Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay

[Fenris-77]

@Scott Christian

What exactly do you mean by story arc? Story is what happens when protagonism meets antagonism. How can there be story (rather than exposition) independent of what the characters do?

Well, not to speak for Scott, but sometimes things happen in a game world independent of what the characters decide to do. If the Duke is plotting to overthrow the King, those events will proceed regardless of PC involvement. The arc of those events is indeed a story arc, just not the PCs story.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don’t know how anyone can really disagree that when a GM removes options available to the PCs to resolve an obstacle, things become more of a railroad. It seems self evident.

Especially when every example consists of things that are not actually full on roadblocks. More guards at the gate? That’s not the same as saying “the PCs cannot pass the gate no matter what”. More guards simply makes it tougher....a bigger fight, or more people to sneak past, or more people to trick, or more targets for a spell.

There’s no reason that a group of players can’t come up with ideas on how to get into a castle any number of ways. Sure, the sewer may be the path of least resistance, but between skills, spells, or martial prowess, the PCs have tools at their disposal.

It’s only a problem when the GM has made it so that specific paths are simply never going to work. This NPC cannot be reasoned with, no matter what, or this door cannot be opened, no matter what, or this trap cannot be disarmed, no matter what.

Creating different routes to success, and placing different degrees of difficulty on those routes is not railroading....it’s creating meaningful decision points.

“We can storm the gate and it’ll be a tough fight, but once we clear the guards we’ll have a direct route to the keep. Or we can traverse the sewers, it’ll take longer and we’ve heard rumors of some creature living there, but we’ll arrive near the keep unnoticed.”

Removing one of these paths is not very good design. Especially not when it’s simply to force the other path as the only way. That’s a railroad.

I’ll add this caveat....I do this from time to time. I place the PCs in a situation where there is one way out. Every now and then, I think it’s okay to do this....I just tend to help them recognize this may be the situation instead of letting them deliberate multiple options that I know won’t work. I don’t see the value in wasting time discussing options that are not truly available. I don’t do this often...I prefer at least one alternative path to success for any obstacle/encounter.

 

[Fenris-77]

Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay, wherein @hawkeyefan reproduces Fenris-77's posts without attribution, and Fenris-77 graciously accepts that imitation is a most sincere form of flattery.

Ahh, I'm having one of those days. A little giddy. I actually have a bone to pick though. 'Removing options' implies that there were, or should have been certain options, and that the DM has taken some of them away. I don't really think that follows all that well. Not every castle or manor house has the same options for ingress (to keep the example at hand flowing) and some will undoubtedly be better guarded and/or less accessible. The DM sets the parameters for the location when he designs it. It's not railroading until he starts to adjudicate by fiat to prevent anything else from happening. Or, worse yet, if the DM predetermines that only one method of overcoming that obstacle will work. Only having one entrance isn't the issue, it's limiting player options and creativity. I'd agree that in general you should have some options available, and that's most of my encounter design, but sometimes there's only one door.

 

[iserith]

I don’t know how anyone can really disagree that when a GM removes options available to the PCs to resolve an obstacle, things become more of a railroad. It seems self evident.

I don't agree with this definition which may have arisen from the Forge (?). Constrained options is not necessarily an example of a DM railroading otherwise we'd all be railroading. Railroading is really more about a DM forcing an outcome of X even though the PCs have avoided X and chosen Y. To that end it is a degenerate form of play in a game where player choice supposedly matters. Constraining choices to the point where only the one solution will work is really more on par with "pixelbitching" as I see it, but it's still not railroading, even though I would say both are not good examples of how to play the game.

 

[Scott Christian]

@Scott Christian

What exactly do you mean by story arc? Story is what happens when protagonism meets antagonism. How can there be story (rather than exposition) independent of what the characters do?

In my example, the DM (a great DM imho) had the story arc - a rash of kidnappings and a plague spreading. The creators (they were the same antagonists) wanted the kingdom to go into chaos so they could take power. So they kidnapped people to test their plague.
The story arc is the plot. The DM in this case has the plague and kidnappings occurring and continuing to occur. It has an exposition, rising action, climax, resolution, and denouement. These will happen; however, they may change based on the character's actions. The climax may be they infect the royal family or they are thwarted by the characters. The rising action may be they keep kidnapping innocent people across the land, or some of the kidnappings may be stopped by the characters. The kingdom might fall or it might be saved by the characters. But the events of the story are in place.
Two quick points: One, it is not railroading. The characters have plenty of options, but they also have a backstory that made them have a shared goal in stopping the kidnapping/plague. Two, a good DM presents the challenges that are able to be overcome, so success is possible, and even probable. But there is the chance of failure. That takes planning unless you fudge dice rolls or change hit points mid-battle.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay, wherein @hawkeyefan reproduces Fenris-77's posts without attribution, and Fenris-77 graciously accepts that imitation is a most sincere form of flattery.

I was responding to the exchange between Manbearcat and Lanefan.....sorry for missing your reply.

