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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5583578" data-attributes="member: 42582">I agree the scenario I sketched is incomplete. It's about 50 words on a messageboard post. It's meant to give a general feel for the state of affairs I had in mind.When you say the player has a lot of (other) opportunities, that's incomplete too. How do you know? You're making assumptions about how the gameworld is set up, how the GM presents situations, etc. Likewise when you say it's not a railroad unless the GM says "Whoa there, you can't do that!" What about if the GM has more angels come and take revenge upon the PCs for helping the elementals? Or has every cleric in town refuse them healing? Or just has all there friends and allies turn on them? There's any number of ways, within a given game situation and among a given group of players, to shut down or railroad the players, without literally telling them that their PCs can't pursue a certain course of action.The last time I was railroaded in the sort of way I'm talking about, my PC was around 9th level, and had a rich backstory and engagement with the campaign world based around being an exiled count whose brother had usurped his holdings as a puppet of some evil overlords (drow, maybe?). The whole focus of my play throughout the campaign had been striving to undo the evil overlords (there was some sort of prophecy involved) so that I could either win back or defeat my brother, and reclaim my land and title.And then the GM time travelled all of us 100 years forward - no brother still alive, completely different political situation in my homeland, all the work that I and the other players had done on deciphering the GM's prophecy invalidated (because that work had been anchored in the gameworld as we'd been exploring it for 9 levels). I left the game not long after that.The GM never said "Hey, you can't do XYZ". But the time travel thing, sprung without warning or stated reason (I think that the GM may have become lost in the convulations of his own prophecy), invalidated - rendered meaningless - nearly every prior choice I'd made for my PC, and all the relations that I had built up for my character (and other PCs) that were embedded into the gameworld.I could still choose whether to pull the left lever or right lever at a fork in the dungeon - perhaps, even, whether to attack the angels or the elementals - but the meaning of any such choice had been stripped away by the GM. As per the quotes from Ron Edwards upthread (#246), all I would be doing is providing a bit of improvisation and colour to the GM's story. That's not what I'm looking for in an RPG, either as player or GM.That's just not true as a general rule. It may sometimes be true. But a decision like the one I just described - that suddenly the PCs time travel 100 years into the futuer - can be a railroad. And the one that I played through was.A different example: healing is very important in standard D&D play. Decisions by the GM about the availability of healing to PCs, then (eg locations and attitudes of NPC clerics), can very easily have a railroading effect.I don't quite see the implication. I'm also not sure what "rewriting" mean here.I've posted some lengthy actual play examples upthread, where I talk about backstory, and how a player's decisions for his/her PC can interact with it. The key points:I don't think this is ceding an unusual degree of authority to the player - that dwarves exist in the gameworld is a function of the ruleset chosen (4e D&D + "points of light" setting), and it's not as if I (as GM) have any independent conception of how dwarven military conscription practices might work.As to the minotaur thing - I can't remember, but I think I came up with that in the course of play, and have been gradually building on it since.Rather than player control over backstory, what my playstyle does require is that the GM, both in framing situations and in resovling them (including the derivation of ingame socio-political consequences) have regard to how such resolutions will shape the ongoing game in light of what the players are interested in. (The 100 year time travel is Exhibit A for a GM not doing this.)This seems confused, to me. My point in the angels and elementals example wasn't that you can't say that all elementals are evil, and therefore they're not - it's that you don't say anything either way - you simply describe their conflict with the gods - and leave it up to the players to decide what, if any attitude, they (via their PCs) want to take towards the elementals.Another actual play example: the WotC module Bastion of Broken Souls contains, as a central figure, an exiled god (can't remember the name - when I adapted the module to my RM Oriental Adventures game, the god's name became Desu). Desu owns an artefact - the Soul Totem - that the PCs need to resolve a major metahpysical crisis. In the module, the author states that Desu has gone mad from millenia of exile, and the only way for the PCs to recover the artefact is to beat him up and take it. The implicit justification for this act of robbery is that Desu, having been exiled by the gods, is fair game. (Necessity is lurking in the background as a secondary justification, but necessity is always a bit more tenuous.)This is a setting detail. But in what way is it not a railroad? Of course, it is possible for a game