Station Squatting (Player Railroading)

[Mallus]

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.

It's a game based around teamwork. Concessions w/r/t individual agendas have to be made.

 

[Mallus]

Pun fully intended, I presume.

Whenever I talk about our CITY game the pun is intended. Puns are one of the basic building blocks of that universe.

 

[S'mon]

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

If the GM is up for running a sailing game, and the players want it, it's fine. It's not a core activity in D&D though, which centres on adventurers willing to go into dungeons for the loot and XP.

Actually, this is a big risk in sandbox play - the players wish to leave the box in which the DM is comfortable running stuff. In the example I gave, which was a PBEM, I said I was willing to do a sailing game instead of Caverns of Thracia, but quickly found myself bored and unable to run it.

 

[roguerouge]

I really don't get this whole "Only the DM can generate plot hooks" thing people are going on about. As the Japanese say, "None of us is as smart as all of us." Let the players talk long enough and they'll generate plot for you. Take notes and you'll have weeks of local color encounters to work into your campaign.

Having been on both sides of the DM screen, what's the big deal here? Isn't this what random encounter charts are for? You let the players role play for a while. You ad-lib a little bit yourself (which shouldn't be that hard: after all, that's all the players do.) And, when you're out of ideas, or need time to think, you roll on the wandering monster table and praise Gary's foresight.

As far as station squatting goes, one of the intents is to create fully rounded characters. I don't know about the rest of you, but I like to try to work things so that my character will end the campaign happy. I want to feel like he'll have a place in the world he'll save. I want to feel like he'll go into a happy retirement. Station squatting is about setting that up. And I get very unhappy as a player if the DM doesn't allow us to do that.

Plus, station squatting leads to team cohesion. Sharing downtime is an excellent way to generate the good feeling that will blunt the impact of inevitable party melodrama later.

If you don't set aside time for station squatting, you end up like Varsuvius.

 

[Umbran]

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.

Or 3) Talk to the GM about why the plot hooks he's providing aren't doing the job.

So many people forget that this is not just a game of characters, but of players - and the players can communicate without having to act it out in game. Meta-discussions can be very constructive.

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.

It makes no sense to me, as a player, to get everyone together for a gaming session, and then put a major kink in it because I'm inflexible. What's more important - staying "in character" or having more fun with your friends?

But then, maybe in your neck of the woods, good gaming sessions are a dime a dozen. Around me, they're rare enough and require enough effort to make happen that squandering them would be a notable loss.

 

[Dausuul]

Station squatting is a complement to the DM's world building. Enjoy it.

Or it's a criticism of the DM's plot hooks.

If you ask me, you should make sure you've got your players hooked before you put in a lot of work building the campaign. If your players don't want what you're offering, they aren't gonna take it, and if you shove it down their throats anyway, they aren't gonna like it. Dangle the hook, jiggle it a little to make it look appealing, but if they just don't want it, reel it back in and devise another.

I have encountered a few players who are just contrary by nature and actively avoid biting on plot hooks in order to annoy the DM. However, these are a very small minority. Most of the time when players don't bite on plot hooks, it's because they (the players, not the characters) don't find the plot hooks in question very interesting.

I will add that I have, as a player, tried biting on plot hooks even though they didn't much appeal to me, in order to be a "good player" and help things along. It never works. I just end up getting more and more bored and frustrated, until I'm ready to walk out entirely. An unappetizing plot hook leads to an unfulfilling campaign. Better to not bite in the first place.

 

[Janx]

Or 3) It makes no sense to me, as a player, to get everyone together for a gaming session, and then put a major kink in it because I'm inflexible. What's more important - staying "in character" or having more fun with your friends?

We have a house rule with my group, where the players agree to "bite the hook". Which means rationalizing why they're PC would go on the quest.

It doesn't mean we don't expect the GM to incorporate our goals into the game and future plot hooks.

It does mean that when we keep seeing offers to join a caravan headed north, we sniff, smell the bait, and take it, because that's what the GM is prepared to run.

It also means that the GM agrees to not overly screw the players on a plot hook, because the players decided to make the game run smooth, not the PCs choosing the best mission to go on.

There's always gotta be some give and take. But since most GMs suck at deliverly a truly ad-libbed session, players need to accept that the DM only has the Dungeon of Disasterous Doom mapped out, so that's where the party needs to go.

Station Squatting, as I see the term, therefore means the party sees the plot hook, and blatantly refuses to go on it, instead spending an entire evening on mundane tasks, and worse, expecting the GM to make an adventure on the fly to make said mundane task exciting.

 

[Mallus]

We have a house rule with my group, where the players agree to "bite the hook". Which means rationalizing why they're PC would go on the quest.

Exactly. In the end players are better served by rationalizing why their character go on the adventure rather than why they don't.

It doesn't mean we don't expect the GM to incorporate our goals into the game and future plot hooks.

Exactly, redux!

There's always gotta be some give and take. But since most GMs suck at deliverly a truly ad-libbed session, players need to accept that the DM only has the Dungeon of Disasterous Doom mapped out, so that's where the party needs to go.

You're on real roll here.

Station Squatting, as I see the term, therefore means the party sees the plot hook, and blatantly refuses to go on it, instead spending an entire evening on mundane tasks, and worse, expecting the GM to make an adventure on the fly to make said mundane task exciting.

Which means it's a power issue, best settled by talking honestly out-of-game.

 

[Appleseeth]

My players seem to have an odd habit, not unlike Station Squatting. If I'm not actively dangling a carrot in front of them, they do squat, as in nothing. They'll stare at me and and each other until I throw the hook at them. It's like they need railroading. I'll come up with a million different adventure hooks, but all I need is one. I almost wish my players would do at least some station squatting, that way I can wrap an adventure hook around them, instead of just saying "You'll find some gold in them hills" and that kick-starting everything. Mind you with 8 people in the group, it's hard for them to agree on anything, so the easily picked fruit gets them going.

And I do see Station Squatting as being possibly DM or player driven. Sometimes players just want to be contrarian and not do anything that makes it enjoyable to DM. This for me would be something like setting up a bakery. Sometimes it's just a terrible DM, who sets up bad plots and bad hooks, so the players never want to follow them, and make their own stuff up. Thankfully I've never DMed, or played the former, but I have played the later and gladly 4e came along before we got bored with our own plots.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Or 3) Talk to the GM about why the plot hooks he's providing aren't doing the job.

Yes, that too.

I thought that went without saying, which was obviously a dumb thing to think given the nature of this thread.

So many people forget that this is not just a game of characters, but of players - and the players can communicate without having to act it out in game. Meta-discussions can be very constructive.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: the more I play D&D, the more I come to realize it's just group therapy with dice.