Any flattery was accidental

Ahh, I'm having one of those days. A little giddy. I actually have a bone to pick though. 'Removing options' implies that there were, or should have been certain options, and that the DM has taken some of them away. I don't really think that follows all that well. Not every castle or manor house has the same options for ingress (to keep the example at hand flowing) and some will undoubtedly be better guarded and/or less accessible. The DM sets the parameters for the location when he designs it. It's not railroading until he starts to adjudicate by fiat to prevent anything else from happening. Or, worse yet, if the DM predetermines that only one method of overcoming that obstacle will work. Only having one entrance isn't the issue, it's limiting player options and creativity. I'd agree that in general you should have some options available, and that's most of my encounter design, but sometimes there's only one door.

Well I think this branch of the conversation sprang forth from discussion about what's "impossible" for PCs to achieve, and how it's up to the DM to decide what is flat out impossible. Which I think may be perfectly fine in some ways (genre expectations and so on) but is more problematic in others (this NPC will not negotiate ever never ever).

And I don't think that having some paths restricted for whatever reason means that the game is a pure railroad.....just that the more you do that, the more it moves toward the railroad end of the spectrum.

 

[Fenris-77]

I was responding to the exchange between Manbearcat and Lanefan.....sorry for missing your reply.

Any flattery was accidental

Whatever makes you feel better brah. I'll take what I can get.

Well I think this branch of the conversation sprang forth from discussion about what's "impossible" for PCs to achieve, and how it's up to the DM to decide what is flat out impossible. Which I think may be perfectly fine in some ways (genre expectations and so on) but is more problematic in others (this NPC will not negotiate ever never ever).

And I don't think that having some paths restricted for whatever reason means that the game is a pure railroad.....just that the more you do that, the more it moves toward the railroad end of the spectrum.

I'd still maintain that adjudication is the primer mover, but I also think that constant design choices where there is only one option probably indexes the kind of adjudication style that produces railroading. It could also index the tendency of beginners to design a string of encounters like a book's plot though. I think a lot of new DMs design adventures like that and then struggle when their players go off script. I don't think they are necessarily railroad DMs though, that's a pretty natural part of the adventure design learning curve IMO.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't agree with this definition which may have arisen from the Forge (?). Constrained options is not necessarily an example of a DM railroading otherwise we'd all be railroading. Railroading is really more about a DM forcing an outcome of X even though the PCs have avoided X and chosen Y. To that end it is a degenerate form of play in a game where player choice supposedly matters. Constraining choices to the point where only the one solution will work is really more on par with "pixelbitching" as I see it, but it's still not railroading, even though I would say both are not good examples of how to play the game.

There's reasonable constraint, sure. I don't think that constraining options results in a railroad.

I think it's more about the presence of apparent paths, only to discover that really there is only one path that will be allowed. I think that this generally happens when the DM prefers a certain path for whatever reason ("but I mapped out the sewers and printed stat blocks for the monsters there" or similar).

I don't really see the distinction you're making except maybe that it's the outcome of the chosen path rather than there only being one path? Okay, sure....but I think being forced along one path only is pretty in line with where the term railroading came from.

In this case, sure maybe the PCs won't make it through the sewers, maybe they will....so it's not the outcome that's predetermined, just the fact that any other avenue of entry to the castle is unavailable, leaving only one means. It's the sewers for them, and nothing else. That's definitely pretty railroady in my book.

Sure, they could go into the sewers and then fight the monster they find there, or sneak past it, or somehow bribe it......there are still options, potentially. Unless the DM decides, no this thing can't be bribed in any way, and it has tremorsense, so you can't sneak past it, even if you're invisible, it doesn't speak common, so you can't reason with it....and so on.

These kinds of decisions on the DM's part push things further toward a railroad, I think. They can happen at different points. Any time the PCs have decisions to make, removing what should be possible paths to take, is what I'm talking about.

 

[prabe]

Well I think this branch of the conversation sprang forth from discussion about what's "impossible" for PCs to achieve, and how it's up to the DM to decide what is flat out impossible. Which I think may be perfectly fine in some ways (genre expectations and so on) but is more problematic in others (this NPC will not negotiate ever never ever).

And I don't think that having some paths restricted for whatever reason means that the game is a pure railroad.....just that the more you do that, the more it moves toward the railroad end of the spectrum.

I think that in conversations--especially conversations online--it can sound as though people believe choices (like railroad/not-railroad) are binary, when in reality they are each on a continuum. While there may be extreme sandboxes on one end and extreme railroads on the other, I think most adventures/campaigns and parts thereof are likely to be somewhere in between. Having an optional (from the PCs' POV) NPC who won't negotiate at all is different from making that NPC mandatory, and is different from having that NPC merely have limits on what they will cede in a negotiation, and is different from having that NPC react badly to being insulted.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Whatever makes you feel better brah. I'll take what I can get.


I'd still maintain that adjudication is the primer mover, but I also think that constant design choices where there is only one option probably indexes the kind of adjudication style that produces railroading. It could also index the tendency of beginners to design a string of encounters like a book's plot though. I think a lot of new DMs design adventures like that and then struggle when their players go off script. I don't think they are necessarily railroad DMs though, that's a pretty natural part of the adventure design learning curve IMO.

Sure, I agree with that. I don't even think that railroading is 100% bad. Some folks are fine with some, others are fine with an entire campaign that's a railroad. I don't think that one instance of railroading means that a game is ruined or anything like that.

I just think that a game tends to be better when there are more options available as paths to success, and when those paths aren't arbitrarily blocked by the GM.