Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5572849" data-attributes="member: 42582">I didn't quite say that - I said that a world in which the focus is not on looting but on more moral/thematic goals (like heroism or angst), and in which the GM has authority over questions of evaluation within the gameworld, tends strongly towards a railroad.The italicised part is very important to my view. It underpins my objection to WIS-check mechanics and to alignment mechanics (which I see as being on a par, for current purposes).In a looting focused game, of the classic D&D sort, the aim of play is what Gygax called "skilled play" in the original AD&D books. The GM distributes the loot (and other opportunities to cash in, like nobles to be ransomed etc) but the players choose their targets and their strategy. This is all described (from the player point-of-view) in the closing pages of the 1st ed PHB. I don't have a lot of interest in this sort of play, but played in the way that Gygax describes it will not be a railroad - because it is not the GM who determines the rewards (ie the loot gained) - it is the players, using their skill within the parameters that the GM sets.But in a game where the aim is not looting but some more thematic accomplishment - like heroism - then (in my view) it has to be up to the players to decide what counts as being heroic - and they can then manipulate the GM's world in order to achieve this goal, just as in Gygaxian play they manipulate the GM's world to gain loot.If it is the GM who determines what counts as heroic, then by default the play doesn't differ from Gygaxian play - it's just that instead of accruing gold pieces, the players accrue GM-awarded "hero points" or "reputation points" or whatever. But the game will still be focused on Gygaxian "skilled play" in pursuit of whatever thematic currency the GM is placing in his/her world. But, of course, most participants at the table will notice that this isn't really heroically oriented play at all - it is still mercenary play with slightly different colour!At this point, then (in my experience) there are two main ways things can go. The first is that the GM takes control of the game a la Dragonlance and a lot of 2nd Ed play, and via railroading ensures a thematically-focused game.The second way, which can deliver genuinely thematically-driven, non-mercenary play that is not a railroad, is for the GM to relinquish control over evaluation. This is my personally preferred approach to RPGing.That's an important part of it, yes. Like I said above, you can replace gps with hero-points and get a sandbox with a slightly different flavour. but it will still be a mercenary/"skilled play" game. To make it a thematically-focused game the idea of "maximisation of points" has to be replaced by some other focus, in the way I've tried to describe.I half agree and half disagree with this. The key word I want to focus on is satisfied. This is the central act of evaluation.In a mercenary/looting game, player satisfaction comes primarily from amassing loot, and secondarily (as Gygax noted in the DMG) from feeling that it was (in some sense) earned. The dynamics of a game in which the gps are replaced by honour or reputation or hero points, but in which everything else stays the same, will be pretty similar. In this sort of game, there is probably no need for WIS-checks - players are meant to use their own judgement, although perhaps you could use WIS-checks as some sort of defacto luck mechanic, with WIS then becoming a substitute for a Luck or Oracular Foresight ability. And alignment simply becomes another hurdle or constraint that players have to work within to achieve "skilled play".But in a game where one or more players is interested in thematic content as the focus of play, and hence where non-mercenary evaluation is at the centre of play, it's a different matter. After all, the very logic of mechanics intended to give the GM control over ingame valuations - like alignment, or WIS-checks, etc - is that players should not be satisfied unless their actions satisfy the evaluations that the GM is delivering. For example, in a game in which the GM says "no evil PCs" and enforces alignment rules, it is intended to be the case that the players will not be satisfied if their actions are judged by the GM to be evil. And if in a group playing that sort of game a significant number of players aim at forcing the GM to take over their PCs by trying to turn their PCs evil, the game has obviously broken down at a fundamental social level, and become pretty dysfunctional.So we suddenly have a situation where the players are seeking satisfaction by realising or speaking to some thematic/evaluative concern, and the GM is applying mechanics which presuppose that any such satisfaction is meant to be subject to the approval of the GM. In my view this is a recipe for dysfunctional play, and for railroading (or at least attemted railroading) as an element of that.I have nothing against consequences. I'm talking about evaluating those consequences. If the dwarf PC destroys the necromantic loot, there are consequences - namely, the party has lost the chance to cash that loot in to the tune of 30,000 gp. But whether this is a good or bad state of affairs - whether the dwarf has been stupid, or reckless, or morally upstanding, or whatever - in my view should not be for the GM to decide.To put it another way - a thematically-focused game, in which the thematic meaning of the PCs' actions is decided by the GM and not the players - is not satisfactory to me, and is unlikely to be satisfactory to any player who was invested in playing that thematically-focused game. And in my experience, a game where the GM exerts, or tries to exert, this sort of authority will tend to degenerate into a railroad as the GM pressures the players, more or less overtly, to have their PCs take actions and make decisions that reinforce the GM's conception of what the theme at hand involves. Alternatively, the players will give up on their investment in theme and just go back to mercenary-style play, although instead of collecting gps they may now be collecting GM-approval points. (Which, as I said above, is just a difference of colour.) And in my experience, one or the other of these two trends - railroading, or abandonment of theme in favour of a return to mercenary play, is what produces the worst of 2nd ed AD&D play.</blockquote>

Verification