm just creating the setting and running my playstyle.

You’re literally talking about designing things for use in the game. The setting? Part of the game. The playstyle? I mean… what are you playing? A game.