to unfold in such a way that the PCs, if they are to achieve their goals, are forced to make the tragic choice to kill a worthy person. But there is nothing in Bastion of Broken Souls, as written, that supports this approach to Desu. Interestingly, there is another NPC in the module - an angel who is also a living gate, who must be killed if the gate to Desu's prison it to open - who can be approached in this way. But the module provides no support for this approach either - it presents the angel as inevitably and implacably opposed to the PCs.When I adapted the module, I disregarded both bad pieces of advice. Given that the PCs (who included two monks as well as an exiled animal lord) had already decided that heaven's judgment was suspect, they ended up befriending Desu and gaining use of the Soul Totem through that means. And they opened the living gate by persuading the angel that making contact with Desu was a moral necessity, even if her instructions from the gods did not permit it - she therefore let herself be killed by the PCs.The bottom line, in my view, is that the game won't stop working, or the GM lose control over backstory, just because the GM refrains from imposing evaluative judgments ahead of time, and creates situations which give the players the space to do this themselves. In fact, my experience is that it makes interesting and surprising play - like the players tugging on the heartstrings of a guardian angel to persuade her to let herself be killed - more likely.Taking "PC" there to mean "player", and assuming that you're going to all play together, than yes.Interestingly enough, if you subsitute "goblins and hobgoblins" for "orcs" then you get my current campaign. The wizard PC in that game thinks that all goblins and their ilk are evil, and deserving of death. Besides repeated statements to that effect, he has executed helpless hobgoblin prisoners when given the chance. He takes the same attitude towards devil worshippers. The sorcerer PC, in the same game, takes a different view. He has, on multiple occasions, released goblins and hobgoblins prisoner on their own recognisance after having extracted oaths of non-violence and repudiation of Bane. He has (tentatively) negotiated with devils. And he has been shocked by the wizard's behaviour (and vice versa - the wizard has from time to time mooted tracking down and killing the released prisoners, but has not yet had the opportunity.)The friction between these two PCs is an ongoing, if too date reasonably low-level, element of the campaign. My job as GM, as I see it, is to provide opportunities to both players to keep playing their PCs in the way they have shown they want to (including allowing the friction to express itself from time to time) without forcing a situation that will make ongoing party play (a pretty core element of D&D) unviable. Will there be a reconciliation between the two? Will one or the other PC have a change of mind? Only play will answer those questions.I don't see this at all. How is deciding whether or not to kill the prisoners, when you know your fellow PCs (and playes) will be shocked, not a hard decision? How is deciding whether or not to embrace your former tormentors who now need your help not a hard decision? How is deciding whether or not to disobey the gods and make cause with an exile from the heavens not a hard decision?If by "hard decision" you mean "decision that risks having me, as a player, have to disengage from the game because my PC has been pointlessly killed or otherwise invalidated as a vehicle for play" then yes, I'm not a big fan of those sorts of decisions. I like to run a game where the players' choices, and the way I respond to them, drive play onward - not shut it down.What I actually said was "In my view this is not a problem about the adjudication of PC action - it is a metagame/social contract problem. It's solved by finding out whether or not the player is actually interested in playing the game." So it's not about judging PCs - it's about interaction with real people (ie game participants). And the judgments at issue are probably not moral judgments, but aesthetic ones.I also said nothing about excluding a player. Nor does it say anything about a GM unilaterally deciding to do so. There are other ways of dealing with - and resolving - conflicts at the table. Like talking to people. And finding out what their conception of "the game" is.Bilbo, Thorin etc are going on a treasure hunt. The contract is a contract between treasure hunters. So adopting a party contract right away establishes a certain point and tone for the game. The Fellowship in LotR didn't enter into such a contract, because they weren't treasure seekers.As classic D&D bleeds into Dragonlance and post-Dragonlance D&D, a degree of confusion seems to emerge as to whether the PCs are primarily treasure hunters (and hence, in some sense at least, mercenary) or primarily heroes (and hence, in some sence at least, self-sacrificing) or both. The lattermost, which seems to be assumed in a lot of 3E and 4e rulebooks and adventures, is an unstable situation, given the tension between the two sorts of motivation. I don't think that the designers for D&D have done a very good job of giving players and GMs tools to resolve this issue (although 4e goes some of the way with the notion of "treasure parcels").</blockquote>

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