Station Squatting (Player Railroading)

[Alikar]

I don't understand this. Is this the player's unwilling to go on a quest the DM wrote up? How is that such a bad thing? If the party doesn't want to do it, why does the DM have to force the players into it? Isn't THAT railroading?

Station Squatting is essentially ignoring the idea that the players are adventures not shop keepers. Basically think of it as the players settling down in one spot and refusing to save the day. Its one half of a basic social contract. The DM gives a world to adventure in without forcing their specific story and the players agree to be the adventures in that world. Railroading is the breach of the DMs portion of the contract and Station Squatting is the breach of the players' portion of the contract. There is nothing wrong with ignoring the DM's hooks and story and doing something else, that is simply getting on another train. Station Squatting is simply refusing to move anywhere at all.

Can't read the story at work, but what's wrong if players decide to create a bakery? How I wish my kill + loot players had that idea... I could even think about all the plots... Ogres acting like mobs, poisoned supplies, the river which waters were used to make the bread just got dry, a ghost wandering inside the bakery at midnight, some strange paying an obscene quantity of money for a special cake with rare ingredients...

No, those are all fine and great ideas and if the players go out to adventure, to run their bakery, then all is well. The problem is when they then keep ignoring those things. Such as having a pacifist party member in a war game. While you could make some cases and examples where that could be a good idea, in general its a bad idea. Same thing with doing something as mundane as a bakery, but to each their own.

 

[Desdichado]

Same thing with doing something as mundane as a bakery, but to each their own.

Who says running a bakery has to be mundane? So you want to have an adventure about hobgoblin raiders attacking the town and the players want to run a bakery, right? OK... well, in order to run a bakery, they have to go to the mill outside town, otherwise they don't have any flour to bake with. When they go to the mill to pick up a cartload of flour that'll last them for the next week, they find the doors hanging loosely from its hinges and the miller and his sons murdered, hobgoblins squabbling over their meager belongings. Suddenly, voila! you've got what you want, and you did it by allowing the PCs to do what they wanted too, instead of trying to butt heads with them about it, or lecture them about their "responsibility" or the "implied social contract" or something.

The trick is to still run the game you need to run, but do it in a way that the PCs feel invested in it because they're getting what they want out of it too.

 

[doppelganger]

And I would also be very surprised if those who have said "running a bakery has no place in D&D" didn't mean "... for me" instead of "... for anyone". Each has their own idea of what they want to play using the D&D rules, and each can only speak for their own preferences.

I would be very surprised if those who have said "running a bakery has no place in D&D" didn't mean "running a bakery and not adventuring at all has no place in D&D".

 

[Derren]

"running a bakery and not adventuring at all has no place in D&D".

And why would that be? How many monsters do you have to kill each session so that you play D&D correctly?

 

[doppelganger]

And why would that be? How many monsters do you have to kill each session so that you play D&D correctly?

I don't know. While I do think that playing D&D 'correctly' requires adventuring, I also wonder why you think adventuring requires killing monsters?

 

[Obryn]

And why would that be? How many monsters do you have to kill each session so that you play D&D correctly?

Four.

-O

 

[Derren]

I don't know. While I do think that playing D&D 'correctly' requires adventuring, I also wonder why you think adventuring requires killing monsters?

So then tell me. How is adventuring without combat different from running a bakery so that the first is playing D&D correctly and the second one isn't?

 

[doppelganger]

So then tell me. How is adventuring without combat different from running a bakery so that the first is playing D&D correctly and the second one isn't?

Because adventuring without combat is still adventuring. The type of quotidian bakery operation that the OP is talking about is, almost by definition, not adventuring.

 

[howandwhy99]

Station squatting isn't a new thing. It's a confusion on the place of the players. I think what you are referring to is players not playing their roles. No matter whether you agree to play a fighter or a wizard D&D expects you to play the role you have chosen. It is not designed to do more roles than that. If you decide not to play your role, then you should switch to a roleplaying game that supports playing a baker or whatever role or roles the group prefers. D&D is, or was, about roleplaying magic-users and fighting-men (and clerics who did a little of both) in a fantasy world. Acting like a baker is either a unique strategy to overcome your foes, learn magic, or the players not playing their roles.

 

[Desdichado]

I would be very surprised if those who have said "running a bakery has no place in D&D" didn't mean "running a bakery and not adventuring at all has no place in D&D".

Why? They've had plenty of chances to clarify if that's what they meant. I would be very surprised if those who say something and have repeated it several times in this thread don't actually mean what they say and not something else that someone else wants them to mean.

:shrug: