Station Squatting (Player Railroading)

[Desdichado]

Regardless, I have nothing against businesses in a game, things like mercenary companies and protection guilds offer great center points to a game. However, I believe that things like bakeries and such are something where you should be looking for a different system and not DnD. Since DnD is a combat centered RPG why are you running an economics game out of it? Seems fairly odd to me, but as I have said I'm not telling you that you can't merely that it isn't what would be expected.

I wouldn't recommend it either, but I certainly wouldn't ever say that it was "bad form." If they wanted to do it and the GM though it sounded fun, then hey; more power to them.

To me DnD is like the Lord of the Rings, you don't expect Frodo to suddenly open a pastry shop along the way to Mount Doom. So neither would I expect my players, who have never done this in any of my campaigns (regardless of people implying such, not to mention begrudging my DM skills who have never seen them), to set up a bakery when the local town is being attacked by hobgoblins.

There's a lot of things that happen routinely in D&D that would never happen in Lord of the Rings, so I don't find that argument compelling. Nor do I find your comparison of D&D and LotR compelling either, for that matter; I think the similarities are much more superficial rather than substantial.

But that's neither here nor there, really.

Station Squatting is a new concept and just like rail roading I expect it to meet with an initial resistance from individuals before people realize that while a DM shouldn't force players down a script, neither should the players change the genre of the story.

It's not a new concept at all; it's merely a new label. I suppose a handful of players genuinely don't want to go adventure ever, and for whatever reason simply don't respond to hooks because they're rather spend the time simulating shopping or whatever for session after session after session. My experience is that few players are like this; at most, some "serious roleplayers" will want to do this for a limited amount of time as a kind of character method acting, but once it's done, it's done and they're willing to move on to the next thing that comes up. This is a small minority of players, in my experience.

If you're consistently getting this kind of response, you either have a group of players who are so atypical that you better forget about running a "standard" game for them, or you better evaluate your own GMing. To me, honestly, they sound like symptoms of one of a few GMing problems: 1) the hooks aren't very interesting and the players just don't care about whatever it is you're trying to get them to care about, 2) the hooks aren't very clear and the PCs don't know what it is they need to do, or 3) they're rebelling against railroady tendencies by deliberately ignoring hooks regardless of how interesting or clear they are.

I mean; don't get me wrong, I think your label is kinda clever and I don't mind it from that standpoint. I just don't think it's really all that common of a problem, and generally if it is, it's a symptom of a GM problem, not actually a player problem.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't typically agree with Hobo (in fact, we typically agree about nothing), but I agree with him here. I guess it's a Christmas miracle.

What are you talking about? Of course we agree on things sometimes, it's just that...

D'oh. I'm doing it again, aren't I?

 

[Korgoth]

FWIW, I didn't see any agreement in S'mon's example. I saw S'mon saying that he wanted X and the players saying that they wanted Y. It is, I think, what attorneys refer to as failing to have a meeting of the minds (and as I understand it, no formal agreement can be said to exist without such a thing). Also, IANAL

Well, true enough.

If I were a lawyer, perhaps I'd claim that my client (the DM) and the defendants (the players) entered into an implied contract when the players agreed to play D&D... which establishes a reasonable expectation that their characters will undertake dungeon exploration in a timely fashion.

I have seen things come up at times when a player will say something to the effect of "There's no reason that my character would go on the adventure." Perhaps that's a reasonable statement if the DM's proposed adventure is totally unreasonable, but in general I'd say the proper antidote is "OK, your character has a heart attack and dies. Now roll up one that likes to go on adventures."

As a player, I generally prefer to build the motivation "Enjoys risking life and limb on hazardous but adventurous expeditions" into the character I'm making. It only seems polite! After all, adventurers are the Extreme Sportsmen of fantasy tales. Just like a parachutist jumps out of a perfectly good airplane just for the thrill of it, an adventurer leaves behind a perfectly good surface world to plunder the lightless depths below. Obviously most adventurers could make an decent living as a peasant in most any village, but they're supposed to want more out of life. "Take the Gorgon by the horns" and all that!

 

[Joshua Randall]

To me, honestly, they sound like symptoms of one of a few GMing problems: 1) the hooks aren't very interesting and the players just don't care about whatever it is you're trying to get them to care about, 2) the hooks aren't very clear and the PCs don't know what it is they need to do, or 3) they're rebelling against railroady tendencies by deliberately ignoring hooks regardless of how interesting or clear they are.

In fairness, those are not exclusively DMing problems.

Yes, it is possible for the DM to come up with stupid, boring, vague, or rail-roady hooks that no reasonable player would want to follow. It's also possible -- and in my experience, sadly common -- for the players to reject the DM's perfectly reasonable hooks because they are being jerks... not to put too fine a point on it.

If you as a player don't like any of the hooks that the DM has provided for you, then you have two alternatives: (1) provide a new hook that interests everyone, including all the other players and the DM; (2) leave the game. Any sort of passive agressive "station squatting" or other deliberately disruptive behavior is simply childish.

I have seen things come up at times when a player will say something to the effect of "There's no reason that my character would go on the adventure." Perhaps that's a reasonable statement if the DM's proposed adventure is totally unreasonable, but in general I'd say the proper antidote is "OK, your character has a heart attack and dies. Now roll up one that likes to go on adventures."

Well said.

If you as a player are refusing to join the adventure for no reason other than stubbornness, then you are not "role playing". You are being a jerk.

 

[Desdichado]

Yes, it is possible for the DM to come up with stupid, boring, vague, or rail-roady hooks that no reasonable player would want to follow. It's also possible -- and in my experience, sadly common -- for the players to reject the DM's perfectly reasonable hooks because they are being jerks... not to put too fine a point on it.

In my experience, it's vanishingly uncommon.

Therefore, the logical conclusion is that either one of the following two conditions must be true: 1) I have much better players than you do, because I'm awesome and you suck, or 2) I'm a much better DM than you are.

 

[Mallus]

However, I believe that things like bakeries and such are something where you should be looking for a different system and not DnD.

Which is what makes it an interesting DMing challenge. I'm sure I could run a campaign based around a bakery... in fact, it would be a piece of cake in old homebrew setting, the World of CITY.

Since DnD is a combat centered RPG why are you running an economics game out of it?

The same reason some players choose to run intrigue campaigns using D&D.

To me DnD is like the Lord of the Rings...

... as re-imagined by sugar-addled children. Note: this a compliment.

Station Squatting is a new concept...

It's as old as railroading DM's.

 

[jdrakeh]

It's bad form to agree to play Dungeons & Dragons, then demand to play Bakers and Breadrolls. But if GM and players are both in agreement then it's fine, sure.

Your own (far less hyperbolic) example posited sailors and free traders. Is it bad for to agree to play D&D and then want to pursue high seas fantasy adventure? Are pirate ships and swashbuckling not allowed in D&D

[Edit: Anybody else care to explain why sailors, pirates, and free traders are verboten in D&D?]

 

[Desdichado]

I'm sure I could run a campaign based around a bakery... in fact, it would be a piece of cake in old homebrew setting, the World of CITY.

Pun fully intended, I presume.

 

[Rechan]

I have seen things come up at times when a player will say something to the effect of "There's no reason that my character would go on the adventure." Perhaps that's a reasonable statement if the DM's proposed adventure is totally unreasonable, but in general I'd say the proper antidote is "OK, your character has a heart attack and dies. Now roll up one that likes to go on adventures."

Yeah.

Or "My character has no reason to adventure with these guys."

I hate it when someone makes a character who is not a team player, and intentionally wants to solo or be prodded to go along. I demand that, when you make a character, everyone has to have some reason to stick with a group, be willing to go out and do things.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah.

Or "My character has no reason to adventure with these guys."

I hate it when someone makes a character who is not a team player, and intentionally wants to solo or be prodded to go along.

Where, to me, it's perfectly reasonable for a character to not have any motivation to go on adventure 'x', particularly if the character has other things to do in the meantime.

(the following assumes a previous discussion about what to do next: mountain, or swamp; where I was voting for swamp)

"Look, I know you're all gung-ho about going into the mountains and wiping out Snurri the Frost Giant. Have fun with that. Me, I've got this message to deliver to Earl Sigurd at the north border; meanwhile I'll do some scouting around that swamp we heard about - you know, the one with the Dragon in it. You still sure I can't talk you into coming along? Fine. I'll meet you back here in a month, and *then* we can hit that swamp!"

It makes no sense to me as a player to take someone on a given adventure who in character would not want to be there.

Lanefan